What I've been up to...

I've been busy today.

Weeded, fertilized and watered the garden, picked cucumbers and green beans.

Went out to lunch at the mall and then to Dillards because they were having a sale on bedding and my parents had gotten some Dillards gift certificates for Christmas this last year and they wanted me to get linens for the spare beds at the cabin. Got Ralph Lauren sheets and pillowcases for next to nothing. Yay!

Then went to the Joann's by that mall because they often have really good remnants. I got two linen remnants to make napkins with. Yay!

Came home, decided to get paint chips from Lowes, which is around the corner from our house, so that I can match things for the cabin. We aren't painting anything, but I've already gotten my bedding, and the granite in the bathroom has colors in it that I want to pick out in the towels, so I needed a close match in color that was more portable than either bedding or a slab of granite - hence, paint chips. Did that.

Then went to the other Joann's which is next to another mall about equidistant as the other one in another direction from my house. That one is bigger and I wanted to see if I would luck out on fabric for curtains for my room. Alas, I did not. But I did luck out on stumbling upon a fabulous sale. They're remodeling that store and so half of it is on clearance right now and another quarter is seriously discounted. Yay! All magazines 10% off, a lot of yarn on clearance, fabric, beads, all sorts of things... I got more remnants (linen - again... I think I'm becoming obsessed with linen remnants for napkins and placemats), DMC's Encyclopedia of Needlework (every kind of needlework - if you use a needle of any sort to do it, it's in there, in detail with pictures), linen embroidery thread and magazines.

I got the new Victoria magazine because it's full of inspiration for the cabin interior design, and the Spring 2008 Spin-off Magazine. This in particular is a must have! They have a bunch of knit lace shawls (!!! - not patterns but extremely inspiring nonetheless), as well as a couple of knit hat patterns for any gauge handspun.

But the piece-de-resistance are the Danish Tied-Shawls (if you click the hotlink of "Spin-off Magazine" above and scroll down you can see a pictures of a small part of one of these shawls). There are patterns and they are made with handspun, hand-dyed yarn. And they're folksy and beautiful. And useful! They tie in the back so they won't fall off and will stay put while you're doing important things. Did I mention they're handspun, hand-dyed (with natural dyes too!), and hand-knit. I'm bouncing with joy every time I even look at the pretty pictures! The magazine is $7.99, but for this alone it's so worth it. Go. Run. Buy a copy. There are a lot of other useful looking things in there too, but I'm far too distracted by the shawl pattern to look at anything else seriously yet. I am so making myself one this summer! I'm tired of not having my own shawl... I've made bunches for others, but never kept any myself. There are more patterns for these types of shawls available at the author's website.

Oh, and Happy Mother's Day! :D

*off to obsess over the Danish Shawl some more*