Knitters!

Today was a good day.

The morning was good for the usual Saturday morning reasons; the farmer's market was wonderful and busy (except that the fiber lady wasn't there, which was a disappointment), and Older Daughter made it to and from her placement exam at her new school with no incident. But that's not what made this day particularly fun. The really fun stuff came later.

I had a date. With knitters.

At 11:00, I checked the traffic heading down I-5 to Encinitas after hearing someone on NPR announce that Legoland was expecting 70,000 vehicles today. For the love of Pete, I mean really. Luckily, there's a back way to Encinitas which involves not a single freeway (I know, anathema to anyone from the southland, but that's the way it goes), so I set out at 11:20, and made it to Encinitas in time for my 12:00 date.

With whom, you may ask? Why, with these lovely ladies.
That's Laura, and Anne, and (sadly blogless) Kim. (I've always wanted to write that "sadly blogless" thing; does this mean that I've arrived?)

Laura and Kim are both wearing shawls designed and knitted by Laura (are they not stunning?), and Anne is wearing (in an amazing incidence of worlds colliding) the Simurgh that she designed and I knitted. How wonderful is that? (It looks much better on her than on me, alas; but I made sure to get it back anyway.)

We had a lovely afternoon. We ate lunch at a Peruvian place on Coast Highway called Q'ero that I'd never tried but will be going back to just as soon as I can justify the drive south. The appetizers were particularly wonderful (I'm a sucker for appetizers in any case, and fried yucca with yummy sauce is my idea of heaven on earth), as was the company. Alas, the one picture I got of us in the restaurant doesn't really convey the fun we were having (Kim is getting out pictures of her handsome sons and beautiful daughter here; they sound like an amazingly fun bunch of young people -- I hope I do so well with mine!).
Trust me, it was good.

Then we headed for Common Threads, where we spent a great deal of time wandering about and patting the yarn (we will not speak of the fact that I accidentally picked up yarn for a pair of socks for Rick and a sweater for Younger Daughter, as well as a knitting book for Older Daughter, and a copy of the Wallaby pattern for a friend whom I am attempting to enable), before settling down in the back room to visit and compare lace.

When we'd sat long enough, we wandered a few blocks south to The Black Sheep, where I may have acquired a Lantern Moon bag, but I'm not saying. A small post-shopping amount of chocolate was consumed before we all headed out for our various homes. I think I may have had the shortest distance to travel, as Laura was headed up to Orange County, and Anne and Kim had to drive back to Kim's house before getting Anne onto a plane tonight for Ohio (I hope the flight went well, Anne!).

It was wonderful. It was nice to spend some time with like-minded knitters, and especially wonderful to meet Anne in person, as her email friendship has become such a great part of my life; her kindness and sense of humor are just as apparent in person as they have been as we've corresponded since last fall. Isn't it great when people turn out to be just as wonderful as they seem? And I'm hoping that, as we're in the same region, Kim and I will be able, at least once in a while, to indulge our love of bags together (call me, baby, you know I'll go bag shopping with you any day).

Not much knitting got done, but that's OK. It was truly knitterly anyway. And I am still making good progress on the stars shawl; I'm almost six and a half repeats in, and Anne thinks that it may only need nine, instead of ten. I'll see how I'm feeling when I get there, and how it's looking; I still haven't decided whether I'm keeping this one for myself or giving it away, and that may make a difference, as I'm short, and the person who might get it isn't quite so short as I (there need be no comments here about how no-one is as short as I, really -- I'm quite aware). I've also started another project about which I will write tomorrow that I think will be good car knitting for our trip up north next weekend. I'm hoping to get those two things done before starting on anything else too big. (Read: I am attempting desperately to ignore the cries of "cast me on, cast me on!" coming from the skein of Noro in my yarn bowl.)

Tomorrow: pictures of the star shawl (which just looks like a bigger version of what I've shown you before, but it's what I've got to show you), and my latest spinning project. And a story about hiking and rattlesnakes.