Sasha Knits!

Thanksgiving has come and gone for yet another year, leaving behind a huge mess, a fridge full of leftovers, and the remnants of a really great time.

My husband and I try to rotate which family we spend each end of the year holiday with in the name of fairness.  This year was my family’s turn and we ventured over to my mother’s house.  There were lots of familiar faces, plus a few new ones.  I spent time discussing pokemon with my eleven year old nephew and chasing around my darling eighteen month year old neice.  There were two turkeys, one brined and one barbequed, and a plethora of delicious side dishes.  After the main meal there was mint tea, pies, and homemade whipped cream.

As I’m pretty useless in the kitchen, I was put in charge of making the centerpiece.  My original plan involved fall leaves, but there were none to be found in any local craft store this late into the year.  I made do with what was available, however, and ended up with a result that I was pretty happy with.

The husband and I ended the evening cuddled up together in bed while watching a pretty hilarious Japanese horror film.

The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally Black Friday here in the US.  Most shops have huge sales starting in the wee hours of the morning and there are huge crowds.  Having worked in the retail sector for more years than we both care to admit, the husband and I tend to avoid them like the plague.  We prefer to stay holed up at home where it’s warm, safe, and not hectic.  This year, however, I woke up early and discovered that both my favorite local yarn stores were having sales.  It’s hard to resist discounted yarn,  so I woke up my husband and had him drive me down to Purlescence Yarns in Sunnyvale, California.

We arrived ten minutes before the door opened and hopped into line.  Once I was handed my discount card, I made a beeline for the Dream in Color cubbies and selected what I wanted before other shoppers managed to make it over.  I then also grabbed two skeins of Colinette Jitterbug that caught my eye and then headed off to browse through the lace weight selection.  Within twenty minutes I was ready to make my purchase and head home.

I ended up with six skeins total.  Clockwise, from the top:

• Dream in Color Baby, Absolutely Magenta.  700 yards of beautiful, color saturated lace weight.
• Dream in Color Smooshy, Black Pearl. The color variegation ranges from charcoal gray to an almost silver.
• Dream in Color Smooshy, Chinatown Apple.  I’d been eyeing this one for a while, but each time the store had ones that were not as variegated as I was hoping for. I got lucky this time and ended up with a beautiful skein.
• Dream in Color Smooshy, Black Parade.  There’s a bit of dark blueish-green in this skein that refuses to photograph.
• Colinette Jitterbug, Copper Beach (67).
• Colinette Jitterbug, Velvet Olive (114).  The color is closer to malachite than the photo makes it look.

For the last month and a half, I’ve been working my butt off trying to get everyone’s Christmas gifts knitted up in time.  I’ve got three scarves going on the needles right now in addition to two pairs of plain stockinette socks for those times when I can’t concentrate on a chart.  There are two completed scarves that need to be blocked that I will get to eventually.  I don’t have any pictures for the time being, but I hope to have some soon (preferably of finished objects).

Time to curl up with Netflix streaming to my PS3 and knit my hands off.  Enjoy your holidays, everyone!