Summer travels

I know there is a common perception (i.e. in the mind of, say, various of my family members) that I basically spend my days sitting around knitting and surfing on the computer.  Well, I do some of that, but lately, the days have been so jam-packed and busy that before I knew it, I realized it had been quite a while since my last blog post.

One reason the month of August seemed like a whirlwind for me was traveling. In between shore trips with my family, I flew out to Chicago to teach at Stitches Midwest. Whenever I go on teaching trips, I am lugging so much stuff I don't take my good camera. So you'll have to put up with photos from my cell phone, like this one of the view from my hotel room:

One of the things that freaked me out at first about the room was this:

It's a screen that is somehow built into the mirror of the bathroom. It shows whatever is on the TV, or if you don't have the TV on, it shows the events that are going on at the hotel. (In fact, if you look really hard, you can see that it is advertising a talk by Nicky Epstein.)  Very Big Brother but also kind of cool....unless it comes on while you are using the toilet, in which case, better tip the chambermaid well.

I had a wonderful time: good students, lots of fun knitting friends to catch up with (waves to Shannon Okey), and Brooke Nico (lace designer extraordinaire and co-owner of the Kirkwood Knittery, in St. Louis) was my most charming roommate.

Brooke participated in a designer challenge on the first day of Stitches involving knitted skirts, and you can see her wonderful design next to her, along with some of the others.

As usual with a Stitches event, there is a preview of the vendor's marketplace the night before the marketplace is open to the public  Here is what the line looked like Friday morning:

When I got to the show floor, I wasted no time meeting and greeting some of my favorite people. I promised that I would stop by Lost City Knits to meet the lovely Denise:

This is us at the Lost City booth.  (Wow, I already look tired and this was taken Friday!)

Of course I visited my pals at WEBS, and got to check out the two newest yarns from WEBS.  This is Buckman, a gorgeous chainette wool-silk blend:

I was also tempted by the new sportweight wool, too.....nom nom nom. All too soon, the weekend flew by and I was back at O'Hare:

I love this underground walkway with all sorts of cosmic lighting effects....or maybe it was fatigue and yarn fumes that made the walls look wavy?

Now all the summer travel is done and we are getting ready for the kids to go back to school and for the big fall knitting season. Late summer is a cruel joke for people in the industry because there is so much to get ready for, and at the same time as vacations are planned, weather is nice, and the kids are underfoot. We've already been shopping for school supplies:



while Elvis just started the dreaded Band Camp....

Hmmm. This post sounds a bit more disjointed than usual, so I'll sign off. I do have some more book reviews in the pipeline, and very soon we'll begin the Sock Yarn Studio-a-palooza, with a blog tour, giveaways and all sorts of merriment. Enjoy the last few days of summer, and I'll be back in rare form soon.