Big News!  My Lollipop Yarn yarn came!!!!  (Totally big news to me, but not to you I know.) To remind you, this is the yarn that is put on the Lollipop Yarns Etsy shop every two weeks or so, and it goes fast.  So, you have to sit at your computer and do some quick clicking when the time comes.  I was able to score TWO last week and I. Love. Them.  I haven’t even knit with them yet, but I. Love. Them.

First of all it came in these cute little bags:

And here are the colors:

The one on the left is called “Squeak”  and the one on the right is called “Pillow Talk”.  The “Pillow Talk” comes with a “mini-me” skein to knit contrasting cuffs, heels and toes if you want.   They are hand wound and you can see by the way they are wound how the striping will occur: nice, crisp stripes.  Stay tuned for when I knit these.  Soon, I hope.  HA! (must we recall my knit-a-long-a-palooza plans?)

Ooh and how about a look at my progress on the Princess Franklin plaid cowl?

Finished the garter stitch section, left it on the needles, then took out the provisional cast on and put that on needles:

Would have been nice if I took a photo of me taking out the provisional cast on…. plus, what a horrendous clash of patterns there.

Then I used the garter stitch Kitchener stitch to weave the two ends together and make a tube:

Now it is on to the weaving and I’ll show that to you next time.

On to more interesting stuff like what Paul and I did this cold, cold Sunday morning…  we took a drive down to Rhinebeck, NY and went “the long way”, taking all the back roads and seeing the beautiful scenery.  I was so busy looking at the beautifulness that I didn’t take any pictures.

Rhinebeck is a quaint, pretty little town with lots of little froo-froo shops:

We went to breakfast at the Eveready Diner…

…where we shared blueberry pancakes and corned beef hash with eggs.  We share a lot.  We’re like that.

Then, because we are obsessed with bakeries and, more accurately, pastries, we found:

We got what turned out to be only so-so pastries (they should stick to bread alone.  Ha!) for tonight’s dessert, but decided to have them for lunch instead.  We’re also like that.  I think we would have liked their bread.  It looked yummy.

How about a book review?

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

Alice is an about-to-be-40-year-old woman who falls off her spin bike during a class and bumps her head, causing amnesia for the past 10 years of her life.  Her last memory is being newly pregnant with her first child and happily married.  She soon finds out that she now has 3 children and is in the middle of a divorce.  Her quest to fill in the 10 year blank is intriguing as she tries to reconcile the person she thinks she is as a 29-year-old with the person she realizes she has become as a 39-year-old.  I listened to this in the car and really enjoyed it.  The narrator was great, the story pulled me a long and it was very entertaining. It was one of those let-me-just-stay-here-in-the-driveway-for-a-while to keep listening because I didn’t want to turn it off.  I highly recommend it. You can get it on Amazon here:

Now, I’m off to weave my Princess Franklin cowl, finish cooking a yummy Sunday afternoon chicken dinner, and get ready to watch Downton Abbey and work on my next Downton Abbey knit-a-long clue….