Thursday morning I took the bus to Redmond to go to a stitch group which was super fun. And who did I meet there? My favorite tech editor, Julie Armstrong Holetz herself!

Wednesday I headed back to Seattle by bus. Upon arrival Chris from Pursuite of Fiber was already waiting for me at the bus stop. She was so nice to drive me around to two yarn stores and have some cupcakes with me. The first was the Fiber Gallery where, blinded by all that gorgeous yarn I usually only see online, I forgot to take a single picture. What I did not forget was to buy some:

It’s all Madelinetosh yarns, the orange and yellow ones are sock weight which I would like to use for a crochet design and… well socks for the yellow. And the sort of teal color is lace weight.

I don’t actually remember the name of the second store. And I only have a super blurry picture of Chris with the cupcakes. So, well, the Madelinetosh pics must be enough.

On Tuesday I hopped on the train to Vancouver (lovely train ride by the way, it goes all along the coast, way nicer than the bus I took on the way back). I wasn’t off the train for 30 minutes, when I found myself in Sweet Georgia Yarn’s dye studio. I had never seen a dye studio before, so that was kind of cool.
I got a skein of her Merino Silk Lace in raspberry.

The next stop was Urban Yarns where I did not leave empty handed either.

Indigo Moon 100% merino wool (superwash) hand-dyed, in Majestic Purple.

On my second day in Seattle, I went on a stroll through Pike Place Market and chanced upon Laura from Croshay Design (here she is on Ravelry). She sells wonderful crocheted hats (and as I know now, you might be happy to have a woolen hat at hand in Seattle, in June!). I’ve known her from Ravelry for a while, so it’s fun to meet a “real” person. DH was quite impressed that somebody in the market knew who I was.

Speaking of crochet, I actually saw a couple of people crocheting in public while I was in Seattle, I can only remember one single time I’ve seen someone doing it in France.

I am back from a fantastic week in Seattle. There are some yarn related stories, too, so hopefully in the next couple of days I’ll manage to blog about that.

De retour de Seattle. En espérant que dans les prochains jours, je trouverai le temps de vous raconter tout ça.

Bin wieder da. Nach einer super Woche in Seattle hätte ich schon so einiges, über das ich bloggen könnte. Bleibt nur noch zu hoffen, dass ich das in den nächsten Tagen hinkriege.

I’ll be back very soon; I know it’s been long. A sneak peak of what I am working on at the moment:

Somehow I am not in Blog-mood at the moment. But here are a couple of links and pictures I wanted to share.

Link to all the patterns donating to charities for Haiti on Ravelry. I put mine up there, too, and bought a bunch for myself (startitis is in the air).

Ysolda’s Blog Post about the whole thing.

YIP, the knitterly and crafty types, a Flickr group in which I am participating this year.

And some stuff I’ve been working on:

Is it time to start writing those end of year posts yet? I might as well as I have a couple of them planned. Let’s start with the Book challenge.
Well, I didn’t make it, but I am happy nevertheless. I am absolutely positive that without the challenge in mind I would have read way less. And 26 is not that bad, all things considered.
Also, I didn’t allow audio books into the game until the very last month. It was important to me to actually READ because just listening isn’t doing as much for my writing skills.

So, here’s the list for the last 2 months:
22. Hermann Hesse Unterm Rad: *****
23. Hermann Heesse Die Nürnberger Reise: ****
24. Martin Suter Lila Lila *****
25. David Sedaris Me talk pretty one day (audio book) *****
26. Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice (audio book) *****

As for the audio books, the David Sedaris is read by the author, and for Pride and Prejudice I got this one (for audio a good narrator is very important, so I thought I’d mention it).
I am now reading “J’étais derrière” by Nicolas Fargues, but I am not sure I’ll be done before the 31st.

I’ll try and keep reading (and listening) next year, but I am not going to keep track and post about it in 2010. I have other ‘bloggable’ challenges planned.

Well, well, how’s the book challenge going? I am behind, way behind; I only finished 1 book in October. And there are only 2 months left. Instead of having read the 3 books/months originally planned, I only read like 2/month. To match my goal I’d have to read another 13 ½ books before the end of the year. Don’t think that’s going to happen.

I am already thinking about another “stupid” challenge for next year, like cooking from a totally new recipe once a week or finish a sewing project once a week or … Any ideas?

22. Hermann Hesse Unterm Rad: *****

18. Jennifer Weiner Alors, heureuse?: ***
19. Daniel Kehlmann: Mahlers Zeit: ****
20. Fred Vargas: L’homme aux cercles bleus: ****
21. Horst Evers: Die Welt ist nicht immer Freitag: *****