We had another fantastic trip to bassoon camp this year. I can’t even begin to tell y’all how much it’s like coming home every time we drive into camp. Seeing old friends, making new ones and revisiting that very special place where we met is a priceless yearly event. This year was extra special in that we were able to get the quartet of special friends that will be playing at our wedding together for the first time to rehearse and perform a bit and it literally brought tears to my eyes. And I never thought a bassoon quartet version of the baby elephant walk could do that to me. Yes, to say we’re going to be having a slightly non-traditional bit of music played in the time before our also non-traditional ceremony begins would be a bit of an understatement (March to the Scaffold anyone?! ) and I love it so much!!

Another unique thing this year was that I got to teach yoga during camp! I offered classes at 6:45am and 8pm on the mat and an 11am chair yoga class for the less mobile. It was a fantastic experience for me all the way around and from the feedback I got it was a great experience for those that took the classes as well. To my great shock, the 6:45am class was more popular than the 8pm which I’m going to assume was because that later class fell during masterclass time, something that was pretty much impossible to avoid with the very tight camp schedule.

My own personal transformation as a teacher during the week was tangible. I started the first class full of butterflies in my stomach and by the end of the week things were coming easily and flowing well. It was hard to come up with a new dharma talk every day and I had to work at keeping things varied and interesting but I think I accomplished that goal. Part of that may have had something to do with being bolstered mid session by flying back to NJ for my Teacher Training graduation (which I’ll talk about more in another post), but either way it was good to feel progress.

Most of all, the feeling of making a difference with my work is something I’m trying to hold close as I’ve come back to “reality” this week. The 4 beautiful ladies that took the chair yoga class were so enthusiastic and such and inspiration and such great teachers to me that I decided to give them all a little token at the end of the week. There are several rock shops in that area, so I went to one and picked out some pretty little polished stones. I let them each choose one and told them to keep it in their pocket as a reminder to breathe each day. As we were preparing to leave and I said goodbye to one of these wonderful souls, guess what she pulled out of her pocket to show me? I’m glad I was able to excuse myself to keep packing fast enough so she couldn’t see me cry.

Of course, there’s always the silly stuff that happens at camp. Some of it isn’t fit for public consumption, but you’ve got to love the “Wildacres Bobsled Team”

And the “Drunk-a-coaster”

There’s also a silent auction throughout the course of camp and we won several things this year. One was this beautiful handmade wooden cutting board:

And then there was this collection of handmade baskets by our friend Cathy (who will also be playing at our wedding)

The middle one is a lazy susan!!

We also had the great fortune to bring back some of our first wedding presents. We had made a registry with Sarah last year and some of my family had gotten together and paid for some of what we asked for already. So to avoid shipping we brought them home ourselves.

The picture really doesn’t do them justice, but aren’t they beautiful? We’ve got ten of each of these and a large serving bowl and we love them so much!

Before we knew it, it was time to go. We took our time on the way home and did something we’ve been meaning to do for a long time. Go to the Virginia Safari Park!

It was well worth the price of admission just for the laughs. I’m not sure what part was funnier, but the camel that stole the food bucket from me is right up there with the emu that charged the car and the zebra that wiped its nose on the window! Here’s a small selection of the pictures we took:

In case you couldn’t guess, I love the piglets!!

You can find the rest in this flickr set.

Overall a fantastic time! There’s much more that’s gone on since then that I want to talk about but you’ll just have to be patient with me as I do a little catch-up. For now we’re looking toward our next vacation — OUR HONEYMOON!!

I had a great time at WOOL this weekend! I went up with Sairy and Sharon and still can’t believe we fit all of our crap AND all of my fiber in Sharon’s car with room to spare! WOOT! I had a serious bout of camnesia during the weekend but I did manage to get a couple of pictures.

Sairy making friends with a local moose when we stopped for souvenirs.

The view down the lake just before we left

Besides all the fun and the spinning and hanging out with a fun crowd there was one other major highlight for me. Doing yoga outside the Lake House Saturday morning. I don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing yoga outside before and it was really something to look up to the sky and actually see SKY! Doing heart openers was not a problem during that practice I must say!

You really should just head over to Tina’s blogpost about the weekend for the real low down. And pictures of a great use for fun fur. Trust me. You won’t be disappointed. And many thanks again to Tina for everything she does to make this weekend possible for all of us!

I got a ton of spinning done during the weekend. I made some serious progress on the yarn for my wedding shawl.

I know it doesn’t look like much, but that’s many hours of work! And I’m still not through the first batt, but I’m close! Kim exclaimed at one point that it was so thin she couldn’t even see it. I also was moved away from more than once because of the breeze my wheel was creating while I was spinning. I guess the fast whorl and treadling like a mofo might have had something to do with it. And it was cold. Dang cold. Low 50s at night! No one needed any extra breeze!

When I couldn’t stand spinning white any more I picked up a braid of my own Superwash merino in Camo (similar to this braid) and spun that up in just a couple of hours. I plied it at home and it came out like this.

(Still in need of a bath.)

I have high hopes that it might become a Button Up Neckwarmer from the last issue of Spin Off. We’ll see.

I also bought some destashed merino from Kim that I spun in the evening and plied at home.

(Also needing a bath.)

Turned out to be about 150 yards of two ply. HWJF likes it so it may turn into another cowl or something for him.

The spinning needs a rest for now though. My knees need a break. And I’m busy knitting something with some other handspun….

Shhh!! If you know what it is, don’t say! It’s a surprise!

I am sorry I have been neglecting you but time just seems to be slipping away from me these days. There’s Reiki to be done and yoga books to study and all manner of other things.

Like trying to eat a giant lobster on our trip to Maine this past weekend.

But settling for the real thing. Three of the real thing at once no less!

(Lemme tell ya, best meal of my LIFE!)

We also got acquainted for the 1st time with some of my future family members.

And HWJF got his own version of lobster.

And when I wasn’t stuffing my face I managed to enjoy the amazing weather and NOT get my scar burned.

So you see? Totally too busy dear blog. And now I’m off to WOOL tomorrow! There just aren’t enough hours in the day! But don’t worry, I am knitting…

And making sure a certain fluffy princess stays cool….

I promise I’ll be back next week. Really!

I’m back in NJ again and ready to share the crafty stuff I’ve been doing lately with y’all.

First off, on the way down to camp we stopped in Roanoke, VA for the night. To my surprise, DPUTiger was working an event nearby and asked if we could do dinner or something!

We had a great dinner at a downtown BBQ joint that we had been to before and then took an adventure out to find ice cream. The place was rather charming, what with the Big Ass Umbrella and all.

See? I wasn’t kidding. It was huge. HWJF couldn’t resist a picture (even with the iPhone at night). The ice cream he had was of similar size. I do believe a fun time was had by all and I was glad we could spend some time with Amy considering it was her birthday and I truly believe that No One should have to work on their birthday!

At bassoon camp, I mostly spent my crafting time spinning. I’m starting to think about fall shows for Zarzuela’s Fibers (which I hope to open again sometime this week!) and making samples for display in the booth. With that in mind, I took some of my “Blue Jeans and Leather Shoes” colorway in superwash merino and spun it up into a two ply yarn.

I sent this yarn and one other home with our friend Gerry who is a wonderful knitter and will be knitting up a sample for me in this yarn.

The other spinning project I worked on was sort of a test run for a new colorway and a return to making a true three ply yarn.

It seemed to take forever but I’m very happy with the results. It turned out to be a good solid sock weight yarn, which was exactly what I was going for. I’m not sure how many more skeins of this there are in my future, but I’m pleased with how the colors worked out in this merino-tencel fiber. What do y’all think?

There was also a bit of knitting on the trip. I’ve been in a “finish old projects” mood so I took this pair of socks with me that had been on the needles since last August!

Narraganset Bay Socks

Pattern: Narraganset Bay Socks from “A Fine Fleece” by Lisa Lloyd
Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun sport (2 balls)
Needles: Size 1 knitpicks
Knit: 8.27.08-6.7.09

I really love the end product with these socks but knitting them felt like it took forever and a day. I thought the pattern would be interesting to knit, but either I just wasn’t in the right mood or knitting and purling just wasn’t enough to keep my attention.

The yarn was a bit splity and the needles quite sharp so that may have had something to do with it. Still, I’m glad I made them. I think they are quite pretty and will be a good addition to the winter wardrobe.

Lest you think that I’ve turned into a slow sock knitter, I spent the last week while I was home with my parents making up for my failure to get my Mom a pair of socks for Mother’s Day (nevermind that my surgery was the next day and I was a bit preoccupied ).

They’re just a plain old pair of stockinette toe up socks using my usual construction. I knit them in two different colorways of Blue Moon’s Sock Candy, alternating the yarns every couple of rows to blend the colors. Mom has wide feet in a size 10, so I was worried that I would have enough yardage to get a complete pair out of them.

I really had no reason to worry because I ended up with plenty left over. I knit these in about 7 days. Much more reasonable time frame there. I finished them just before we left for me to come back to NJ yesterday. Perfect timing.

Getting back to the actual trip away, no vacation would be complete without at least a little stash acquisition. Believe it or not, it took until just about our last day on the road for me to buy yarn. I looked in some of the usual places, but I think I’ve honestly gotten to the point where if the colors don’t call out to me or there isn’t something really special about it, I’m just not too anxious to buy yarn. I have plenty of stash to work through at the moment and with job concerns and hospital bills still possibly on the horizon, it just doesn’t seem that important. But we stopped at two yarn stores on our way back through Roanoke and I came home with these three yarns:

From the top they are:

Blue Ridge Yarns Kaleidoscope
Wendy Happy
and
Cherry Tree Hill Supersock

Not sure if I’ll knit them up or something else during SOS’09 just yet, but they’ll wait for me no matter when I use them.

So I think that just about covers it!

I’ve got grand plans for this (hopefully) last week that I’m off work. We’ll see how much I actually get done. I just want to thank you all again for all the well wishes I’ve received on my recovery. Things are going well and I see my surgeon on Thursday to find out if I can drive again and go back to work next Monday. I’ll keep you posted!

Finally, make sure you go check out the SOS’09 group later today. We’re gearing up for the start this weekend and I hope to have a good announcement or two to share. See you there!

Tags: knitting, Spinning, Travel

Thank you all so very much for all the congratulatory comments on the last post!! Definitely a new commenting record. We are, of course, insanely happy. The response from our friends of many stripes and family has been overwhelming. I just keep telling HWJF how incredibly loved I feel. It’s really been amazing and has been so awesome to share our joy with so many. So much so, that it’s been hard to bring myself to write a new post, but lest you think I’ve fallen on my way to happy land, here I am.

I thought I’d answer a couple of the questions that I seem to keep getting from various factions.

1. No, I will NOT be knitting a wedding dress. Plans for a shawl have been in the works for some time however. There will be a blend of cormo, angora and maybe some silk, spun up and knit by me if I can find the time between now and then.

2. No, we will not be getting married at Wildacres. Sorry bassoon camp friends!

3. No, we will not be getting married at Rhinebeck. Sorry fiber friends! Also, although we are aiming for fall of 2010, do not worry! We will not be picking a date to interfere with us attending Rhinebeck in the near or distant future. A girl has to have her priorities after all.

4. No, we do not have a place or date yet. Let’s just say the process of dealing with those two issues got into full swing last week and I’ve already been totally stressed out. We are hoping to have that nailed down by April. I’m hopeful, but a bit panicked about that at the moment.

I think those are the main ones. I’m sure I will be posting some details of the planning process here as I go along, but I certainly don’t want this to turn into a wedding blog and I’m sure that’s not what you come here for either. You should excuse me if there’s a bit of a production slow down in the coming weeks though as we try to find our place and date. I’ve felt it already. My head is still in the clouds and quite frankly I’m trying to enjoy that feeling while it lasts as much as possible. The stress is already rearing its ugly head and we’re gonna try and stomp that down if we can. But I have found myself staring out the window instead of knitting on the way to or from work lately. And I haven’t touched a wheel since before we left for Chicago. Priorities are a bit different at the moment I guess. That’s normal, right?

So let’s go back to the rest of that trip to Chicago for a bit. After the excitement of getting engaged, we spent a lovely few days enjoying the rest of our trip. As you saw in the engagement photos, we took Amtrak there and back and got a sleeper car for the longer legs of the trip. I don’t think I was quite prepared for just how small the room really was, but we seemed to get used to it pretty quickly.

What you can’t really see in this pic is that HWJF’s feet are nearly touching the back of my seat and the other bed folded down from above. Cozy for sure. We didn’t sleep too well on the way out (wonder why?!? ) but we slept like rocks on the way back. We got into Chicago around 9am on Wednesday and hit the ground running. The first stop was the Shedd Aquarium:

My only complaint with getting to the aquarium was that we had to park at Soldier field and I mistakenly thought there was going to be a bus. Hence, the lack of hat. And it was cold!! And not a short walk! Obviously I survived. It was a great aquarium and we definitely enjoyed it. My favorite animal was this funky breed of seahorse:

Next it was on to the planetarium which was another not very short walk away on the same campus.

See the wind whipping those flags? Cold!! But inside was a lot better. Unfortunately at this point the travel schedule and lack of sleep was starting to catch up with me so I was a little more tired and less interested than I should have been. We watched two shows, one of which was in a modern theater with a modern projection device. The other in the country’s first planetarium which was more like a fair ride than what you would expect, but quite interesting none the less. I must have learned a thing or two despite the tired because I found myself looking at the sky after yoga one night last week and was able to find Orion which I hadn’t been able to do before.

We finished the day by finally being able to check into our hotel, crashing for a two hour nap, getting an amazing dinner at Brazzas and I enjoyed the opening reception at the conference.

Thursday was all business for me during the day while HWJF made a trip to the Fox Bassoon factory to pick up his bassoon and have a tour.

You can see the full set of pictures from his trip here. I’m a tiny bit jealous that I didn’t get to go along, but I had plenty to do. Here’s one interesting shot from his trip.

A bunch of bassoons ready for keywork.

That evening we had a dinner of deep dish pizza (which was good but made me realize what an east coast girl I am) and I ran back to the conference for our second annual SnB where I got to meet none other than Franklin!

Franklin pictured with Laura Gayle.

He was a ton of fun and was kind enough to gift us all with a tote bag featuring his art work. I had a great time knitting with my fellow librarians for a bit and HWJF was kind enough to hang around and wait for me.

Then we took a very cold walk over to the John Hancock center to get a view of Chicago from above.

The next day went so fast it was almost a total blur. I did more conference stuff and then HWJF and I took a quick run through the Art Institute of Chicago where we both got to see a couple of favorite works of art.

That was followed by a mad dash through the Chicago Symphony store. And lest you think I’d leave a town without yarn or fiber of some sort, HWJF dropped me off at Loopy Yarns while he went to get our car so we could head back to the train station.

What a lovely shop! Franklin had recommended it and I was sorry I couldn’t have stayed for the event they were having that evening. I managed to take advantage of their sale and a couple of skeins of Lorna’s Laces went home with me. The shop owners were very kind and I ended up going home with another tote bag featuring Franklin’s artwork as well. At this point my back was not good and I had the beginnings of a whopper of a cold, and they were nice enough to let me sit and wait for HWJF inside after I had made my purchases.

After that it was back on Amtrak for our 24+ hour journey back home. I have to say I am very much in love with train travel now and I think HWJF would agree. It was definitely one of the more relaxed travel experiences I’ve had in a while and not worrying about how much shampoo I was bringing with me or taking my shoes off certainly helped. We also were able to take advantage of the nicer lounges that Amtrak offers its first class passengers (which includes roomette ticket holders like us) and that made things even more comfortable. Knowing that our luggage would arrive when we did was also quite nice. I would definitely do it again!

So I hope you enjoyed this little travelogue of the rest of our Chicago trip. Next time there will be actual knitting content including a finished engagement sweater and more!

Tags: Travel, wedding

First off, I want to thank you all so much for your very thoughtful, insightful and interesting comments on my two rather heady posts last week. I really enjoyed reading the responses and thinking about the points that many of you raised. It’s a lot to think about. Balance definitely seems to be key, and trying to find it in our crazy world right now can be so tough. It’s nice to know that so many of you out there are struck by many of the same things. So thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings with me.

Second, I just have to type it. President Obama. Wow. That feels good! Here’s hoping that the hope and joy many of us are feeling right now will last more than the first 100 days.

We had a fantastic time in New Hampshire and Portland, Maine this weekend (which oddly enough, was cut short by the fact that my dept. has suspended Saturday work until May. Go figure?!). We started off with bassoon day at UNH which was quite an enjoyable and interesting time. Instead of a single guest artist, a bassoon quartet made up of the UNH professor and three of her colleagues from various groups including the Boston and Portland symphonies did the class jointly. Interesting to get so many differing perspectives at once. I hope the young people that were there got as much out of it as we did! We also got to reconnect with some bassoon camp friends which is always a good time.

After that it was on to Portland where we checked into The Inn at St. John. It’s a lovely B&B and the accommodations were quite comfortable. The price was right too since the room was nearly half the price of what it would have been in the summer! Here’s our room:

And the front of the building from the street:

Saturday night we took in a Portland Pirates game (the Sabres AHL affiliate and yet another reason for me to want to move to Portland!). Oddly enough, we must have been in serious vacation mode already because we both forgot our phones, HWJF forgot his wallet and I didn’t bring the camera, so there is no photographic evidence. It was a good game. Unfortunately, the Pirates lost (although they *were* outplayed most of the game) and with only a couple of min. left one player got a puck to the face and some missing teeth had to be retrieved. Ouch!

As you can see from the picture above, we had a teeny bit of snow while we were there. 15 inches all told! This was the car when we went out Sunday morning:

But the Subaru, she never disappoints! We drove around all day in it without a problem. We did a lot of things during the day, but the highlight was probably taking in the Art Museum.

And I finally got FO pics of a certain hat!

Handspun Turn a Square Hat

Pattern: Turn a Square by Jarod Flood aka BrooklynTweed
Yarn: Hand dyed merino, spun on my Matchless and navajo plied. Seen here.
Needles: Size 7 knitpics harmony circs
Knit: 1/13-14/2009
Mods: Because of my gauge difference I used 88 stitches and didn’t do any increases

This is another “why the heck didn’t I think of that” pattern. So simple yet so brilliant. It takes the mind of someone with talent to realize that a square will fit a round head. Seriously.

I really enjoyed the process of creating this hat from the dyeing on up. If you’ll recall, I dyed 4, 1 ounce strips of roving in three colors. I spun 1 ounce of the black, then 0.5 ounces of the green, 0.5 ounces of black, 0.5 ounces of blue, etc. and navajo plied the yarn to keep the colors together so they would stripe. I was then able to just knit the hat without doing anything special with the yarn and only needing to weave in two ends. I did use the “jogless jog” technique described in the pattern to keep the stripes as true as possible. I’ve had a couple of requests for a tutorial on that, which I hope to do soon.

Despite my fears, I actually had more than enough yarn and HWJF lamented that there wasn’t more of the blue in the hat. But it does fit and he is happy with it and I haven’t had to bug him to wear it (too much anyway ). I think this was definitely a successful project and it got good use while we were in Portland!

At bassoon day I cast on for another of these hats in Cascade 220 and Noro Silk garden that I picked up at Modern Yarn before I left.

Finished it in the dark in the car on the way to Portland. Not a bad use of a day! This one is going to be donated to the Music Library Association for their silent auction at the conference next month. I have enough yarn to eek out another one and hope to do so before the conference.

Despite my serious attempts at being good, we did visit two yarn stores while in Portland. The first was KnitWit, which was a lovely little store with a good selection of luxury and workhorse yarns. And with giant mittens on the wall!

I picked up a skein of Trekking that will, no doubt, grace the feet of HWJF at some point.

On our way out of town we also stopped by Seaport Yarns. I find this totally humorous since I have yet to get to the one in NYC, despite working in midtown, but I’ve been to the one in Maine! Another small, well stocked shop, with a good selection of sock yarn. I definitely got the feeling that they are more geared to the online business while in the shop though. Still, I managed to find something that had to go home with me.

I think after the cold and snow of the weekend, and with thoughts turning to our coming trip to Chicago next month, I was thinking “We both need another warm cowl!”. Not sure what pattern I’ll use for these, but the softness of the yarn is mighty appealing and it’s going to be tough to stay away from for a while.

There’s still a sweater that needs buttons though…

Tags: Maine, snow, Travel, yarn shops

I guess I’d better tell you about Christmas before 2008 comes to an end! I’m having a hard time trying to think of what to tell you. There was food, there was family, there was shopping. It’s all kind of a blur at this point. HWJF’s parents gave us a lovely holiday as always. Among the gifts was a bread board, which is sort of a rite of passage in his family. I guess we have to be grown ups now. There was also this beautiful vase they brought back from Kaiser on their trip to Germany.

Shown on a placemat my Mom needlepointed for us. It’s got bunnies!!!

I told HWJF he’ll just have to buy me flowers more often now.

There was one funny story I have to share. We stopped in Freeport on our way up to visit LLBean. After another awesome late lunch at Gritty’s we headed over to the Bean campus and what do I see on the side of the road but two people with live sheep!

I know the pic sucks, but it was the best I could do. They must have had a living nativity going on or something and they were wrapping it up. I got back to the street just in time to shoot a couple of pics and watch them load the two sheep in the back of…

A SUBARU WAGON!!!

This is much more funny when you know that HWJF’s car is a very similar one and there have been multiple jokes about me not being able to take his car to a Sheep and Wool Fest for fear that I will come home with a whole sheep in the back. I don’t know where he would ever get that idea. Needless to say, we had a good laugh at that one!

Of course, I know that you mostly come here for the fibery stuff, so why don’t we just get to that?! When we are in Maine for Christmas, we’ve begun to make it a tradition to visit Yardgoods in Waterville on the 26th for their annual sale. I love this shop! They are very friendly and have a great selection of yarns and 20% off doesn’t hurt either! After much debate with myself I decided on yarn for two sweaters, one of which I can’t believe I found the pattern for, as I’ve been looking around at it online for quite sometime now and haven’t really been able to locate a copy. Wouldn’t you figure I wasn’t looking for it at the time? This lopi book:

Has this sweater which I adore:

I kind of have a thing for roses. Of course, since I get to pick the colors, my roses will be BLUE! I’m sure you are shocked. Since there was no lite lopi to be had and it got the same gauge, I choose some lamb’s pride instead.

Then I found some DIC Classy hiding on a bottom shelf. I’ve heard good things about this yarn (although I hear now that it stretches when it hits water, which can be resolved by a quick trip in the dryer- wouldn’t you know our dryer died a couple of weeks ago?!?) and there were two lovely colors. Unfortunately the rich brown that I really loved was only one lonely skein, so I went with this instead:

It’s going to grow up to be a Red Rings pullover, because after I saw Kim’s, I decided I needed one.

One other item followed me home. This shop has everything you could possibly imagine for crafting, so I took advantage.

Expect to see that on my shop materials very soon.

The next day HWJF was kind enough to humor my still burning desire from this summer to visit Halcyon. So we ventured out on the 2 hour drive and let me just tell you, Totally Worth It. It’s a lovely shop with knitting, spinning, felting, rug hooking, weaving and other supplies. They have a ton of books, all sorts of samples ready made and great shelving and lighting so you can wander about and find things. The help was also kind, friendly and knowledgeable. It was a great experience. They weren’t having a sale per se, but I did find some things I haven’t found elsewhere. First up, two more bobbins for the wheels:

These are the high speed bobbins that go with the high speed whorl I bought at Rhinebeck. I was getting good take up without them, but I have some plans for some serious lace spinning this year so I thought it was time to make the investment. I have yet to have a chance to try them out.

I also found Harrisville Shetland on cones! I plan to make two pairs of these mittens, one set for me and one for HWJF and I should have plenty of yarn to do it with now. We decided on a russet red and a dark blue:

I have dreams of making the Ivy League vest someday, which also calls for this yarn, so I think this will be a good test run.

As if all that wasn’t enough, on the way back home we stopped in Portland and by a stroke of luck, Tess was open on a Sunday! I had a really nice time talking with the owner (and being greeted by her daughter’s dog!) about dyeing and festivals and such and tried to put the bug in her ear to come back to Rhinebeck soon! You may recall that I bought two skeins of her superwash merino this summer, which I only returned home to find out was not enough to knit Portland. I wasn’t able to get another skein, so I remedied the problem another way:

This picture doesn’t do the yarn justice. Trust me. But I have enough for Portland now.

As many of you noticed, there was also another stop on the way back. After spending the night with friends in CT we took a quick detour to Webs! I haven’t been back there since I moved to NJ in 2006 so it was really awesome to get the chance to go back. I visited the new bead store, which was quite nice, but didn’t have what I was looking for at the moment (and honestly, I walk past 12 bead stores every day I go to work that are at least twice the size) so there were no purchases there. I saved it for the yarn!

We were on a bit of a tight schedule, but I managed to make it out only one min. after my deadline. And that was mostly because the place was Crazy Busy. Gotta love that end of the year sale. I was very glad we got there when they opened! By this point, my credit card was pretty much screaming at me to knock it off, so I managed to limit myself to yarn for just one more sweater. Colorwork is definitely on my goal list for 2009 (more on that next time) and I’ve been dreaming of a Dale of Norway sweater for quite some time. What should I happen to find as a browsed their patterns?

Say hello to Sirdal, who has been patiently sitting in my queue for quite some time. I’ll be knitting this baby in a dark navy blue and white, because lets face it, this one is going to last a while and it had better be in colors that I’ll wear!

I also found the Canadian Olympic commemorative edition booklet and will no doubt have a couple of those sweaters in the queue none too soon. Especially Lake Louise (since I’ve actually been there)!

I’m so excited about these projects I don’t know what to start first! And you should have seen the car. HWJF started calling it the “jersey wooly” there was so much yarn! I guess it might have been cheaper if we’d flown after all.

I hope you have a wonderful New Year’s Eve! I plan to kick off 2009 on the blog with a 2008 wrap up and then it will be on to a new year of knitting and spinning fun. See you then!

Tags: planning, sweaters, Travel, yarn

Happy Monday everyone!

We’ve just arrived home a few hours ago. HWJF is already at work. I’m attempting to unpack and get organized to go back to work tomorrow. It was a wonderful trip, full of good food, great company and a whole lot of shopping. However, this:

Represents far more credit card damage than I care to acknowledge publicly right at this moment. I’m sorting out, and when I’m done you can be sure that I’ll recount the goodness for you. Until then, I hope you all had a Happy Holiday Season so far and I’ll try to dig out from under the yarn pile before the end of 2008!

Tags: Christmas, fiber, Travel, yarn

I’m finding myself more and more pressed for time these days which is putting the blog on the back burner, much to my displeasure. I hope you’ll forgive me while I try and tread water through this last week of SOS (yes, last week, can you believe it?!) and prepare for a coming storm of which I will tell you more soon.

In the meantime, a million thank yous to the incomparable Tina for all of her hard work to make W.O.O.L. 2008 a roaring success! I was lucky enough to be able to participate for about half the time this year at the rustic Wiawaka retreat center and I’m quite glad I made it happen. The grounds were lovely:

And I’m sure for those that enjoy water, that was lovely too. These parasailers must have thought so!

The accommodations were definitely on the rustic side, but I think I’ve been spoiled a bit by Bassoon Camp. Still, they were more than adequate for what we were there for. I was so busy spinning and or knitting most of the time that I didn’t get many pictures, but here is the common room that we all gathered to work in during the evenings from above.

There was show and tell on Friday night which was really fun. Getting to see everyone’s projects and hear the stories behind some of them was really interesting. Saturday we did a silent auction to benefit the retreat center. I offered up a braid from my shop and came away with a huge bag of llama fleece! I was surprised to win. Not sure what I’ll do with it yet as it still needs to be cleaned, but there are ideas percolating. Nearly $200 was raised! Go us!

I was happy to hang out with old friends and meet some new ones while getting some time away. There is talk of something during the winter but if that doesn’t happen I’ll be happy to see you all again next summer!

While I was there I managed to finish this yarn:

Zarzuela’s Fibers BFL Sock – Roses in the Dark Colorway. I’m still deciding if I want to sell it or not. This was for the Ravelympics and is my third and final cross of the finish line (if I can ever get it posted on Ravelry!).

I also finished this:

Zarzuela’s Fibers Merino/Silk – Mint Julep Colorway. This is a new fiber for me to start carrying in the shop and I certainly couldn’t sell any until I tried it out myself! Luckily it was a lovely spin and I’ll be happy to start making it available when I can get it dyed. This skein may go up for sale as well if I can stand to part with it. It’s merino and silk people!! It’s a hard decision!

I was also able to get through another big chunk of spinning but didn’t come out with a finished yarn on the other end so we’ll save that for another day. However, I do want to share my 2nd Ravelympic finish with you although you may have already seen it:

Zarzuela’s Fibers Merino Handspun – DC Sunrise colorway (inspired by daily sunrise pictures posted by Wendy on Plurk), 660 yards, approximately fingering weight. I couldn’t be more proud of this yarn (and considering it took over 2 hours to ply alone I suppose I should be!) and the fact that Wendy is happy with it makes it even better. I can’t wait to see her shawl! Doing custom spinning orders is proving to be quite fun (interested? Leave a comment or convo me on etsy) and I have another in the works right now. It helps me let all the dyeing go out the door to new homes some days.

So for those of you keeping score, that means that I did not make the finish line with the socks. Would you believe that I finished them about 36 hours too late?! Ahhh well… the triumph is in the trying sometimes! Pictures of those soon along with the pair that I finished a mere 24 hours after that! Sheesh.

Tags: SOS'08, Spinning

… how’s about I tell y’all about Maine!

It was awesome!

No wait! There’s more!

Despite leaving after work on Wednesday we didn’t actually get into Maine until Thursday morning. It seems that we must have officially reached “old” or something because the prospect of getting in at 1am or later did not appeal to us this year. We stayed with friends near Boston Wednesday night and were on our way Thursday morning.

First stop was Portland. There’s something so very charming to me about this city. Perhaps it’s the smallness compared to my daily fight with NYC, perhaps it’s the smell of salt on the air that instantly makes me crave steamed clams and lobster, or maybe it’s the people who totally dress like I would want to dress on a daily basis and don’t seem to notice that they’re special. Either way, I just love Portland. And this time around I finally got to go to Tess’ Designer Yarns! Every time we’ve tried before it hasn’t been open but this time we were lucky. I was so excited I didn’t even get a picture, but you better believe I got yarn!

It wasn’t an easy decision, but I ended up with these two skeins of their Superwash Merino. It’s so silky and the colors just imidiately grabbed me when I walked in the door. There is a touch of buyer’s remorse with these only because I probably should have gotten a third skein. Now that I’m back to Ravelry access, I find that the sweaters I had in mind need a touch more yardage. I may just call them to see if I can get more though. I also bought sock yarn for HWJF which has become the yarn of choice for his Ravelympic socks.

I didn’t start them until Saturday because I wanted to work on the Morning Surf Scarf first (more on that another day) and I wasn’t too sure how they were going to work out, but they’re starting to grow on me. I decided to go with this instead of the handspun that I had originally planned when I discovered the gauge was going to be way off otherwise. HWJF seems to like them so far and that’s all that matters to me.

We almost literally tripped over another yarn store while we wandered the city, Central Yarn Shop. This was a really cute store with a wide variety of yarns and some really interesting samples, not the least of which were some with a serious lobster theme that we saw in the window.

We picked up another skein of sock yarn there. This time Berroco Sox.

HWJF says that I “hog all the blues” so this one is for him too.

We made several other stops including a couple of record stores, an asian grocery (hello Pocky!), L.L.Bean outlet and a Stonewall Kitchen to stock up on our favorite Sunday breakfast, but I think HWJF was most happy when we found out we could take a tour here:

While the video was interesting the “tour” was less than stellar. They basically took us into the packaging room to show us all of this:

Which was kind of cool to see all the bottles going around but less than what we were expecting. But hey, it was free and there was a tasting afterward. I’m not a beer girl so I gave the boy my samples. Obviously, we went home with a couple of beverages.

Then it was on to Freeport for lunch at Gritty’s which was Oh.My.God. amazing. Try the lobster bisque if you’re ever there and the pulled pork over sweet potato fries with cheese and maple sour cream. Sounds gross but was amazingly delish! The food was so amazing but we ended up scarfing it down because it was 3pm and we found a brochure for an Alpaca farm nearby that closed at 5pm! Meet the alpacas of Winters Gone Farm!

We only had 30 min. before they closed by the time we made it there (who knew there was traffic in Maine?!?) so I didn’t want to keep the owners, but I did manage to score 8 oz. of the softest spinning fiber ever! Expect to see that spun up sometime soon!

Our day ended by going back for the mandatory stop at L.L.Bean (it’s a state law according to my Dad ) and then heading home.

On another day we also made it to another yarn shop that I hadn’t been able to get into before, Pins and Needles. It was a really lovely little shop with a great selection of different types of yarn, most of it from Cascade. We picked out this skein of Cascade’s new sock yarn, Heritage.

Since this was sort of HWJF’s birthday trip, most of the sock yarns ended up being for him. But one ended up coming home for me:

This time it’s J. Knits which is another yarn I’ve not yet knitted with. We picked this one up at our favorite stop in Waterville, Yardgoods. We also had to visit our favorite lunch place in Waterville, Big G’s. The sandwhiches? Insanely huge!

And totally yummy. Of course no trip to Maine would be complete without a stop at Gifford’s either, especially when our favorite flavor (Pumpkin!) was available.

Yeah. Totally raining and cold. Did we care? No way.

We also managed to take in a concert at the New England Music Camp in between the raindrops.

Note the handknit socks and the new shoes.

There was also a visit with HWJF’s father’s turkeys.

And the hilarity of HWJF trying to find eggs for us for breakfast one morning.

Before we knew it, it was time to head home. Only we decided to make a little detour. HWJF’s parents were nice enough to give us two bikes to bring back to NJ, so we decided to stop and try them out.

I’d never been to Kennebunkport and I must say it is a very cute town with a lovely beach.

Of course, I can only look at the water from a distance, so I made HWJF go find me some sea shells.

Unfortunately it was 5pm before we knew it and we were still in Maine! We didn’t get home until 11pm and well… you know the rest.

Someday I hope we can live in Maine. It just seems like it would be a good fit for us in so many ways. In the meantime, I’ve definitely added to my list of places I want more time to explore!

Did I mention we’re driving up there for Christmas?!

Tags: alpacas, fiber, Maine, Travel, yarn