Black Goat Knitting: Poor Quality Pictures

So.

It's cold outside.

Like really cold.

At least, it was yesterday. And I refuse to look at the weather report today.

And I'm currently all snuggled up in my bed. Which means that you'll just have to deal with my makeshift backdrop and bad lighting.

Because I straight up refuse to put pants on today.

First off, thanks to anyone who voted in the contest. The winner will be revealed in April at the next trunk show. In the meantime, I'm going to pretend to not be nervous and try to put the thoughts aside.

The monthly pj party was on the 5th. I ended up going with Vi and Caitlin, which was amazing fun. Sarah, sadly, wasn't there due to another commitment. If anyone asks, I moped about the shop, lamenting her absence.

I had planned on giving John my debit card before I went in to the shop to prevent me from buying anything (a feat I've never been able to achieve. Seriously, there hasn't been a time I've gone to the shop and not purchased something.), but then I got nervous. What if there was an emergency and I had to have my card? So, I refused to give it up and was good for the entire night.

I can hear you laughing from here.

I really did TRY to be good! There was a skein of Three Irish Girls in a beautiful colorway called Winter Birch. Vi and Caitlin did their damndest to talk me into it. I challenged them to spell out my full name using only the letters on the tag and then I might consider breaking my resolve and buying it.

Of course, they did it in a heartbeat. I really didn't want to spend that much on one skein that night, so I told them I really honestly and truly could not buy it that night.

So, Caitlin grabbed it out of my hands and tossed it into her pile.

Decided on the Debaser shawlette pattern for it.

I can't stand people being nice to me, so I'm giving her the extra skein of TIG Blackberry Cobbler that I have.

So, since I had to buy something now so I didn't look like an ass, I had resolved to satisfying my addiction by just purchasing the one skein of Malabrigo sock yarn that I had in reserve. I'd be out of there with only spending $20.

Problem was, Cindy couldn't find it.

So, I messaged Sarah and asked her where she had put it. She then confessed something to me. That beautiful, beautiful woman had bought it out from under me to knit me a pair of custom fit socks.

Let me say that again. She's knitting me CUSTOM. FIT. SOCKS.

I'm sorry, John. I'm leaving you for Sarah. I'm easily swayed by the promise of easy access to wool and (one more time) CUSTOM KNIT SOCKS!

Custom knit socks and a skein of TIG gifted to me.

AND Vi made me a mug cozy! IT'S SO AWESOME!

I have to add a button and weave in the ends, but I can't wait to wrap this around one of my favorite mugs.

Yarn karma is real, my friends.

I ended up deciding to buy three skeins of Malabrigo baby merino, which is a lace weight yarn. Caitlin was knitting a shawl with it at the party and I kept petting it.

The color is called Cypress. It looks entirely black here, but it actually has blue and blue-green in it.

Told you, terrible photos. This one has the flash on so you can just see the color in it.

I wanted to keep the yarn karma going, I bought Vi a skein of one of the new Downton Abbey yarns. Don't remember which one, all I know is that it was purple and sparkly.

I've been working pretty steadily on Vi's Tardis shawl. I'm through the main body and decorative break and have finally started the Tardis chart.

It pretty much just looks like a giant blue blob, but blocking will work it's magic and turn it into something beautiful.

I also delved into one of my other hobbies: painting RPG miniatures. I had purchased a few things from Reaper, including a clockwork dragon.

Here's how he came out.

I've named him Wrenchester (Wrench? Get it?) and he is my most precious of babies. I knew I wanted to make him into a display piece for our mantle and began the hunt for something to house him in. We'll get to that in a minute, since we have to do this thing in chronological order, right?

So, this past Saturday we made a trip up to Harps and Thistles so Sarah could measure me for my socks. I brought my lovely Vi along with me and sent Alex and John packing. Vi and I ended up walking down to Flurry's for lunch.

Can I just tell you how delicious my lunch was?

Chicken and chorizo quesadilla with a side of homemade mac and cheese. Frickin' yum!

We then went back and hung out with Sarah. I also had to buy a couple of skeins of Malabrigo sock to make my mom's birthday present.

No spoilers, but isn't this pretty?

More yarn karma came when Vi told me to pick out something as a thank you gift. I couldn't pass up another skein of Malabrigo sock, this time in the Turner colorway.

It's a gorgeous green color. But my camera says it looks like this.

Which is so wildly inaccurate that it's funny.

Taken with flash, it looks a bit closer to the true color.

Sunday, I had a Gal-intine's Day out with my lovely Bethany! We met up for lunch and then went to the Big Three craft stores (Michael's, JoAnn's, and Pat Catan's). I spent way more money than I probably should have, but damnit if I didn't have fun doing it.

We also stopped at the new Goodwill outlet and I found an amazing deal. I've been looking for area rugs for our bedroom and living room. I ended up finding two 5x7 foot rugs for $7 each!

A bit of a scrub and they'll work beautifully.

I also somehow managed to buy 9 pounds of throw pillows, but let's gloss over that.

I want to talk about my REALLY COOL THING THAT I BOUGHT!

So, looking for a house for Wrenchester, right? My thinking is some sort of glass cloche.

Until I spotted this.