Fair Isle Swatching
Swatching began for the fair isle projects that most of my team has committed to in December. Has anyone else started swatching? I finished my swatch for Little Birds.
So if you are knitting fair isle in the round, the swatch must also be in the round. To do this, follow the chart from right to left and then drag the yarns across the back of the work as you slide the work back over to start on the right side again, the front side of the work always facing you. When you are done, the back will look something like this mess:
Then you will trim those tails off and block the swatch, ending with this:
After much debate, I decided that I like the blue background part of the swatch better and will be knitting the sweater with that color combo. I will do the bottom ribbing in the brown though and probably add some brown trim around the front edges. (I worry about putting pale blue on my pale skin).
Mansion on O Street
On Turkey Day, my family and I went to the Mansion on O Street for brunch. If you haven’t already heard about the Mansion, you should definitely go check it out. They have a $65 brunch that is worth every penny. Here is one half of the dessert table:
There were three rooms of food, which is the standard for the Mansion. With 32 secret doorways and over 100 rooms, there is plenty to go explore between helpings of food, which helps make room for another round. We just announced a new retreat at the Mansion with a few names you might recognize: Jared Flood, Wendy Johnson, Tanis Gray, Courtney Kelley and Cate Gagnon.
Black Friday
Thank you to everyone who came out on Friday for our biggest sale and our biggest day of sales EVER in fibre space! It was amazing to see so many folks through the door so early in the morning. We counted 92 folks who were in the door by 8 a.m. for the big 25% discount. Then another 40 or so through the door by 10 a.m. for the 20% discount. There were some brave folks here at 5:20 or so when I arrived with donuts and coffee:
Tree shopping
On Sunday I took a much needed day off and joined my hubby for a trip to get our tree for the holidays. It turned out to be a pretty cool day so I thought I would share our route around Virginia and Maryland.
First we left Alexandria and headed north to the Naughty Pine tree farm in Dickerson Md. This trip was mostly highway for the first half. Then we got onto Route 28 in Maryland and started down some seriously windy back rounds. The lane at the farm is at least a mile long and reminds me of the one we had on our farm when I was growing up in Central PA. Gravel, bumpy and awesome. the farm itself is smaller for a tree farm, but they have an entire field of trees the perfect size for a tiny Alexandria row house. We realized when we got there that we had no cash and of course, they don’t take credit cards in the middle of a field. So two of us (the owner and myself) got on our iphones, and I sent her a paypal payment for our tree!
Then we headed south to Leesburg via Whites Ferry. It is a good thing that I brought my sock project with me because there was time for at least four rounds as we crossed the Potomac on the ferry.
We then went into historic Leesburg for the Doner Bistro and stopped at Pitango on the way home in Reston Town Center. All around a good day! Happy to share our route with those who want to try it out.
