Shopping with the Girls

Yesterday a bunch of us met up at Heritage Park in Katy for a small craft sale that they host in one of the historic houses on the first Saturday of the month. Our main reason for being there was to check out the yarn by Mama Llama. Catherine Kerth is a member of our local knitting guild and has come out with a beautiful line of hand dyed yarns. It was a tough decision, but I finally settled on two - Super Ewe in the "Bom Dia" and "Berkley" colorways.



Sharing the porch with Catherine was Marissa Vitolo who specialized in ceramics and fused glass. I picked up a lovely green pitcher and plate.


Inside the house, ARTeach sells items handmade by people participating in their program. ARTeach brings art-related programs and services to the underpriviledged including children at risk, troubled youth, special need children and adults, and the elderly. Lots of great gift ideas at very reasonable prices! Here I bought a really cute string of stuffed calico birds with beads.


After lunch, Roddie and I stopped at Serendipity hap'ez on the way out. If you happen to be out in Katy, they're having a great sale at the moment and we did our part to help them out.




All in all, a great way to spend a Saturday!

Three Little Pigs

Finished the baby gift just in time for the shower this week! I had been wanting to make this for years, but everyone kept having summer babies, or I didn't have enough notice to get it done. I don't do much fair isle knitting because it's such a pain weaving in all the ends, and since this was done in superwash, I had to be extra vigilant that everything was tied down. The pattern was written to be knitted in pieces, but I did it in the round which saved some finishing work, but sure got confusing at times. The other problem was finding one brand of yarn, suitable for baby wear, that also came in all the colors I needed. Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply fit the bill, but I still needed a dark pink. I bought an extra ball of cream, came up with an approximate color formula using a dye mixing program on the computer, mixed up a batch, and it worked the first time. Will wonders never cease! In retrospect I would have preferred it to be slightly lighter, but not enough to do another dye run. So without further adieu, here are the particulars and photos.

Pattern: #24 Fair-isle frog-suit from Pingouin booklet Autumn/Winter 95-96
Yarn: Debbie Bliss "Rialto 4ply"
Needles: US 2 and 3