Happy Birthday To Me!

Today is cloudy and windy and there's snow in the forecast, but it's warm and cozy in my house.

I'm having some tea in my new favorite mug, Girl With the Pearl Earring, and chatting with you, so this is a pretty good day.

Knitting from stash is going gang busters here.  I've been finding projects to match my yarn instead of the other way around and it's working for me.  It's still early in the year, but I'm liking it so far.

So, my birthday present to myself was a shopping trip to Vogue Knitting Live.  I picked up a couple of things I have wanted, but wouldn't buy, and I found two new vendors to purchase from.

First up, this is a llama/alpaca blend from a vendor new to me and they are in Yaphank, NY.  It's from the Long Island Livestock Company, and it feels (and smells) so good!  They're just starting up their website and blog page, but their booth at Vogue was chock full o' wool!  All of it soft and wonderful.

Then I found this at the Feederbrook Farm booth: never heard of them, but they're in northern Baltimore.  I made it a point NOT to buy sock yarn because I'm on overload, so I found this merino/silk/yak blend and it is softer than butter!  I've never knit with yak (in any proportion), and this yarn is worsted which I have very little of.  Love it!

And then, because I wouldn't think of ordering this book on line, but I've wanted it since forever, I got this:

Sorry about the picture, but every time I put the book down to take a picture I couldn't make Miss Kitty go away.  She loves the book too, I guess.  I'm going to use my smallest scraps to make most of the stuff in the book, because knitting with scraps is stash busting too.  Right?  And the author, Anna Hrachovec even autographed it for me.  Lucky me!

And to make sure I'd be comfortable knitting such wee projects, I got a couple of 'starter kits':

How cute are they?!

So, even though it's dark and cloudy, I didn't overspend, I didn't get home and regret my purchases and I even had money left over for dinner.

Happy birthday to me!