Cummington, etc.

Yesterday I went to Cummington! I was remarkably restrained in my purchases, if I do say so myself.

All I bought was some deliciously squishy Green Mountain Spinnery Green Mountain Green...



And some Ball and Skein wool and nylon sock yarn in a lovely green.



..And some soap.

In other news, I'm still slowly working on a test knit shawl. Now I have pictures!





I knit a shawl for the head of my department, who is retiring. It's Heartland by Evelyn Clark.





Meanwhile, I've been purchasing yarn like a crazy person. The WEBS anniversary sale really did a number on me. What happened was I was going to get some yarn for a Fair Isle sweater for Snowflake. I passed up Classic Elite Fresco in favor of some Frog Tree Alpaca Sport. But then I still wanted the Fresco, and it was on sale and all. So I went home and looked through my queue for a project I could make for myself. Soon thereafter, I went back to WEBS to get Fresco for another Fair Isle sweater. I had also picked up yarn for a purple surprise... I won't tell what it is yet, but trust me, it's a LOT of yarn. Later in the sale, I got yarn for the above Heartland shawl. Oh, and I may have picked up another hank of Malabrigo Sock at some point.



Then Li-Mei and I decided that we should make an exchange. Both of us have things we want to have, but we don't especially want to knit. So we're knitting them for each other! After we decided what we wanted, I went back to WEBS to pick up yarn for a Mr. Greenjeans that I will knit for her...



and yarn for a Rusted Root that Li-Mei will knit for me. So great!



Now you understand why I was so restrained at Cummington. :)

Sleepy Moon soap

At Cummington yesterday, I discovered a lovely artisan soap booth called Sleepy Moon Soaps. I bought four soaps in scents Maine Woods; Dog Soap; Oatmeal, Milk, and Honey; and Gardener's Grits. They are so nice!!



I used the Maine Woods soap this morning and it's really really nice. I kind of want to take another shower.



These ones were presents for my roommates. Emerson gets the oatmeal and Clint gets the grits.



Also, SPOILERS! We're using these soaps as favors in our wedding.

Neil

Meet Neil.



Neil is my new favorite thing ever. Neil keeps my room at a toasty 73 Fahrenheit, while the rest of the state is getting pretty cold and our heat isn't on yet. I love Neil so much. He makes me happy.

the Don't Vote video

I like this video! Especially Sarah Silverman.



Sorry about disappearing for awhile and then reappearing with an agenda. It's been busy over here.

Hundred Pushups

Today's featured item is this website. It puts forth a plan to get you to do 100 consecutive pushups within six weeks. Since I am particularly pathetic, I have been doing girly (knee) pushups rather than the normal ones. I just did the test between weeks 5 and 6 and I did 100! Yay!

If you know me, you know that this is a pretty impressive thing. I have wimpy sad arms. When I started, I was only able to do 16 consecutive girly pushups. And look where I am now! Very exciting.

My plan is to do week 6 (I did the 100 pushups, but I think I could do them a little better) and then start all over with week 1 and real pushups. Meanwhile, my roommates are just now embarking on week 3 and are at 30 or so.

Umbrella Today?

Umbrella Today appears to be the only short-term weather forecast I will ever need. It's pretty amazing. You can also program it to text you on days when you will need an umbrella. Check it out.

I have to go find an umbrella now.

Sarah Haskins

This woman is hilariously funny. Check out her video about Sarah Palin. All the other Target Women videos are also really funny. You can get to them by searching on the above site.

this beautiful tweedy yarn

I love this yarn. Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran Tweed. It's beautiful, soft, basically delightful in every way. I mean look at that. 85% wool, 10% silk, 5% cashmere. That's just enough silk and cashmere to take that wool from good to delicious. I'm making a Central Park Hoodie out of it, in the Jewel colorway. It's delightful.

Things I don't like about this yarn include the fact that Queensland Kathmandu Aran Tweed is apparently the exact same yarn, but priced a little cheaper, and with a little different color selection. I don't know what the deal is, but I would like to see Jo Sharp priced cheaper, or Queensland in better colors. But all in all, I'm really liking this yarn. At some point I may take pictures of this hoodie. Check it out at my knitting blog.

Other things I like include Chrome. I've only been playing with it for about a day, but it seems to work nicely. We'll see if I continue to like it.