Home and away

Happy Sunday friends!

April felt like a month of endless (if very fun!!!) travel — so it’s been nice to be back in Philadelphia, even if I have been a little sad to miss my annual visit to Maryland Sheep and Wool.

And even though I’m not at Howard County Fairgrounds this weekend, we were lucky enough to be back in the DC/Baltimore area last weekend and this past week and see lots of our friends and old haunts!

I didn’t take many pictures (oops!) but one of the highlights was checking out a new-to- me yarn shop in DC with my dear friend Aimee.  We headed over to Looped Yarn Works last Sunday, determined to make up a set for Aimee to use for Joji’s Starting Point MKAL.

Guys, I wish I hadn’t forgotten my camera when we went, because Looped Yarn Works is pretty magical. Nestled on the second floor of a Dupont Circle address, the shop is chock full of a lovely range of commercial and indie dyed yarns.  Aimee and I were both struck by what a happy, calming space it was.  We were there for, ahem, quite awhile, pulling down skeins of sock yarn and playing with colors.  When we finally left, Aimee had a full set of yarn for her Starting Point, and I, er, might have come away with a couple of skeins myself:

As we were looking, I couldn’t resist thinking about what I would use if I was to knit the shawl, and before I knew it, I had picked two skeins that I thought would go well with some of the other yarn in my stash (as well as this awesome pin by Shelli Martinez):

I know, I know, I need no new yarn … but the chance to have a little knitalong with Aimee (and the over two thousand people who have already made pattern pages for the MKAL) was too tempting.  And though I bought two new skeins, I’ll use up three from stash … so still a net decrease in yarn, woo!

When Mr. N and I got back to Philadelphia Thursday, one of the first things I did was start pulling out skeins of sock yarn to see what might play well with these lovelies:

The pattern suggests having one very light, almost white color, one variegated skein (so that’s the two I bought) along with two accent colors (one medium value, and one that’s not too light or not too dark), and a final color that’s very dark, almost black.  Here are some of the combos I’ve been playing with:

And my favorite set at the moment:

Playing with these is so fun — I’d love to hear if a set particularly takes your fancy (even if it’s not one I’ve already put together!)

Lots more news to share soon, but for now, I’ll wish you a happy weekend — if you’re at MD Sheep and Wool, I can’t wait to hear all about it!  I’ll leave you with this lovely little guy, an awesome picture Aimee got me from artist Goodloe Byron, surrounded (as I currently am) by lovely yarn: