The weekend road trip to Ohio was a lot of fun. As we got on the road we did a quick trip down Michigan Ave. (aka the Magnificent Mile) to take in the gorgeous displays of tulips. It was a beautiful day for a road trip – as we covered the Indiana Toll Road I was amazed by all the shades of green we say – grasses, trees – it all was so lush. We made a slight detour through Indiana’s Amish Country & enjoyed a delicious lunch and did a bit of shopping.

Once in Findlay (aka Flag City USA ) we had a very nice time celebrating Clara Pearl’s birthday. She loved the lap blanket – it will be well used when she gets chilled. To celebrate her 70th birthday, the word went out to everyone to send her cards – by Saturday afternoon she had received close to 90. One of my cousins and her family came down from Toledo on Saturday afternoon to celebrate. On our way home from dinner at a local favorite, we stopped by a park to see the final days of the annual Easter story sand sculpture.

On Sunday we were able to enjoy seeing my cousin’s kids in their church musical. After lunch with them we hit the road & managed to avoid a lot of rain on the drive back to Chicago.

Over the course of the weekend I got a fair amount of knitting done – including having to frog one project on Friday evening (by the time we were back in Chicago I had recovered all that knitting progress and then some).

Last night was the first (of 2) session of my “Knitting Socks on 2 Circulars” class at Arcadia. For this first pair of socks I have decided that I’m not going to use any of the hand dyed yarns that I’ve picked up over the last couple of months – I want to “practice” with other yarn. So I’m working with Cascade Sassy Stripes in the purple/lavender colorway (#769).

There is only one other gal in the class – because we had both done socks before we started right in on our sock yarn instead of practicing the technique on scrap yarn. I now own my first pair(s) of Addi Turbos (#2) & I cast on for a basic sock. The first couple of rows were hard to visualize “where to go” when you reached the end of a half. But after about 3 rows it clicked & I was moving stitches to the cable, turning the sock around & picking up needle ends without a problem.

In the class we will not complete a sock – rather we will learn the basic parts. Next week we will work on the gusset. So during this week I want to get tube & heel flap done so the gusset work could be on a wearable sock. When I got home I worked round & round for about an hour & then put the sock down to work on some other projects that need to be finished within the next 10 days.

Sally Says…Welcome to the first installment of “Sally Says…” – this will be an occasional feature on Amy Artisan where I share fun things that I’ve discovered through my iPod (name Sally by my sister). These may be podcasts or music & I don’t know how frequently they will appear.

In the last couple of weeks I have started exploring podcasts more & have discovered an assortment of fun ones. A couple that I haven’t seen mentioned before:
KnitTunes Music to knit by…each episode is dedicated to a specific stitch or type of project.
CraftLit – Some knitting talk & then chapters of books to knit by – currently it is Pride & Prejudice.

Also in rotation on the iPod are the tunes of Family Groove Company – a great band from here in Chicago. They have just released their second album, Charmer. If you are in Chicago, they are having a release party at The Cubby Bear on Saturday evening – it’s sure to be a great time.

Since this post is a bit of a hodge podge – here is one last random item for today. I’ve never watched American Idol – I saw one episode of the first season & it didn’t pull me in. Well, I’ve been watching this season. Why? Because one of my sister’s students has been a contestant. Yes friends, my sister taught Paris in her Psychology class last fall. So, we’ve been cheering her on. Once the Paris audition aired earlier this year she came back to the high school & wanted to see my sister. Here is a picture of Rebec with Paris.

In addition to the class taking some pictures with her they were also treated to an impromptu performance of her audition song. “Knowing” someone on the show has been fun – even though she didn’t win the competition it will be fun to see where she goes from here.

While the knitting pictures are few – the knitting hours in the past week have been many. In the next couple of weeks I will be able to reveal pictures of the projects.