Second Annual Shop Hop

First let me say that I accidentally erased my entire description of the shop hop. I guess you're lucky, because I'll probably be less long-winded the second time around.

Once again I really enjoyed the Shop Hop and I'm glad they did it again this year. I go to The Yarnery and Needlework Unlimited all of the time, but I had only been to Three Kittens and Zandy's once or twice in the last year and I hadn't been to the other three shops at all since last year. There is a lot of overlap from one store to the next, but each stoe also has it's own unique offerings and the vibe/personality of each store is different. We're really lucky to have so many great choices in the Twin Cities. The stores are all around the metro area, geographically, so a good part of the "hop" was spent in the car, going from place to place. I only ran into traffic once - going from the western metro to the southern metro as rush hour was beginning. I had a delightful lunch with Deb. We ate at a little place across the street from Coldwater Collaborative called 318 Cafe. It's really cozy and comfortable and the food was delicious. I had a salad with proscuitto, pomegranite and blue cheese. Yummy! The best part, of course, was the company. Since we live on opposite sides of the metro, I don't get to see Deb nearly as often as I'd like, so it was so nice to sit down together and talk. If I hadn't been on a mission, it would have been so fun to spend the rest of the afternoon knitting and chatting in that lovely space. But, I had yarn stores to see and fiber to buy! And I did buy a few things:



Mostly sock yarns - what a surprise! Some yarn for a hat and enough for a sweater. Some really pretty buttons, a bracelet kit and a couple of patterns. More than I need (well, to be honest, I don't need ANY more yarn, so any purchase would be more than I need) but not as much as I bought last year. Some of my purchases from last year I never did show on this blog nor did I knit them up, so I may be coming clean and officially putting them in stash in the coming months. As I STOP buying yarn. For real. At least until the new year.

So, a good shop hop. I can't remember if I mentioned last time, there were 7 shops included. Each shop had a little give away. This year the theme was "tools of the trade", so the give away was a little knitting notion. Here they all are:



From the left, it's a couple of Chibi needles, some coilless safety pins, a stitch holder, a tape measure, some needle end protectors, some stitch markers and a little plastic zipped bag to store them all in. As you visited each shop, you got your little card stamped. If you visited all of the shops and got all of the stamps, you could put your card in for a big drawing. I have the luck of the Irish - which is no luck at all - so I'm not holding out hope this year. However, each shop had door prize drawings and I was lucky enough to win a door prize at Needlework Unlimited. I haven't gone back to pick it up yet, so I don't know yet what it is. No matter what it is, I'm happy to have won and I'm glad that I did the shop hop again. I hope they continue the tradition.

Saturday night I had dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen. Have you been there? This was my first time. For some reason, I was under the impression that it was a slightly upscale fast food restaurant - along the lines of Chipotle or Noodles & Co. I don't know where I got that idea, but it's a regular sit down restaurant with an extensive menu and a full bar. I was pleasantly surprised. The servings are gigantic, but for a chain restaurant, it was pretty good. My friend had the Chicken Masala and I had a Margherita Pizza and we both enjoyed them. We also saw this movie:



The film is about a group of 5 women and 1 man who form a book club to read the 6 Jane Austen books, one per month. Each of the people have a romantic issue that is modern, but also reflected in the Austen books. The actors all are good, grounding the film in real life instead of reducing it to stereotypes or predictability. The cast, both men and women, are all very attractive, although sometimes they aren't very likable. But if you would consider going to a movie called "The Jane Austen Book Club", then you'll probably enjoy this film like I did.

Sunday was spent knitting and watching football. I know I say this every Monday, but thank god for Adrian Peterson! He's just so much fun to watch and such an amazing player. Not to mention the only chance my team has to be successful. I worked on a pair of Quidditch Socks for Michael, to match his Quidditch Sweater:



I know in this photo it looks like the sock is blue and green, but it's just because it's so cloudy out and I couldn't get a good picture. It definitely has a blue tinge, but it's actually gray.