vacation knitting

I was on vacation, of sorts, for about a week. Did you miss me? Stu and I took the kids on a long overdue visit to see their uncles out east/south. It's a big trip for us - too far to drive, so we flew - but fortunately our brothers live within a couple hours' drive of each other, so we were able to combine all visits into one trip. First we were in Blacksburg, VA where my little bro Joe is finishing up a PhD in some form of engineering, and then we went to Winston-Salem, where my BIL Mitch works and lives with his wife and two kids. (If you're interested in reading more about that, click here and here.) Good times were had by all, and it was over much too soon.

While in Blacksburg, we stayed in a hotel not far from Joe's bachelor pad, which just happened to be about a 10-minute walk from a lovely little yarn shop called Mosaic. Serendipitous, no? Honestly, I'd had no real intentions of yarn shopping while on this trip. We were already packing light (they charge by the suitcase, yo) and we were there to visit family, not buy stuff, and I've got so much yarn already I'd like to pare it down anyway...but...the shop was next to a Starbucks and I could walk there and really, it couldn't hurt just to have a look, right?

Ahem.

Well, I didn't walk out of there empty-handed, but I didn't buy a whole lot, either. There was an awful lot to tempt me, but I had to be pragmatic about what I actually have time to knit and how much room I'd have in the suitcase, so I told myself I wouldn't buy anything that I can find somewhere else in Madison or online. In other words, it had to be local and available ONLY in Blacksburg. And irresistible. There were 3 skeins that had all those qualities. Some sock yarn:



The red on the left is from Unplanned Peacock Studio, in the colorway "Cardinal." The green/blue on the right (which is a bit washed out in the picture, unfortunately) is dyed by David Simpson of Green Dragon Yarns, and the colorway is called "Forest." I'm not even that much of a sock knitter, but sometimes I just can't resist beautiful sock yarn like this.

Skein #3 has already been knit:



Another David Simpson find, this one in a heavier weight, more like DK. Normally I would not choose a skein with these colors, but Blacksburg is home of the Virginia Tech Hokies, after all, and my brother Joe is an avid fan. He once made the cover of the Roanoke Times in a crowd shot from a basketball game. So this hat is for him. The colors are a little loud, but I hope he likes it anyway.

I did more knitting on vacation, even on the plane, but I'll save that for another day.