When in Salt Lake....

I'm back from another road trip. This time I was off to Salt Lake City for a couple of meetings.

I finished my meeting early on Wednesday and when I got back to my hotel room, after changing out of the business clothes and throwing on jeans, I grabbed the phone book. I was thinking that there had to be a LYS nearby that was open, and who knew what things they carry?

Let me tell you something, I am so glad I did. I walked on over to the Black Sheep Wool Company http://www.blacksheepwoolco.com/. Next to a bridal shop (gorgeous gowns in that window), and upstairs is a great little shop with Rowan yarns, natural fibers, buffalo yarn, and assorted other items. By the way, they have one of those seats on the banister for people who cannot climb stairs easily to get upstairs). And then there is Betsy. She works there a few times a week, and knows my buddy Pam who is one of the shop's yarn reps. Betsy designs, knits, and drives a convertible.

After buying some yarn for a dragon Dale for my little guy, and needles (of course) we got to talking and Betsy invited me to go eat appetizers and drink wine with a friend of hers. (She fits right in with the rest of us spiders doesn't she?) We ended up over at Oasis where I had a great salad, lobster linguine and a few glasses of Kendall Jackson.

Betsy's friend Lisa joined us at the restaurant. Lisa is a knitter who has a great "real" job. She puts on the Utah Arts Festival www.uaf.org. She also teaches at Black Sheep - Fair Isle, Norwegian Knitting. She was working on a sweater out of the third Jameison book - I'll have to look at this one, mitered squares, looked very interesting. She invited me to a knitting retreat at Alta - that's Alta as in "altitude" not as in "all" and I'm going to this one. I just haven't told the other half yet. Another friend of theirs joined us at the table, so there we were, all four of us knitting and drinking wine for over 2 or so hours. I had a great time, met some nice knitters, I hope I have another trip out there.

The knitting up at the top is my Fair Isle Jazz scarf sample for class. I wasn't sure on my choice of colors, but they seem to be okay.

I'm in a little bit of a knitting slump, or should I say period of frustration. I have just got to get a dressmaker's dummy in my size. Being short waisted, and oh so critical of my finished projects, I am never as happy as I could be with my finished sweaters. That's probably why I like to knit shawls, they fit no matter what. I am working on a open work pullover, and I am going to rip back to the armholes maybe later today. I have other things to work on, so this is being put aside until I figure out how I am going to change the shaping.

Well, it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. We might go to the world's shortest St. Patrick's Day Parade later on. Later....

P.S. Worked on the Forest Path shawl. Haven't really done entrelac lately, but this is a beauty that I want done for the cruise (hopefully). Boy do I like lace.