The Past Weekend and A Bit More Obama

Sorry if you've had your fill on our new president, but I promise I'll take a break after this post.

I mentioned that I was in Chicago over last weekend, but I never actually expanded on the festivities. The weekend was planned so that I could reunite with Katy and Porsche, two of my oldest and dearest friends from grade school. The three of us went to a private grade school together. They went on to the private high school, and I went on to the ghetto public school. =) Despite how close we all were, getting settled in high school led us to losing touch with another, until the wonders of Facebook brought us back together again. They both live in the city, so I traveled down to have dinner and spend the night with them. It was great catching up and talking about old memories. I was a bit out of my element having been in laid back Wisconsin for so long--going out to dinner in Madison is WAY different than Chicago...like night and day different. In fact, despite frigid temperatures in both Madison and Chicago, people in the city don't wear layers and layers of clothing like us Sconnies do. Then we got to the heavily packed restaurants and I realized why. My Smartwools underneath my jeans about killed me. I almost went to the bathroom to take them off, but standing close to the door helped from passing out. I'm a serious dork. Still, getting out of my comfort zone is a good thing, and in the end we had a lot of good laughs and more memories to add to the bank.

Prior to heading to Katy's place off the train, I made a short stop at Loopy (as I mentioned in this post.) I already told you about all the knitters there who had donated hats, but I didn't share these pics:

I was welcomed into the group with this pin when I first arrived at Loopy (not like a ceremony or anything...just a gift). One of the knitters had made them for everyone (sorry, I can't remember which one).

I bought this beautiful yarn! It's Malabrigo lace weight yarn in "Col China." I'm not sure what I'm going to make with it, but it was too beautiful to pass up. Plus, I wanted to say thanks to the yarn shop for hosting our group...a win, win all around!

This was one of the knitter's puppy, decked out in red, white, and blue Obama gear. The puppy wouldn't sit still for very long, so I couldn't get a picture of her pin, which read "Bitches for Obama." I need one of those!

When I returned back home from my weekend getaway, I wanted to mark the big inauguration day with a special knit to wear. Below is a picture of the scarf I made using hand-dyed cotton yarn that was an RAK gift from "hypercycloid." I also added my KFO pin for a bit of Obama bling. =)