Tuesday Sky, TNK, and an audience with The Queen

*

Here it is Wednesday, and I'm blogging about something that happened only yesterday. Wonders never cease!

Last night I took this picture while driving down Midlothian Turnpike, on my way to knit night. Actually, I took it while stopped at a traffic light, lest you think I would be so reckless as to photograph-while-driving. (I would, but those shots came out too blurry.) ;-)



And speaking of knit night....

Sound Ye Trumpets! Last night we were pleasantly surprised by a visit from an honored guest -- none other than The Queen herself, Her Royal Highness Bess Haile, who was in town taking care of some family business.

Bess was gracious enough to model her most recent accomplishment, her KnitPicks Palette Fair Isle Cardigan, (aka "KipFee"):

Isn't it fabulous?
*

You can see other pictures of it on her blog, here and here. It's been a lot of fun to follow along with her as she's knit this masterpiece.

Other knitters who had an audience with The Queen last night, (okay, many were really sitting at the other end of the table, but play along with the metaphor, will ya?), included:

The Queen's Court, with Linda (left) and Renny (right) in the foreground
*

Tami & Christina
*

Issy & Rita
*

Deb, Robin C., and Sheddy
*

Sherry R. and Judy
*

And Mary Jane was able to break away from her shop and her new puppies to visit with us a bit. Here she is modeling another beautiful Sursa shawl, knit in a solid color of Noro Silk Garden Lite, (I believe) Cestari Cotton, which is another wonderful way to do the shawl:

Love it!
*

And here is Mary Jane's lap, with a couple of awesome knitting projects in it:

On top is her mitered-square jacket project, whose gorgeous colors never fail to delight me. Underneath the mitered squares is a shrug she is knitting using Araucania Pomaire, which has got to be the softest cotton (100% Pima) I have ever felt - I couldn't believe it was cotton. I now know what I want to knit my next cotton project with! And I know where I can get some!

And finally, here's Jane meditating on the zen of knitting, ( <- my excuse for bad photography), while modeling her latest project, the "Go Everywhere, Go With Everything Cardigan" on the cover of the first Stitch 'n Bitch book:

Jane is going to edge it with black mohair, which should look really nice. She's almost done -- just one sleeve to go!

Once again, a fun evening with my peeps. And after all the knitting, we did a little shopping, (it's dangerous to meet so regularly at a bookstore -- almost as dangerous as a yarn shop!), and I found a book that I really like, so felt compelled to buy it:

Regular Virgin Wool readers will know that I've been madly knitting hats for the last six months, it seems, and this book has a ton of really cute and inspiring patterns, so I will never have to scratch my head again (no pun intended) (okay, maybe a little) when I need ideas or an actual pattern.

It seems I've been on a little bit of a knitting-related spending spree lately, and I blame the advent of spring. (Gotta blame something, right?) I can go for months at a time, and even go to knitting retreats and fiber festivals, and not buy much, (although, don't get me started about that recent weekend at the beach), but for some reason, this past week I've been shopping like yarn and knitting-related accessories were going out of style.

Yesterday I shared a few things I've recently purchased, although, in my (weak) defense, they weren't purchased all at once.

And tomorrow, I will share an enormous (for me) yarn haul I made at a fantastic sale last week.

I would like to think I'm done with the spree for awhile, but there is the little matter of Patsy's yarn sale on Sunday. And the Spring Fiber Festival two weeks from Saturday. And Maryland Sheep & Wool in May....

Heaven help me! :-)

*