Happy Birthday, Dad!

Yesterday was my dad's birthday and I wanted to make something for him. He is a Flyers fan so I thought it would be fun to make some bright orange socks. The problem was that I couldn't find the orange that I wanted in sock yarn. At this point I thought it might be fun to dye some myself. I got some bare knitpicks stroll yarn and lots of orange kool aid. When I got the yarn it looked like this: Click Here

I don't know the final tally of how many packs of orange kool aid it took to get to it's final color but it was a lot! I kept re-dying it with more until I thought it was finally dark enough. I would guess I used around 20 packs by the end.

When it was done and drying it looked like this:

I got some black yarn (also knitpicks stroll) for the heels and toes. These socks became my Alaska project while we were visiting parents last month. (I kept 1 project at my parents house and these stayed at my in-laws house so that my dad wouldn't see them.)

From a distance they look like a solid color, but up close they are tonal with stripes of light and dark orange just because of the way the dye happened to take. I think it makes for an interesting look.

Since my husband was at work I had to model the socks with my own foot which was a little too small. My toe doesn't even come close to the end of the sock.

Hopefully they fit him and will keep his feet toasty warm during hockey season!

J'aime Paris

I studied French for 7 years throughout middle school, high school and college. I don't know why but I have a fascination with French things. Before starting 7th grade I found out we could start taking a language class. The choices were French and Spanish and I picked French simply because I thought it sounded prettier than Spanish.  After 8th grade I got to go on a trip with my French class to Paris (and other parts of France and Switzerland). I absolutely loved Paris. Maybe it was because it was my first trip out of the United States and it was something new. Maybe it was because I had studied the place for two years and finally got to see everything in my textbooks. Maybe it was because I felt confident that I knew enough of a language other than English that I could survive in such a far away country. Either way, I have since been to many other cities including Athens, Rome and Florence and in my mind none have compared. Each new city I go to gets compared to Paris, and Paris still wins. You might be wondering what all this has to do with knitting. Well, at the beginning of July I somehow ended up on a pattern called Dinner in the Eiffel Tower Shawl and I had to make it. The yarn is Madeline Tosh and the color is French Gray. I liked how it looked and knew it would be my next project. Eventually I will get some pictures of me wearing it but here is what I have for now:

Before blocking

While Blocking

(If you look close at the right side of the shawl you can see where I must have completely spaced out and stopped knitting eyelets on the last few inches of a row. Oops!)

The Start of an Obsession

I learned how to knit when I was 9 years old - in 4th grade. My teacher required the whole class to learn how to knit. Everyone had to knit one hat and after that it was up to you if you wanted to keep knitting or not. Every day after lunch there was a corner of the class room where everyone would sit while she read to us and this was also a time to knit. I was hooked from the beginning. I started with something that was supposed to be square but I remember that it kept getting wider and wider as I was bringing the yarn to the back and making the first stitch of every row into two stitches. Once I knew how to make the stitches I moved on to my hat. I don't remember what color it was or if I even still have it somewhere but I loved knitting. I do remember that I hadn't yet learned how to purl so the hat was worked in the round entirely in stockinette stitch. This made the brim curl up along the bottom of the hat. I learned the hard way to make sure all your stitches face the same direction otherwise you get a big twist in the fabric. Instead of having me rip it back out she helped make the twist an element of the hat instead.  I believe that it was in 4th grade that I also made my first socks from a pattern that she helped me with - it's one that I still have.  I remember that they were huge floppy socks, probably made out of worsted weight acrylic but they were socks and I was so excited when they were done! I think that they are still in my parents house somewhere, but not sure where.

In 5th grade I had a different teacher but I still remember stopping by my old 4th grade classroom after school to ask for knitting help, or just to show what I was working on.

In 6th grade I was lucky enough to have the same teacher I had in 4th grade. This was the year that I moved on to the ultimate knitting project a sweater. She helped me measure myself, measure how many stitches per inch I was knitting and do all the calculations to make a custom sweater. (There is a picture of this sweater on the top of this post: http://blog.crystal-crafts.net/2012/02/12/sweater/) I'm so glad to have had such an awesome teacher who taught more than just the required curriculum.

Recently I was able to find and contact my teacher through e-mail. I was pretty excited, and I couldn't believe that after 15 years she still had pictures from some of my first projects that she sent to me. (I hope she doesn't mind that I am about to post them here).

My first socks:

Working on my first sweater:

Ashton Shawlette

So, my new goal for this blog is going to be to post at least once a week now that we are settled into our apartment. I will try to stick with posting every Sunday, but more if I can. This is a project that I finished before we left Pullman and I just haven't had time to show you. The pattern is called Ashton Shawlette and the yarn is Malabrigo lace. I love making these lace shawls and am in fact working on a new one right now. The problem is that I don't ever wear them. I guess I need to start if I'm going to keep making them. Anyway, here are some pictures:

Before blocking:

While blocking:

After blocking:

I know I have said this over and over again, but I just love blocking lace knitting. It completely changes how it looks and makes all that work of knitting it completely worth it. :)

Cannon Beach

We've been having fun exploring Oregon lately and decided to head to the beach yesterday. I thought it would be a good chance to get some pictures of the shrug that I made while back in Anchorage. I don't have any in-progress pictures since it was made in airports and while on vacation. I just kind of forgot to take any pictures of it. I originally got this yarn to make a shell-type top but got the wrong weight of yarn. I didn't want to end up with a super heavy tank top which would kind of defeat the purpose of a tank top. So, I found this pattern instead. It will be good to throw over my shoulders if I am wearing a tank top and get chilly. The pattern is Lacy Summer Shawl by Lion Brand but I used Knit Picks worsted weight comfy yarn which is 75% cotton and 25% acrylic.

It was so hot yesterday that I only put the shrug on for the time that it took my husband to snap a few photos, then it came right back off.

 

We did some walking around and searched out a yarn shop. I was so into the yarn that I didn't even know my picture was being taken.

To end the day we stopped by the Tillamook cheese factory. We tasted cheese then got some ice cream. That makes for a happy Crystal! Mmmmm

 

Haven't Forgotten..

I thought I should post just so you don't think I have forgotten about my blog. Knitting is still happening around here, but extremely slowly. We have been unpacking boxes since we moved at the end of June but have only actually been in our apartment for barely a week if you add up the random days between trips. The good news is that the craft room is almost set up! Well, technically it's the craft room/office now. We moved from a 3-bedroom to a 2-bedroom so the craft room and office must be combined. Don't tell my husband but I have kind of taken over the room. We went to Costco the other day (yay! we now live in a place with a Costco!) and found an awesome yarn storage system which doubles as our TV stand. I spent today filling it up with yarn and realizing again that I have A LOT of yarn. (I'm so glad my husband encourages the fiber crafts even if the real reason is just to keep me out of his hair.)

Check it out:

Those boxes are bigger than you would think and most of them are full. They are sorted mostly by fiber type. Two "acrylic" boxes, a "cotton", a "wool", a "hand-spun", a "spinning fiber" and a miscellaneous "tools".  I let my husband use one of the slots for the internet hookup just because I need internet to use ravelry so it seemed fair.

This craft room has huge windows which is pretty awesome since my old one was pretty dark.

I'm sure I'll have more to show you soon since I will have lots of time to knit while job-hunting.

Playful Stripes

It has been busy, busy, busy around here lately. My husband finished his PhD and was offered a job. I'm so proud of him! This also meant a move to the Portland area for us. We wanted to be able to stay in the Pacific Northwest and it is so nice to be near a big city again. Not to mention that there are TONS of yarn stores in Portland. I'm so excited to go explore and find out which are my favorites. Once we get settled I plan on trying to update the blog more often. We have been flying around the country visiting family. Had an awesome  (but extremely hot) time in Florida with my grandma and are now hanging out back home with our parents.

Right now the majority of my yarn is packed in boxes along with my spinning wheel, drum carder and loom. I kept out enough yarn for a few pairs of socks, a shrug. This seems like it will be a good amount of yarn until I can unpack my boxes. Once I get back I will show you pictures but in the mean time I have a project to show you from my backlog of projects waiting to go on the blog.

This was designed by one of my favorite designers- Alana Dakos. I am also a huge fan of her podcast "Never Not Knitting." The pattern is called Playful Stripes and it is super cute. It also ranges in size from newborn to 8 years which is nice.

I mostly used Knit Picks Brava sport weight yarn because it is acrylic and easy to wash. The great thing is that you can use small amounts of leftover yarn for the stripes. The yellow stripe happens to be some leftover Cascade 220 superwash from the flower sweater that I made earlier.

The color quality of the next 2 pictures is horrible, but you can get an idea of the construction. It was knit from the bottom up. First the body then the 2 sleeves. Then the stitches are knit across up to where the arm joins, arm stitches are knit onto the same needle then this is repeated for the second sleeve.

I kept knitting in the stripe pattern up to the top while decreasing. Then ends needed to be woven in and arm seams needed to be sewn up.

Also, the picco trim on the bottom and sleeves needed to be sewn. It started off looking like this:

Then changed to this:

Finally, a button band needed to be knit

and buttons attached.

Summer Flies

The latest pattern I have finished is a shawl called Summer Flies. It started as some pink Picco Accaurdi roving from Paradise Fibers. I spun it up then plied it. Unfortunately I forgot to take a before picture of the roving, but there were different shades of pink spread throughout the wool. Once spun it looked like this:

I have been wanting to make this shawl for a long time and I thought this yarn was the perfect color. I ended up adding a few extra pattern repeats to make up for the yarn being a lighter weight than the yarn suggested in the pattern.

As usual, blocking was like magic with this shawl. Before I blocked it, there were lots of curled up edges and it just wasn't very good-looking.

I was kind of excited that it was finally done and forgot to take pictures of the actual blocking process. Anyway, the shawl is done! Since it is called Summer Flies I thought it would be fun to get some pictures out in the sun. I have been waiting for the perfect day to take pictures. Today I  happened to notice that one of the trees in our apartment complex had bloomed. I decided to take advantage of this along with the fact that it is so sunny and warm outside today.

I asked my very kind husband to come outside with me, my camera, and the shawl and take some pictures. I can't decide which pictures to show so I'm just going to show you a bunch of them.

 

We also found a bunny out in the grass, but he wasn't so amused at the idea of having his picture taken...

Bigfoot

A little while ago my husband requested a pair of socks that weren't made from wool. (His feet are naturally warm, and wool socks are just too hot for him.) After looking around I found a perfect yarn for some socks. I chose Knitpicks Comfy Yarn in fingering weight which is 75% cotton and 25% acrylic. Cotton doesn't stretch like wool does, so the acrylic gives it that little bit of extra stretch. He picked out the Jalapeno colorway.

It's been a while since I have made socks for him and I always forget how much longer they take to make than socks for myself. Not to mention that his feet are extra wide, so I had to modify the pattern to make the feet wider.

I made them toe-up so I could try them on his feet as I went and so that I wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of running out of yarn by the time I got to the toe.

In the end, they seem to fit and he likes them. (Even after I made him put them on for pictures.) Yay!

From Sheep to Socks

Started with some wool and nylon.

Mixed 'em together.

Spun up some yarn.

Added some color.

Knit into socks.

Comfy feet! :)

Spring Toddler Sweater

Since it is not quite spring here and is in fact snowing outside right row I thought I'd better post something bright and flowery. I was requested to make a sweater for a 2-year-old. It needed to be lime green with pink and yellow flowers. I found a basic bottom-up pullover pattern called Cheeky. Then I found a flower motif in one of my knitting books to go around the bottom and a large flower to go in the middle of the front. I used Cascade 220 superwash yarn so that washing and drying would be super easy- just throw it in the washing machine and dryer. The sweater is knit entirely in the round without any seeming. Once the bottom of the sweater and the two sleeves are made, all of the stitches are brought together to make a large loop and then the top is decreased until you get to the neck.

I did not want to carry the strands of pink and yellow yarn around the body of the sweater which meant that there were about 50 million yarn ends to weave in when I was done.

 

But I think it was worth it since I really like how the flowers turned out.

 

After a nice wash and dry it came together pretty well, I think. Hopefully the new owner will agree. :)

It's D-O-N-E Done!

You saw the beginning of the sweater last post, but guess what? It's done! :) When I left off last time I had the back done and part of the front. Once the front was done, I used some scrap yarn to temporarily attach them so that I could try it on.

Seemed ok at this point, so I kept going with the sleeves.

Once all the pieces were done, it was time to start putting it together. The pattern has you use a 3 needle cast off to bind of the live stitches across both shoulders. Then you pick up all the stitches around the neck and start knitting the cowl. At this point everything was fine and I was ready to add the sleeves.

I used a stitch called the mattress stitch to attach the sleeves and also to seem from the wrist down to the waist. At this point everything still seemed fine. The pieces had all been blocked individually which meant that they were stretched out. Since this is a superwash yarn, the solution to the stretching is to put it through a cycle in the washer and dryer.

It came out of the dryer looking awesome except for one thing. The neck didn't stand up anymore. I took it on a ski trip over the weekend but the neck drove me crazy, and was entirely flat by the end of the trip. The neck was then taken apart and instead of trying to re-do it I decided to make a different neck.

I must have knit a new neck and ripped it out again at least 4 times. Finally I was happy with it, but when I tried it on

It didn't fit over my head.

I took out the last row and bound off again keeping the stitches as loose as I could.

Voila! It is so soft and cozy and I see many more sweaters in my knitting future.

Sweater

I have started a sweater for myself. Last time I made myself a sweater I was 11, and looked like this:

The patterns I'm using this time is here: Cabled Cowl Neck. Progress looks like this so far:

Back

Front

Apparently I seem to like this color for sweaters since I didn't even remember my first sweater was this color until after I bought the yarn for this one. There will be more pictures once it's done!

I have also been spinning.

Have a good week everyone! :)

Finally Finished

I was asked to make a baby set a long time ago. Then Christmas happened and I was so busy knitting presents that this project got put on the back burner. This is the first baby set that I have made that is entirely knit. The others that I have made have been crocheted. The reason for this is only that crochet is so much faster than knitting. In the end though, I love the look of the knit fabric so much more. First, I made the blanket. It is a super easy pattern, you just knit 1 row then K3, P3 across the next row for the entire length of the blanket with a few rows of plain knitting for the first and last few rows of the blanket. Then I put a white i-cord border around the outside.

 

Then the cardigan. This was knit in 3 pieces: the main section and the two sleeves. Once it was knit, the sides rolled in so much that I decided to pin it out and lightly steam it just to make it lay a little flatter.

Then, sewed together all the seams and attached 4 white buttons down the front.

The hat started with a simple ribbing in white, then I switched to blue and knit around until it was about 5 inches. I decreased and gathered up the top.

I thought the booties would be the easiest and fastest part, but I was wrong. I thought I had the right gauge, but the bootie came out big enough for a small child, too big for a baby. So I started over with smaller needles. The one on the left was knit 1st and the one on the right was second.

 

In the end, there is a baby set with two normal sized booties.

Weekend Projects

This weekend has been busy with crafting! On Saturday I got some roving ready to be made into sock yarn by mixing 3 oz of superwash wool with 1 oz of nylon with my new drum carder. I even got it dyed and it is now ready to be spun. (Pictures will come later once it it spun!) While I have a few different projects going on right now, I decided to cast on an entirely new project. I have been wanting my own wool hat and decided to make it with some yarn that I spun a while back. It was one of the first yarns I ever spun and was a bulky weight.

So, Saturday afternoon I grabbed some size 9 needles and did a super fast swatch to figure out that I was getting about 4 stitches to the inch. I then decided to cast on 88 stitches. (88/4= 22 inches around which is about the size of my head). I wanted cables, so I made up a cable pattern that would repeat evenly into 88 stitches (11 stitches per repeat of my cable pattern).

I started knitting a 1x1 rib for about 1.5 inches, then switched over to my cable pattern. Once I got to the top I switched over to stockinette stitch for the decrease section.

I finished the hat by Sunday afternoon and was super excited to have my own wool hat (I have made a few for other people, and have acrylic hats that I have made but until now I had never made myself a wool hat).

  

(Of all the pictures in this post, the one on the right here shows the true color the best. I was lazy and took all of these pictures from my phone this week which is why the quality is not so great.)

After the hat was done, I looked at my yarn and decided that I would probably have enough for a matching pair of mittens. So, on Sunday night I started on mitten #1.

I used the same size needles and cast on 28 stitches. Did the 1x1 rib again then knit up to the bottom of the thumb. Increased a few stitches for the thumb gusset, then kept knitting to the point of the hand where the thumb branches off. Here, I put my thumb stitches on a holder and just knit up to the top of my fingers. Then decreased and gathered the stitches together. After going back, picking up and knitting the thumb stitches and gathering them together, I was done.

Since it is a holiday today, I cast on mitten #2 this morning. Now, I have my own set of Corridale wool mittens with a matching hat.

This is the great thing about bulky yarn- it knits up fast!

Merry Christmas Part 2

So, you already saw what the Moms got for Christmas. Well, the guys got some hand-knits too. My dad got a hat and socks made from hand-spun alpaca/silk. When I got the fiber it looked like this:

The white parts are the silk and the black is the alpaca. Once it was spun it looked like this:

I used a general top-down boot sock pattern for the socks.

 

It worked out well that my husband and dad have almost the same size feet, so my husband was constantly trying on the socks to make sure they were the right size. (Thanks!)

For the hat I used the same yarn, started out with a knit 2, purl 2 rib and then switched to stockinette stitch for the rest of the hat. Again, my husband got to keep trying on the hat.

Since alpaca is even warmer than wool, these are super warm.

For my father-in-law there was a pair of socks in Green Bay Packers colors. I am not so great at dying yarns that actually turn out the colors I want them to so for this yarn I turned to Etsy.com. I found a shop called GalianaCreations that had some Green Bay colored sock yarn. She didn't have as much as I needed, but was willing to dye some more for me. The colors turned out amazing, and the yarn was so soft!

I used a general sock pattern with a short row toe:

 

Since my husband is also a Green Bay Fan, he got a pair too. Basically the identical pattern with minor changes such as a wider foot.

It turned out that there was just enough yarn left over to make one more small pair of socks, so I got my own pair. These were a toe-up, short row heel sock.

Now, we will all have toasty feet for Packer Games. :)

Merry Christmas! Part 1

Now that Christmas is over, I can finally show all the projects that I was working on but couldn't post because they were presents. I'll start with the moms. My mom got a lace scarf and a matching headband. The yarn was hand spun. 80% merino wool and 20% silk. The colorway is called Black Current but it is a deep purple color. The scarf pattern is a free pattern from ravelry found here: Grapevine Lace Scarf. The headband is just plain garter stitch knit into a rectangle then sewn together.

Here it is before blocking:

while blocking:

After blocking:

My mother-in-law received a lace scarf as well. This yarn is also merino but my favorite part about it is that it has bits of silver in it that make the scarf sparkle. This pattern was also from ravelry and can be found here: Lacey Keyhole Scarf. One side of the scarf has a hole so that the other side can be pulled through.

Unfortunately I forgot to take pre-blocking pictures, but here is the scarf:

Hope you enjoy your new scarfs!

As for me, I got lots of awesome knitting related presents. Including books, bison yarn, blocking supplies and dyeing supplies. My awesomel husband even got me a drum carder that I cannot wait to try out. (Thanks everyone!) Keep an eye out for part 2 of this post where I will show what the guys got... :)

Christmas and a Birthday

It's been a while since I posted, but in that time my husband had a birthday. Not long after I started spinning, I got some merino roving that was super soft. After it was spun, Jason commented how it would make a nice hat. From then on, that's what it was destined to be. While looking for a hat pattern on ravelry to make for him, I found one that I thought just screamed "Jason". It is called "Hubby's Decoder Hat." The idea of this hat is that is has a secret message in binary. The knit stitches represent "1" and purl stitches represent "0." So, you decide on a message, figure out your sequence of 1s and 0s then cast on. Once the first row is knit, you just knit the knit stitches and purl the purl stitches all the way around. Unfortunately, I couldn't try it on his head since it was a surprise and it turns out he has a longer head than I thought. When he tried it on and folded up the brim it didn't quite cover his ears. So, I ended up ripping out the decrease section on top, adding some rows and closing it back up. In the end it looks like this:

I even made an extra challenge for him when I sewed in the end and forgot where the binary pattern started. Oops! In the end he figured out that the message spells out "I Love Jason." Happy Birthday!

Tree Skirt

Another project I have been working on is a Christmas tree skirt also known as the never-ending Christmas tree skirt. The pattern I found is here: Tree Skirt. I got some Red Heart Shimmer yarn and grabbed the crochet hook listed in the pattern. This was my first mistake. With both knitting and crocheting I have a tight tension and always need to go up at least 2 needle/hook sizes than what the pattern lists. But did I think of this at the time? No.

I crocheted and crocheted and all of a sudden I was almost done with the pattern but the skirt seemed really small. I had one row to go and the skirt was only something like 12.5 inches wide. I look back at the pattern and it says the finished length is 18.5 inches. Ok, fine. It went pretty fast so I ripped it out and started again with a K hook (2 sizes bigger) thinking that this would fix the problem. I get to the last row again and it's 14 inches. Ok, it's a pretty straight forward repeat, so I'll continue the pattern with one more repeat. Finally it was 18 inches wide.

It's kind of funny that it's called the 7-hour tree skirt and this turned out to take much more than that.

In the end though, I think it was worth it.

This one is for Jason. Go Pack Go!

Haruni

I'm so excited I finally have something finished to show you! I think that this is my favorite knit projects so far, and also the biggest lace project I have completed. It all started with some roving that I showed you earlier.

Then, the roving was spun up into yarn on my handy spinning wheel.

All along I knew that I had the perfect plan for this yarn. It was to become a Haruni Shawl. This is a pattern that I found on Ravelry.com and have been dying to make. Once the yarn was done, washed and dried, the knitting needles came out. Here it is soon after I started:

A little later...

And finally, off the needles:

This is where you have to keep in mind that lace needs to be blocked. So, I took the shawl, soaked it in some cool water and pinned it out to dry on some foam mats. It always amazes me how much blocking really makes a difference. It opens up all of the lace and really makes it pop. Check it out:

Once it was completely dry, I un-pinned it from the foam.

Here you can see the difference. The picture on top is before blocking and the one below is after blocking:

(The real color is darker blue than the top picture but not as dark as the bottom. Lighting wasn't cooperating very well...)

I really don't wear shawls, but this one was so much fun to make that I might have to start wearing them. I am seeing more in my knitting future. :)

  

Yarn Fest '11

Last weekend was Yarn Fest '11 AKA a trip to Portland with my husband and his parents. Did you know that there are more than 15 yarn shops in Portland? This doesn't even count the ones in the cities around Portland. So, once I found out that there are so many yarn stores in Portland I began doing my research. I visited their websites and made a list of shops that I wouldn't mind visiting if we had the time. The one thing that I wanted to get from one of these shops was a pair of sock blockers. These really don't have too much of a purpose (for me, anyway) except that I would like to start making more socks and I think that the pictures of socks just look better when the socks are on the blockers. Of course I ended up with much more than just sock blockers.

These are my 2 new pairs of sock blockers (large and small). Also shown here is a magnetic notebook from KnitPicks which is awesome for keeping track of where you are while reading knitting charts. But there is more.

The yarn! On the left is yarn that Mary and I just couldn't pass up. (She got some, too.) In the store it was knit up into a spiral scarf. I don't know how else to describe what this scarf looked like. I will just have to show you someday when I finish it (but don't hold your breath I have lots of projects going on...). Up at the very top is some hand-dyed blue faced Leicester (a kind of sheep) roving. While I have quite a supply of spinning roving, I just couldn't pass this up. It is so pretty! Below that, there is some pink yarn. This yarn is in the collection because it is superwash merino that was 40% off. I just couldn't not buy it. Below the pink is some green lace weight yarn and below that is some purple lace weight. I have decided that I love knitting lace! Yet I have never actually knit with lace weight yarn, so this yarn was a must. :)

While all of this is great, the best part is still to come. When visiting Portland, a visit to Powell's Books is a must. This is the best bookstore ever. It is HUGE. We had been exploring for quite a while when Jason and I decided to venture up to the top floor. Halfway up the stairs there is a sign announcing author events. I skim through the list and notice a familiar name. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. I say to Jason "I know who she is, that's cool that she will be here. Wait, is today the 28th?" Yep, it was. She was there the day we were. If you don't know who she is, she is a knitting writer and blogger, and she is hilarious. She is also known as the Yarn Harlot. I read her blog (www.yarnharlot.ca) on and off and she is a fantastic knitter and writer.

My husband and in-laws were kind enough to stick around for 2 hours until she showed up and read from her new book All Wound Up. Mary even sat with me and listened while the boys went to more interesting places. This lady cracked me up! And Mary even seemed to enjoy it. If you check out the Yarn Harlot blog post from Portland you may even be able to spot us. There are 4 audience pictures at the beginning of the post. Look at the bottom right corner. Mary is between the man with white hair and the lady with the light blue sweater. I am to the left of her (right next to the big white beam).

Overall, it was a great weekend. We had a fun time visiting with Jason's parents. The Yarn Fest part was really just a bonus. Anyway, I think Mary ended up with more yarn than I did!