Spud and Chloë at the Farm!

Wow, this weekend was a whirlwind! I was lucky enough to get a coveted spot in Susan B. Anderson's knitting workshop at Stitcher's Crossing, in Madison. The event was in celebration of Susan's new book, Spud and Chloë at the Farm. Lucky for me, Paul plays in a yearly curling fundraiser, Curl vs. Cancer, with his father, and it happened to be the same weekend as the workshop! The fundraiser is put on by the Madison Curling Club and they raised a lot of money for cancer research, which is wonderful!

We drove to Madison Friday, and had a great Wisconsin fish fry with his parents and then we got schooled in Euchre. Saturday morning Paul's sisters and mom and I found my bridesmaids dresses and had lunch and then I drove to Stevens Point to visit Emily. She turned 21 on Tuesday and I was thrilled to get to spend the night with her. We had a great night of wine and movies. Can you believe she had never seen When Harry Met Sally?!

I raced back to Madison Sunday morning and got to Stitcher's Crossing in the nick of time. In the class, we were given a book preview pamphlet and the complete pattern for Mice, from the new book.

All of the projects are so adorable! I can't wait to get mine; the books are shipping at the end of March! There were about 20 women in the class and most were from the Madison area. There was another woman from Green Bay, however, who, like me, arranged her entire family's weekend around the class! And I thought it was just me! The class was two hours long, so we all tried to complete a mouse, while watching Susan give demonstrations and checking out all of the amazing samples she brought from her other books. I first learned of Susan when I bought Itty-Bitty Toys from a shop here in Davenport. By the end of class I had almost finished a mouse. I just needed to make the feet and stitch on the face. I finished the feet on the car ride home, and I stitched the face on tonight. And here is the finished product!

How cute is that! The book has twelve more patterns, including a barn, fence, and hay bales. I seriously cannot wait to make them all.   The mice are made from Spud and Chloë Sweater, and I probably have enough to make fifteen mice. I'm holding out for the book though, as Susan said she overlapped the yarns in a lot of the patterns, so you don't need to buy as many skeins. I've never knit with Sweater before and it's just as great as everyone says. So easy to work with and knits up beautifully. Another awesome part of the day was that Susan had a bunch of give-aways for us from Blue Sky Alpacas. Patterns, yarn, and the cutest little project bag. It was a wonderful afternoon and definitely worth the drive! Thanks, Susan, for the awesome experience!