A Trip to the Library

Today was a lovely, sunny day. I had a bunch of errands to run and I refused to wear a coat even though it was only about 5C. In between stops, I soaked up the sunshine and just lived 'in the moment' savouring the beautiful (although breezy) weather. One of my last stops was the library in the next town to pick up a book I had on reserve, "Latvian Mittens" by Lizbeth Upitis. I was going to ask Santa for it but was thrilled when I checked the library's catalogue online last week and learned that they had it.  Yay!

My next stop was at my own town's public library. It has lots of windows and lots of nice places to sit and look at books and magazines. They subscribe to "Creative Knitting" magazine and I enjoy having a good look at it on my visits - including the back issues kept under the display shelf.

Today I took out these books that interested me: (sorry about the glare)

 "In Sheep's Clothing" was in a completely different section (677) of the library from the knitting books. I only found it by searching for the keyword 'spinning' under the subject.  The rest were in the usual knitting section (746).  I am intrigued by twined knitting but my first impression is that it seems to be a lot of work. And I rather dislike getting my yarn all twisted. But I'm going to give it a shot. I saw some lovely twined items at Rhinebeck.

Our library has a very good collection of knitting books. I find ones I haven't seen before every time I go there. One of the librarians is a knitter, from what I'm told, and seems to be ordering a good variety of new books. The knitting section in the library one town the other direction primarily has books from the 80s and very little which appeals to me. Our library also has a great coffee shop where I can get a good latte to sip on while I read. I often take some knitting to work on while I peruse the books.

Today, a woman sat down at my table and asked me if I had knit my sweater - I had my "Must Have Cardigan" on. I said I did and noticed her lovely scarf. We started yakking and learned she is a knitting addict like I am. She was bemoaning the fact that she felt so isolated as a knitter. And...she hadn't heard of Ravelry. WELL! I whipped out a pen and piece of paper at warp speed wrote the URL down for her as well as when my monthly knitting guild meets (second Wednesday of the month in that same library) and where and when my two Sit 'n Knits occur every week ( Thursday from 1 - 3 at Myrtle Station Wool and Ferguson's Knitting and Thursday from 7 - 9 at Kniterary in Whitby. She seemed truly pleased to meet another knitter and to learn of opportunities to hang out with other knitters on a regular basis.

I feel like such a knitting 'missionary' sometimes. LOL.

This evening after dinner, I made some chocolate oatmeal macaroons and a batch of the prize-winning ($1 Million in the Pillsbury Bake-off) Double Delight Peanut Butter cookies. I heard about the peanut butter cookies on Oprah a while back and printed out the recipe. Both types of cookies turned out really well. I need to package them up to give away so I won't be tempted to dip into them. Scooter is with us this weekend so I'm sure he'll put a big dent in our cookie inventory.

After cleaning up, I made some cute stitch markers! (again, pardon the glare)

I patterned them after some I got in a UK knitting magazine a while back that has a freebie in each issue. I bought some little beading pliers yesterday as well as the jump rings and star beads. If I can find the bigger beads less expensively, I could make a whole bunch of stitch markers. These will fit up to at least a 5.5mm needle. I'm totally winging the beading technique-wise. I know very little about how to do beading properly. But I like my results.

I'm also still planning some Christmas knitting. I found a pattern I liked but will be modifying it a bit which will involve some more research. For now, it's a stealth project.