Ohio superlatives

Baby Grayson = the cutest.



Siblings = the corniest.



Samson = the purriest. (He's the stray my brother took in temporarily.)

And yes there was a little bit (OK, a lot) of yarn shopping. It was my birthday, after all.

Some Louet Gems Pearl:


Uber-soft (and cheap!) Berroco Comfort Sock:


Both of these came from Knitters Mercantile in Columbus, OH. I mostly stuck with the sock yarn, but had a fun Manos/mohair wall, lots and lots of other yarns that don't come to mind (again, I'm on the sock-only kick). I resisted the urge to buy much more, because we were going to take a road trip to a quilt/yarn store in Wooster that was closing. (Turns out they were closed on Mondays, so we had to make another arrangement.)

At the somewhat boringly named Yarn Shop in Pickerington, OH, I got some Araucania Ranco that looks like a Monet painting:



And finally, I saved the best for last:



Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino in Apricot. This came from YarnMarket.com, which operates out of a storefront (or three or four) in Pickerington, OH. It was a busy Monday (I'm guessing they are closed on the weekends) but an employee showed us the ropes - it's not a store persay, they do most (I'm guessing 99%) of their business in online sales. (They also run Yarndex.com.) But they welcome visitors to shop the warehouse. They had four or five (chilly!) garages side-by-side, filled with racks, which were filled with four or five levels of bins. Hundreds (if not a thousand-plus) bins of yarn, all alphabetized. It was a dream. My mom and I were the only shoppers, but we saw lots of packers running to and fro, filling orders. I resisted the urge to buy everything I wanted and walked out only with this apricot CTH that I am drooling over. Seriously, they had just about every yarn imaginable. It was fantastic. I totally want to go back.

I finished my dad's big socks while I was there and cast on for socks for my brother, Gentlemen's socks in Lozenge Pattern (from Knitting Vintage Socks). I'm nearly done with the cuff, then I'll take a picture. Size 1 needles + men's size 12 feet = this sock's gonna take a while.

P.S. Three weeks from today is the half marathon! I had a really good four-miler yesterday so I'm feeling back in the swing of things. Much relieved about that.