Summer is in Full Swing

I’ve been busy lately. Not just with work like usual – but fun stuff too. Two weekends ago we enjoyed a Nascar weekend in Joliet. This was great because not only is the track close to my parents house so there are free accommodations and a short drive, but the race was at night so it wasn’t 50 million degrees in the stands.

Last Friday night, Steve and I went to the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake, IL. The fair was only open for three hours on Friday, and unfortunately it went by way too quickly. I spent most of my time trying out different spinning wheels. I think I have decided on the folding Lendrum. I just have to save my pennies now so I can have one sometime in the next decade!

While there were a lot of great vendors and things to see, I don’t think the fair was laid out very well or at least didn’t have good signage. There was a map in the program, but we just glanced at it and then wandered around. Just when we thought we had seen everything and were on our way out, we would turn a corner and found more booths. We ended up running out of time and not seeing a lot of the vendors. In fact, I didn’t realize until we got home and I was reading through the program that there were vendors on the second floor! (My bank account is grateful for this.)

I ended up with two skeins of yarn, which I will tell you about in another post, since this is getting a little long already.

After the fiber fair, we met some family down in the southern Illinois/St. Louis MO area. We all went to another Nascar Busch Nationwide race on Saturday night and spent a few hours Sunday exploring St. Charles, MO. I found a great yarn store and just had to stop by. (Isn’t that the first thing you do when staying at a hotel in a new town? Look up “yarn” in the phone book?)

It was called Knit & Caboodle and they had literally rooms of yarn, plus lots of books and patterns. I could have spent hours looking through all of the yarn, but since I was dragging 5 people with me (they were such good sports!) I picked out a pattern (Berroco's Beaujolais from booklet #255) and tragically left without any yarn at all. I’d love to go back some day.


I wanted an easy, mindless project to work on during the 5 hour drive to St. Louis. It is hard to concentrate, or even stay remotely comfortable, for any length of time with four tall adults squeezed into a Jetta! None of my current works in progress (which would be two – Mom’s broadripple socks and a sweater that I had just cast on for) fit the bill. So I found my ball of Malabrigo and started a scarf.





Because a wool scarf is what you are supposed to knit when it is 90 degrees F and you are crammed in the backseat of a car. Right?