Back home!

(Picture Heavy Post -- Post edited to add pictures. Whoops!)

After a horrible airport experience involving *really* needing to go to the bathroom and being stuck in The Security Line From Hell, I seemed to have made it back home in one piece with yarn in hand. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my Knitty submission project with me, so I have until tomorrow morning to redo the toe, write up the pattern, and take pictures. Hrm, this is cutting it really close, and I don't know if I'm going to make it. Yikes. Not that I got much knitting done in Illinois anyway. This is all I got to show for the last week:

Oh wait, and this. Because, you know, I totally don't have enough Blue Moon Fiber Arts yarn already. (Okay, go ahead and laugh at my absurdity.) This is Seduction in the beautiful Lagoon colorway. My mom likes this yarn.

I bought it off this wall at The Fold. It is a yarn mecca.

Oh yeah, and because I don't have enough sock yarn I also got this. I'd never heard of Gypsy Girl Creations before, and the colors were so bright and pretty I'm curious to see how it will knit up. Fittingly, the colorway is called Winter Solstice, and I was born on the Winter Solstice.

I picked up a BMFA "From Sheep to Shoe" kit for Kristi. This picture cracks me up! The colorway is Rooster Rock. Fiber is difficult to photograph.

And this is Wensleydale Top in Alina also for Kristi. I looooooove the colors.

Here is some of the BMFA fiber selection at The Fold.

I managed to make a "quick" trip out to The Fold before heading to the airport. The Fold is AWESOME, and so was the trip out there. There are two rooms, one with fiber and another chock full of yarn. I hear they also have sheep, but I didn't get a look. I brought my parents with me which was nice because I could take pictures while my dad drove, but then I felt a little bad for taking so long there and rushed more than I would have liked. You know that feeling when you walk into a new yarn store that's amazing, and your mind just can't grasp the beauty that's around you, but your body is compelled to run around fondling everything in sight and your brain is ready to implode from sensory overload? Usually it goes away after a while, and a rational yarn buying decision can be made, but not so in the time I spent there. Fortunately, when my brain is addled like that it defaults to "buy only sock yarn" mode, and I got away fairly clean. I know I didn't get into every nook and cranny, and I'll have to take another trip later.

If you're ever in Chicagoland and want to head out there, be aware that it is a long trip, but it's beautiful. I like to take pictures when I go on longish drives (like when we went to Turkey), and I did the same on the trip to Marengo. It can be a bit interesting with pieces of dashboard, reflection off the glass, or roadsigns in the pictures. And it's a lot harder than it might seem. These things are whizzing by pretty fast! You should try it.

Sheep! If you closely, you can see the one in the doorway.

I love fall in the midwest and was sad to be a bit too early for the red and gold colors, but at least the sky was perfect. Here we have burnt house, church, tree, and barn.

A dude on a machine:

Tractors! (with a little bit of dashboard)

I have a thing for weeping willows and miss them dearly. They don't appear to be popular in California.

The rest of the pictures are here. I will post about the McQueen sweater next week, I swear. Oh yeah, and Kristi and I and our hubbies will be off to Yosemite this weekend. Whee!