Cable Cardigan

More plane trips . . . more knitting

Trade Shows & jet lag

I'm finally unpacked and pretty much over my jet lag. Last Wednesday I left right from the Studio to head to San Diego for the TNNA winter show. I was really tired when I got in, and I had a six hour class on my first day, so I tried to get right to bed. Unfortunately the fire alarm went off at 4:50 am and we all had to evacuate the hotel. Drag . . . bigger drag, nobody could find anyone from the hotel to tell us what was going on or if it was okay to go back to sleep. Finally about fifteen minutes later we went back in since the alarm had gone off. When I woke up, I was greeted by a great view and a beautiful view


and a bright sunny day. The convention center is right in downtown San Diego, not in the middle of nowhere like Long Beach. Here's some public art I passed on my walk to the center:




After the first day I again tried to get a good night's sleep, but it was not destined to be . . . some alarm went off in my room at 5:14 am!!! (turns out it was a test of the smoke alarms, I was kind of hating this hotel at this point).

The second day was classes and meetings from 8:00 - 5:00 straight without even a moment to stick my head outside to enjoy the sun. In the evening I was treated by a visit from my pal Zeena and her impossibly cute daugher Zaleeya (she is a fan of knitwear and her young age!)


Day three was another class, sales floor, dinner & the red eye. I did get a lot of knitting done on the plane and in the evenings . . . and (drum roll please) Cobblestone is DONE!

As soon as I woke up I wove in the ends, kitchenered the underarm, and blocked the little darling



Today David tried it on for size. He looked pretty swell in it

Lots of yarn, lots of knitting . . . and Vegas Baby

I've been a bad blogger, but I'm a retail manager, and the holiday's just ended, so forgive me. We survived our first holiday season at the studio. All in all it went pretty great. We are blessed by a great staff, so we all pitched in. I rewarded myself with a trip to VEGAS. I had a vacation day, and we were closed New Years day, so David and I took a four day trip to Vegas. We had a blast. We stayed at the super lush Bellaggio




which had this stunning Chihuly glass ceiling



Our room was pretty great, loved the bathroom, and that's David in his "It's Vegas Baby" pose


And the view from our room


Our first night we ventured out to the first of the bizarre fake Vegas recreations . . . Paris


Just as we did in the actual Europe, my knitting posed by a famous landmark. This time it happened to be fake


After a FANTASTIC dinner at the Bellagio (using all our Amex gift cards we got for the holidays), we got to bed early ready to spend the day visiting more fake landmarks in the morning.

Of course, we had to start by going to Brooklyn, our home town

There's David by the too clean Brooklyn Bridge. How bizarre to visit the Vegas version of your town



After leaving that surreal sight we went to one of my favorite hotels, Mandlay Bay. It was pretty in an over the top, yet classy way (no easy trick in Vegas)



Then of course we went to fake Venice. Since David and I had been their twice we were pretty amused at the Rialto bridge taking you into San Marco Square, but I gotta give it to them, it was pretty.

We got to see Bette Midler, something I've ALWAYS wanted to do. She was fantastic. Many jokes about her age. She is amazing.

Back at our humble hotel home we visited their crazy holiday greenhouse




We gambled on the cheap machines for three days, and ended our trip $2.00 up . . . whoo hoo! We are soooooo small time, but as my pal Nell likes to say of my cheapness "and that's why you own your apartment". I must say, in this economy, I'm pretty thrilled with our cheapness.

All in all, a great trip.

With 12 hours on planes and in airports, I got lots of knitting done. I took the sleeves of the sweater that wouldn't die (the Cobblestone). I didn't want to take the whole giant sweater with me, and I knew I'd finish the sleeves, so I cast on a new project, Karabella's Cabled Cardigan.

When I got home I attached the sleeves and started the ENDLESS yoke. I can't WAIT to be done with this bad boy. David better wear this all the time or I'll kill him.


I'm loving the way the cables of the Karabella sweater are looking.




and yet more cables . . . my head was getting cold before the holiday's, so I knocked off this little beret out of scraps I had around. I used my old Rowan Tapestry, I could never figure out what to do with it.







I'm in a total cable mode lately, and I just started swatching for the cable class I'm teaching at the studio.


One down, five to go. Swatching hell
I finished the swatches for the gauge class I'm teaching. Everyone teased me about the gauge class being the class nobody wants to take, but I'm teaching two sessions, and one is already sold out . . . go figure