Warning, long post ahead

Phew, it's been awhile! Sorry about that, but my mother has been in town so I've been pretty busy. On Thursday my mother and her friend Marlene came to knit with the Fiberphiles:
From the left we have Rachel, Shibani, Jennifer, Kristen, Marlene, and my mom, Teri. Kristen is holding my new copy of Alterknits, which I received that day from my SP8 (thank you, I had had my eye on that book for awhile, there are so many cute things!) I of course am not in the photo, since I was taking it. My mom and Marlene then met my labmates and my boss. Now, I was really hoping it wouldn't come up, but my mother told my boss we were going on a yarn crawl. A yarn crawl! I was going to say something vague about 'sight-seeing' or 'the Space Needle,' but no, she had to tell him (of course she didn't realize this should've been kept under wraps, so she's forgiven for her indiscretion). Anyway he didn't care, and off we went, on the great Yarn Crawl of '06. We went to many shops. Here at Acorn Street, something shifty was clearly afoot:

It appears my mom is contemplating absconding with that binder of patterns. Honestly I don't recall what was really happening here but I love this photo. We also went to Weaving Works, Fiber Gallery (where I finally got the nerve to talk about her blog with Jessica, after lurking about for ages both on the blog and in the shop), and Hilltop Yarns (east and west, that's another story for another day). In the end we had all this:

That my friends is all yarn. We went nowhere but yarn shops. Isn't it great? In those bags was Marlene's haul:

The gold and maroon yarn on the left is my mom's, as is the light turquoise on top, but Marlene bought the turquoise stuff as well. The pink is for a tank top, as is the bamboo, and the Cotton Fleece is for the baby blanket on the cover of the book (adorable!). There are actually 10 skeins (12?) of the Berocco Suede, which was very on sale at Acorn Street, but I didn't photograph it all. Yesterday Marlene went BACK to Acorn Street and bought yarn for another baby blanket! She's going to need a whole other suitcase for all this!

I also acquired some yarn:

That is 3 skeins of deep red Cascade 220 for a felted bag with grommets. I think it's the coolest felted bag pattern I've seen, or at least the most 'hip' and I'm really excited about it. I also got loads of teal (surprise!) mohair, for $4.50 a skein, and the Lamb's Pride to go with it, for a scarf. I plan to hold the two yarns together since I think the mohair on its own will be too fuzzy.

I also did a fair bit of knitting. Here is the progress on the bamboo Lotus Blossom tank, at almost the end of the lace:

Isn't it beautiful? I don't mean to gloat (well, actually I do), but I'm so enthralled with it. Marlene is as well - she plans to use the bamboo in the photo above to make one as a gift.

We went whale-watching and to Vancouver for the weekend, but I think I'll save all that for tomorrow. However, I have an announcement to make:

My secret pal figured me out! I was spoiling Lillian, and she found me. I have to admit I'm a bit disapointed to have lost my anonymity, but it's late in the game and she did the legwork. So, I'll be coming up with something extra special as a reward. I'm feeling like a right idiot because I apparently forgot didn't know that there was a blog for Secret Pal 8. You know, I must have known this when I signed up, but I had completely forgotten. Now I see how people figure each other out. I also see that there have been some problems with this round, of the neglect type, and I really hope my secret pals (Lillian as well as my spoiler) aren't disappointed in me. This was my first secret pal exchange and I've really enjoyed it so far. I didn't make much effort to find out who my secret pal was because I wanted to be surprised (although I might now, since I found the SP8 blog), so I hope she didn't take that the wrong way. She's been great, and I wish I would've gotten to know her a bit better over emails and such (totally my fault) during this exchange, but not having much experience with this I wasn't sure how to proceed. I've been a bit better with the communication lately, but I just wanted to say on the blog that I've really appreciated all the goodies/cards/emails I've gotten, so thank you Secret Pal! Can't wait to find out who you are :)

Tonight we're all off to see the Mariners-Yankees game. The sun has come out and the weather is warm. Lovely night for a ball game. I'll be taking my knitting!