Veni, Vidi, Steeki.

My friends, I hope you had a wonderful holiday.  Are you still recuperating?  I feel like I am!

We had a blast, ate dinner at my sister's house, and it was my parents first Christmas in Chapel Hill, and my daughter's first Christmas, too.  A couple of very nice firsts. 

Another first?  A knitting first for me? 

I steeked.

Having a moment of cold feet here....

Seriously! 

Those knitting writers weren't kidding when they talked about having a stiff one or lying down after cutting your knitting.  I didn't exactly have a lie down, but I definitely experienced an adrenaline buzz akin to how you feel directly after riding a roller coaster.  I may have terminal dorkiness, since I would get that systemically affected by yarn. 

It was really nice to steek for the first time at Yarns Etc.  There were several knitters sitting there, it felt somewhat like group therapy.  "We're all going to get through this together, Erin."  "Deep breaths, honey, almost there."  But you know what?  The cut knitting behaved exactly as I'd been promised it would.  It didn't ravel, thanks to some hand stitching I'd done around the basting/cutting line.  The whole thing did not frog itself, and I ended up with a really pretty nice sweater (if I do say so myself).



Elizabeth Zimmermann's Ski Pattern Sampler Sweater.  The wool is Lopi.  My husband is a lucky man.

While I was at the yarn store, I noticed many pretty items that weren't necessarily yarn, but were great when used in conjunction with yarn and knitting (or crocheting).  Have you seen the great selection of buttons? 

Or the ribbons?  Ribbon can look so beautiful laced through evenly spaced holes in a knit, along the hem, at the waist, even at the wrists or laced through a set of arm warmers, perhaps, reminiscent of the lacing on old-time clothing?



These gorgeous colors on the silk ribbon look especially fine.

Sometimes a little something extra can just bring out a hand knit, take it to the next level, as it were. 
And sometimes the something extra is just a gorgeous little runner like this:

Or you could try something like this fantastically unique yarn here:



This is made by Prism, and I believe the yarn is called "Stuff". 





And I fell completely in love with these adorable little measuring tapes. 



Lookit!  A ducky!

I saw a few nice husbands walk into the store back on Thursday, asking for yarn for their spouses for Christmas.  If you received such a gift, lucky you (I made sure my present was yarn!  Lucky me!), and you can come on in to get the little extras you need to make your hand knit shine.