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I made a snood from the free pattern that Karen made WORLD FAMOUS on her blog, Did You Make That? , a few months ago. Now she can add New York City to her world map of snoods ! I bought this Merino wool yarn from the Brooklyn General Store in early December and started knitting it up at a friend's apartment nearby. The wool came from upstate New York and was so fresh it still had some hay in it. Talk about organic! Does that happen? I'm a novice knitter, so it was nice to work on a project and actually have something at the end of it! I knitted 2 more snoods (another Merino wool one and one from baby alpaca for my mom, both made in Virginia). I was able to whip up the 3rd one pretty quickly; after watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and The Philadelphia Story I was done! (By the way, I added this project to the  "Celebrations" theme  over at the Sew Weekly.) Some tips for those who are new to knitting: There's a contraption at the yarn store that...

Our trip to Florida last week included a stop at the Japan Pavilion at Epcot in Disney World, and there I found some fun cotton fabrics to take home with me! They're not fat quarters but they're sold in small amounts. I had no idea you could buy fabric in Disney.  I should say, the bottom 3 fabrics are from Epcot and the top brown one is from Sew L.A. Fabric . I said I wasn't going to buy more fabric until I completed 5 projects, which I haven't, but I can't actually make a garment from these so I'll give myself a pass (and I was on vacation!).  The brown fabric is "Playing with Horses" by Heather Ross for Kokka, part of the Far, Far Away III Collection. Little children playing with toy horses, how cute! The red and white fish fabric in the center is soooooooo soft. These two fabrics will turn into gifts for a little girl. Also, it's become quite obvious that I love blues and reds, even the blog uses those colors! I also bought this pretty sunglass...

Last weekend I visited a friend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Little towns and villages popped up around the countryside, and every once in awhile we'd pass an abandoned century-old building that'd make me wonder just how long it had been sitting there vacant. We checked out a couple of main streets with brick buildings no more than a story or two high, a definite sleepy Southern town vibe to it. ...Thrifty Finds... Ever since I started sewing I've loved visiting sewing-related stores when I travel. There was one antiques store we wandered into that had a bunch of different stalls. At the back of the store I spotted it -- a basket of sewing patterns! Jackpot, I thought to myself. I came away with two patterns, a knit wrap dress from 1972 (McCalls 3080) and a skirt from 1982 (Simplicity 5454). Unfortunately, the wrap dress is a few sizes too big for me, but I couldn't pass it up for $1. I also grabbed a bag filled with bias tape, piping, lace, etc. 1972 Wrap Dress (the...