The Beginning of the End

That's what this past week has felt like. We have canceled or otherwise bowed out of most of our regular extracurricular social activities from now until the wedding, which is now two weeks from Saturday. This was partly to accommodate some larger wedding-related things, and partly to leave ourselves time to have a freak-out should either of us require.

The weekend before the wedding is the guy's birthday and his bachelor party, and this weekend I am going on a completely mysterious trip that happens to be in Las Vegas (!). Last weekend was the first of our month-long wedding activities, with delicious dim sum on Saturday morning (our favorite place is this one) and then brunch on Sunday with my lovely knitter friends from Purl Jam and beyond. We had tasty food and I showed off my Aphrodite shawl:





Along with coffee, tea, salads, There were some incredibly adorable handmade fruit tarts:



I was under the impression that my friends had organized this brunch in order to

a) spend more time knitting together,
b) see my shawl before the wedding (what can I say? I have a bit of an ego when it comes to this thing),
and
c) make me feel not so bad for missing other fabulous knitting activities while I was busy getting married.

Little did I know that they had something else in mind, something they'd been planning with my other knitting friends near and far for MORE than a YEAR.





I was completely shocked and amazed. It's one of the most gorgeous things I've ever laid my hands on. And it's insta-warming, as well. The guy and the cat took an instant liking to the blanket as well. And they all kept the secret from me for such a long time it's embarrassing (no, really, I was clueless for so long it's funny).

So, thank you my knitter friends. The blanket is amazing, it's keeping us warm in the San Francisco July fog, and inspiring me to seam up my mitered squares all at once. You are all amazing.