Okay, so Saturday was good

Yesterday we were busy, but in a good way. My husband bought tickets to see Dora the Explorer live, so we trekked down to Detroit (if you can call 20 minutes a trek, that is) to catch the show with Emma. She loved every minute of it, but was most impressed with the "golden ceiling" (as she called it) at the Fox Theater. I decided there should be something in this excursion for me, so afterwards we went to the Fisher Building (another golden ceiling for Emma) but more importantly, a yarn shop for me! I hadn't been to City Knits before. It was small but well-stocked and had a very pleasant staff. I got some of that silk yarn made from saris, some Cascade Fixation, some Aurora 8, and some Takhi Cotton Classic (mostly just little bits to play with.) I also got Barbara Walker's second treasury of knitting stitches(I've always wanted these-now I have one of them!) and a new Addi Turbo. After that we had a late lunch, and I went home to play with my spoils. To my delight, an envelope was waiting in the mailbox from my Secret Pal, along with more free goodies from South West Trading Company and some fabric I had ordered from Gotfabric.com. Instead of knitting I decided to sew (something I hardly ever do anymore), and made the charming bag you see below. To make it extra sturdy I fused interfacing to the main fabric, and lined it as well. I sewed a double layer of the strap material to make the straps thicker and less flimsy. It turned out pretty good, n'est-ce pas?

My haul from City Knits. I also got some things there for my Secret Pal (but I'm not going to reveal those!)

My new knitting bag (not that I really needed another one, but you can't have too many.) I sewed it vaguely in the style of my favorite sushi bag, with cute Manekineko (lucky cat) fabric I got from gotfabric.com. I like that it's very sturdy and has a flat bottom. It's also smaller than my sushi bag, which is good for smaller projects.

Even more color cards came from South West Trading! Can you believe it? I love them.

First surprise from my Secret Pal arrived yesterday. It's a CD with a wide variety of music on it. Thanks Pal-- whoever you are!