Shamrock Knits: Catchin' up

Wow, it's been a month already since I've blogged. I've had a lot going on. My sister and I went to San Diego for a week. We've never gone at this time of the year. I expected really hot and sunny. It was "May Grey" time, which precedes "June Gloom". It was actually warmer in Chicago than in San Diego. Oh well, a good time was had by all.

I met up with Monica and some of her knitting friends one day. We had some breakfast, did some yarn shopping, and finished with lunch. Monica wasnice enough to send my sister a scarf pattern and Tracy Ullman's pattern book that she didn't want anymore. My sister was going to buy it at full retail and Monica gave it to her instead. Thanks again Monica! I'm hoping the next time I get out to SoCal, I can meet up again with Monica. It was a great time. Maybe, next time I'll take pictures. Oops!

A couple of weekends ago, I went on my annual knitting Iwannaknit ReTreat in Indiana. I had a great time as usual. It started out as a machine knitting retreat, but last year hand knitting was added. Of course I didn't take any pictures there either. I will try to take some pictures of my swatches though. I took all machine knit classes this year. They were 2 sessions of machine knitting and dyeing, socks on the machine, cast-ons or trims on the machine, and 2 carriage striping. I did want to take one of Joan Shrouder's hand knitting classes, but it interfered with some other classes I wanted to take. Too many choices, not enough time. :)

I'm excited about the sock class I took, because I'm going to try to modify it for a felted stocking. I've decided that the felted Christmas stockings are going to be my gifts to cousins and significant others. I have about 12 of them to make, so if I can get them done on the machine I'll be really happy. Last year, I felt like I was knitting gifts forever because I did them by hand. The 3 shadow knits scarves took a really long time. At least this year I have some kind of plan.