Shop til you Drop!

My dear friends Melissa and Brenda came up from Iowa this weekend and we all stayed in a hotel near the Mall of America.   It was Girls' Weekend and we had a blast!  It officially started with dinner at Red Lobster followed by shopping at IKEA.  We gabbed in our hotel room til all hours Friday night and got up early Saturday morning.  By 10 AM we were cruising the mall and shopped our carefully planned list of stores until about 2 PM.  We lunched at Cracker Barrel and then hit the Burnsville Mall.  By that time we were just dead but revived ourselves in the hotel pool and had a quiet evening crafting in our room, painting our toenails and grazing for supper on all the great snacky foods we'd brought.  I hadn't seen those two since the wedding but this kind of weekend was long overdue!  We had such a great time and I am sure we'll do this again.  I just hope that in the coming years, I will be able to drive them to the different quirky stores and attractions in the city.

 I knit each of them a Wingspan scarf out of Loops and Threads Woodland yarn that I got on clearance at Michael's.  I just fell in love with this yarn because it was on clearance but also because it reminds me of Kauni yarn the way it slowly changes color.  It has a much softer hand that Kauni which feels coarser and itchier.  I literally bought bags and bags of the stuff.  This is a a jewel tones colorway that looked like Brenda.

 This is the more neutral palette I used for Melissa.  Years ago I knit a taupe ruffle scarf for her after she mentioned she'd had one years before and loved it but lost it somewhere.  This colorway reminded me of that scarf.  The pattern calls for 8 scallops but I made these a little longer with 11.  In all honesty, I think this would be better even longer and next time would do maybe 13 or 15 scallops.

These photos were taken on the bed of our hotel room because I raced all week to finish them in time for the weekend and literally wove the ends in that evening in the room.  Here is a close up of the color changes.  I've already started another one with a different colorway just to see what it is going to look like!