I just realized it's been a long time since I have posted - you've already been to White Point and back! It sounds like you had a very relaxing time, and were able to just enjoy yourself doing one of your favorite things with others who share your passion for the craft. Very few of us are so lucky! Hopefully you managed to get quite a bit of hooking done too in between all of the chatting, eating and comparing notes on everyone's works in progress.
I saw your post on all of your recent yarn acquisitions, and I can only suggest changing the way you think about it. I have to say, your STABLE issue (stash acquisition beyond life expectancy) is not a new phenomenon! So maybe the best way to approach it is not just as projects waiting to be done, but as a yarn collection in and of itself. This article from Knitty helps to put it all in perspective!
So what have I been up to all this time? Working on my two on-the-go-projects, the Klaralund and my Baudelaire socks. I worked on the socks during the Superbowl last weekend, with the theory that they had to be lucky for the Bears since I was also working on them when they won against the Saints in January. Alas, this was not to be, and the Colts outplayed them by a mile. But I am past the heel turning on both socks now and will start the ankles this week so hopefully they will be done soon and I can put the loss behind me by enjoying the look and feel of these bright blue beauties on my feet.
I have been making even more progress on my Klaralund, casting on for the sleeves earlier this week. I worked them using my new double-knitting skills, which helped me to keep the color changes even. This was NOT easy with this silk garden, as each skein started in its own place and some had colors - particularly the purple - that others did not. Let's just say this involved much splicing and pulling out of yards of yarn trying to catch the start of 
a particular repeat. In the end, though, I think I managed to keep it together pretty well, and was finished with the in-the-round section and into the upper body by the start of the weekend. Since it was generally rainy and miserable all day Saturday, this gave Nathan & I the perfect excuse to stay home and watch movies - and for me to fly through the last inches of the shoulders. I bound off the arms tonight and finished the very minimal sewing up (thank you knitting in the round) just this evening. 
I will wash & block it overnight - I think that overall the sweater turned out really well. The shaping was very simple but elegant in its own way and the end product looks great so far. Oh, and the double-knitting thing was considered very impressive by my fellow volunteers when I was working at the de Young on Thursday (let's just say the coat check can get very slow!)
The rain, much needed here in Northern California, has also helped add inches to my plants outside. I am so excited to report that so far all but one of the bulbs that I put in this fall are now poking out little buds from my planter boxes! This is despite Rushka's best efforts to uproot them, so it is quite an achievement. I have been checking on them all week and some are more than an inch above the ground now. This is my first try at bulbs, particularly in a planter box, so I am very excited to see how these develop.I have also decided to make the most use of all this spare time I have on my hands these days by actually getting up from behind the computer and putting my body in motion. Yes, I have started running - a somewhat crazy pursuit in this land of hills, but so far so good. I had actually made this resolution and was listening to the Lime & Violet podcast as I walked down to get myself some new dedicated running shoes (as part of an excursion to explore the nearby Inner Sunset neighborhood)
when they started promoting a new online group dedicated to getting crafters off the couch. So I joined run-a-go-go, through that found a link to a couch-potato-to-5k training program, and then I hit the streets! I'm still in week 1, walking more than I'm running (so far still so glad that it's another 5 weeks before I'm running all the time), and I'm not sure that I'll make the full 100 miles in the 7 weeks left in the run-a-go-go effort, but at least I'm getting on my feet and out the door.My new shoes (Mizuno Wave 3's, above) served a double purpose this week, as not only did they give me the tools to get a move on, they also luckily served as my first foray into the colorways of the new Project Spectrum project - they are the perfect shades of blue, white and grey. The goal of this project is to encourage creativity using a select group of colors every two months. I'm already on the way with my blue Baudelaire's - now it's just trying to find some ways to incorporate some greys and whites into the mix. Seems like your photos of White Point in the snow would qualify! How about these shots of the massive
Queen Mary which visited San Francisco last week as part of her trip around the world? (So big she just barely fit under the Golden Gate Bridge). I braved the traffic on Telegraph Hill to sneek a peek - then had to climb back down ages of stairways to get a closer look. Really, I'm not sure if the photos really convey how huge she is - let's just say that the green shape in the foreground is actually a full-sized soccer field.Oh, and the biggest news of the week is that my box finally arrived! After only, oh, 38 days out in the wilderness after we dropped it off at the UPS Store? It got so bad that we had to threaten to just have FedEx come and pick it up from the depot in Montreal (where they managed to loose it, again, after finding it there after it was lost the first time) just to get them to admit there was a problem. Then, in the midst of a flurry of emails where everyone tried their hardest to blame someone else, I got a call early Friday from a driver trying to figure out how to drop off this priority parcel and it was finally here! Much the worse for wear (the cardboard box itself was hardly whole, and I now have a claim out because it seems they pried open the red toybox with a chisel to try and see the contents, breaking the lock in the process) but still here. I can hardly believe that all that worry and frustration is over, that I actually got it back!
Although, maybe the news that Dana is pregnant with her second set of twins (yes, thats right, two sets of twins in a row for a total of 5 children, all under the age of 4 by the end of the year), counts as big news too!
What can I say, it's been busy around here....
Megan
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