Saturday was the sock workshop with Antje Gillingham at The Neighborhood Knit Shop. She was there to teach her technique for knitting two socks at a time, from her new book Knitting Circles Around Socks.

I was lucky enough to be asked to come help with the class because I’d gotten the book already for Christmas and had knitted a couple pairs using her method. (Which I adore and will never go back to doing socks the old way…)

The class was really large but I think everyone was able to get plenty of personal attention and help when they needed it. Antje was an amazing teacher and was so sweet and funny.

The project for our class was a pair of baby socks (pictured to the left), knit out of Cascade Fixation.

I’d never worked with Fixation yarn before. It’s a cotton-blend, I believe, and it’s extremely elastic. I think a lot of people weren’t too fond of it, but I thought it was kind of fun (at least for something different).

The booties are turning out quite adorable too. By the end of the workshop, most everyone had picked up their gussets and were working on the decreases to the foot.

I got Antje to sign my book too:

The workshop was from 9 till 4:30 and I think I hung out at the knit shop after that till 6. It was a long day. I picked up some yarn to finally make a Melly bag. I’m extremely excited about that! I also picked up a ball of Berocco Comfort to play with. I have an idea in my head of a sweater I want to try and design and I’m thinking of using that yarn for it. I’m working on some swatches with it right now.

Sunday was my 26th birthday. I wound up sleeping in till 1 o’clock. (For shame, I know!) I went out for a late lunch with Erica to Logan’s. Then she and I went shopping at some of our favorite places: Jo-Ann’s and Office Depot. (What can I say? I love crafts and office supplies!) Jo-Ann’s had a lot of cute stuff on sale: I got a cute coffee mug that was 70% off because it had the word “Love” on it and was in the Valentine’s clearance. I also got some rubber stamps 40% off that say “Designed by:” and “Handmade by:” — I thought they’d be nice for making tags for some of my knitted things.

Nick got off work at 4:30 and came home with a frozen custard cake from Ritter’s. (Mmm!) Erica hung out for a while and had cake with us. I opened cards and presents. All totaled, I got $125 toward my spinning wheel! Nick also got me an iTunes gift card. He said I could use it for audiobooks because he knows I like to listen to them while I knit. His parents got me lots of goodies — his mom has the most amazing knack for finding fun stuff. She managed to find me a calendar that has a different knitting pattern on every single day!

So now I’m recovering from my busy weekend. It was a heck of a good time.