Demonic Progress

Update: My Knitting, Spa, Spinning, and My Knitting Weekends

I need to get caught up on my blog postings! I *think* about writing on my blog a lot.... I don't get to it as much as I should, though. But here goes:

My knitting: I am starting down the backside of the Hanne Falkenberg Ballerina's first sleeve. I love working on this project, but I got distracted by other things. I have not worked on my white shawl at all because I have mentally "put it away" until I finish something else. Neither have I worked on my Hedgerow Socks because they are kind of boring and I am beginning to realize if I am going to put the effort into putting even the simplest texture stitch into socks, I would like it to show at least a little, and it really doesn't. So I have it circling in a hold pattern because I am pretty sure I am going to rip them out and do a different sock; I just don't know what yet. I love this Classic Elite Alpaca Socks yarn, though! It is wonderful to feel and to work with. Lastly, I *ahem* started a new project. It is the Portuguese Fisherwoman's shawl, designed by Shelagh Smith. I am almost half done it and I will soon post more information and pictures... but I am kinda waiting until I get my next shipment of patterns from Shelagh because as soon as you see this shawl you are going to want to make one. I had 29 copies of it for sale at the spa, and Shelagh lent me a model to wear, which I wore Friday night and Saturday. I kept one copy of the pattern for myself, and sold all the other 28 copies at the Spa. I am using a strand of laceweight Douceur et Soie held together with a strand of French Hill Farm's fabulous "French Twist" hand dyed fingering weight merino (the two together make a worsted weight). I am using utterly wonderful glass circular needles... this is my ultimate happy project! I love working on it so much!

The SPAAAAAAAAAAAA (New England Textile Arts group's annual get together in Freeport, Maine) was fabulous and I love Freeport as a venue for this event. It was relaxed, comfortable, and I hope they keep it there. True, I didn't make as much money at it as I usually do, but only a part of that was due to the fact that people are spread out over 3 hotels. For one thing, because it was new, people spent this year exploring and enjoying their hotel; next year or the year after, their hotel will be more familiar and they will venture out more readily. Also, there was bad weather on Friday, and the economy in general held people back. There is also more shopping competition within walking distance in Freeport than there was in Portland. There is more to see and do, so people didn't tend to hang out in the vending area. So as a vendor, I guess I should be unhappy that I made about half of what I usually make at this show, but since I went into it expecting that, and was correct in my assessment, I am pretty happy. And as a participant, I would be crazy not to love having it in Freeport. It is more open, more comfortable, the service was great, there is a ton of stuff to see and do, and it is closer for me to get to.

Spinning. Ahh yes. I haven't spun much since the Fiber Frolic in the summer, and then only for about a week. At the Spa I bought a lovely new Bosworth Spindle, some soft and fluffy blue fiber (can't remember what is in it -- silk? merino? angora? it is yummy, anyway), some great sock yarns from Dye Dreams, a fabulous NEW enterprise who had their debut at the Spa, at the booth next to us. I also got from them some fiber for making striped socks, and some gorgeous cashmere/silk fiber. So once again, I came home with fiber and a new spindle. Pretty good for someone who doesn't spin. I have decided to do "meditation" spinning every morning for 20 minutes..... for twenty minutes, I spin (currently the cashmere/silk blend on my new Bosworth spindle) and do nothing but focus on the spinning itself. I don't think about my worries or make plans and mental lists for the day ahead or think about anything at all. The point is, to think of nothing... and just spin. Focus on the fiber, on the moment, how the fiber feels in my hand, how the spindle looks. I have always heard that meditation is good for you, and I never was much of a person for simple "just-sitting" meditation. I need something to focus on. Spinning is my answer. With only a couple exceptions, I have successfully kept up my meditation spinning every morning. I have a nice kop of fiber on my spindle and something to look forward to every morning. It is a good thing.

In another spinning note, I am finally spinning on my marvelous Merlin Tree creation, the reproduction antique Quebec production wheel that David Paul made for me. It is fabulous and it makes me want to spin forever! I love it! I am spinning the blue fiber I got from the Spinning Bunny at the Spa. My life is now filled with wonderful spinning. :)

Lastly, I have two fabulous knitting weekends coming up: March 14, 15, & 16 and March 28, 29, & 30. This will be my third year! Hard to believe. There is still plenty of room available at both weekends and I hope you can come! We are going to relax, laugh, knit, spin, eat good food, learn a little, and HAVE FUN! If you have signed up for one of the weekends, please note that I am sending a letter to participants this week, as I did the last two years, explaining any items you might need to bring with you for classes and giving directions to the Lord Camden Inn and Unique One. I am really looking forward to these knitting weekends! It will be great to see you there! Many of the participants have now become my friends and I am always happy to see my circle of knitting friends growing :) (Oh by the way, they got a new waffle machine in the breakfast room at the LCI and it is even more fabulous than before! Yummy!)

I guess that is enough for now.... have a great day, and happy knitting! :)

Saturday in the Park with Sock

You can't actually get food in Bar Harbor. Note to travelers: Always always always pack fruit, drinks, nutrition bars, or whatever, since you never know when you will NOT be able to eat a meal (or any meal) when you travel. Last night's delicious supper of a half bag of potato chips left over from the trip up to Ellsworth was, shall we say, unsatisfying. (I couldn't get seated in the hotel restaurant because they were too busy; I went into town to find a restaurant, and not only were they also too busy, but I couldn't find parking anyway.) And this morning, there was a 45 minute wait to get breakfast. You can tell where the restaurants are in Bar Harbor because of the long lines on the sidewalks in front of them. I couldn't even get into the the hotel restaurant, for heaven's sake, due to the four tour buses that had filled the place. Bar Harbor has too many people, and it is mid-October. I guess it is good for business, but ironically, I wanted to get away to be alone and to relax, and I *thought* Bar Harbor in mid-October would be perfect. Leaf-peeping season is usually over by now, but I guess it has been a late leaf season. Oh well, poopy for me.

So having not had supper or breakfast, I went into the only place in Bar Harbor that had food AND had no customers inside, the natural food store; that's telling, no? Apparently tourists don't like whole wheat and tofu. Who knew. So I stocked up on a day's worth of organic fruit, organic drinks, whole wheat fig bars, organic nutrition bars, and I got a big cup of organic coffee to go, with soy milk instead of cream. I would say "Yum!", but well... it was soy milk. In my coffee. Sigh... at least it did have caffeine in it.

I drove down to one of the back entrances to Acadia National Park and arrived at Sand Beach. Did you know you have to pay $10 to get into the National Park? Not that I mind, but I kinda thought the national parks were part of the national budget that our taxes pay for, like a park perk for tax payers, as in U.S. citizens should not have to pay a fee to go to the park that their taxes support. I'm sorry... I am being whiney. It's my conservative, soy-milk-in-my-coffee & too-many-tourists bitchiness catching up with me. I will try to do better!! I will get comments on my post today, you betcha. So to all you people who race forward to tell me how wrong I am and that it is perfectly wonderful to pay a fee for a national park, and I am just being a bitch, I say, Yes!! Today, I am a bitch!!! Tomorrow I will probably feel just fine! And to all my customers whom I have just offended, I deeply apologize. But now you know what I am really like.

Sand Beach is pretty. I had not been there since about my sophomore year in high school. It looked smaller than I remembered. I remembered it as a huge sandy beach, but now that I have been to southern California, Sand Beach looks small. However, it is very beautiful and the surf was really booming. I loved watching the morning sunlight through the tops of the waves as they crested, just before crashing onto the sand. I found a rock to sit on, pulled out my organic nutrition bar and some organic juice, and had breakfast while I watched the waves. The sun was warm and the breeze was cool but pleasant. There were tourists on the beach, but I walked as far away from them as I could and took a seat on a likely rock near the water. Here is where I sat (top picture) and some pictures of the water:

I had untangled my messed-up sock yarn last night, so I got comfy and prepared to cast on 72 stitches onto size 0 dpn's:

I knit a couple of inches and watched both the tide start to come in and the stream of tourists growing more and more numerous, and they had all decided for some reason that where I was sitting was the best place on the beach to be. So I left. But I took a picture of Sock in all his newly-knitted glory on the beach:

I decided to go to my other favorite point in the park, Thunder Hole, which is conveniently located just a bit down from Sand Beach. I did go down and look at it, but did not take any pictures or stick around too long. Although the tide had just turned, it was still a few more minutes before Thunder Hole began thundering -- it was more whispering, at the moment. I would have stayed, because one of my favorite things about Acadia National Park had been hearing the huge booming thunder and seeing the giant explosion of cold, salty water as the waves pounded into the cave at the end of the narrow inlet. I noticed that two tour buses were parked on the road up above, and they were both full of people waiting for Thunder Hole to become active. If I had stayed, I would have become trapped by a wall of tourists, and I am afraid my impulse either to jump into Thunder Hole myself, or to throw some of them in, might have overcome me, so I erred on the side of caution and left. I think maybe the soy milk was getting to me.

At this point it was noon. I needed gas, so I drove down to Somesville and pulled into a Mobil station. I have never been so happy to see a convenience store in my life, heh heh. I stocked up on more food which is sooooo NOT organic, and carbonated beverages. I figured housekeeping must be done with my room by now, and they were, so I am holing myself up in my room for the rest of the day and night, and getting up extra early in the morning so I can get out of here and back to my nice safe store, where I can work every day for the rest of my life, and I don't even care. At least they do not have soy milk in the coffee there.

This afternoon and evening I'll be knitting the end of clue #4 on my black Mystery Stole, possibly a hat that I haven't shared with you yet, and maybe more on my Sand Beach sock. We'll see. :)

Ahhhhhhh........

Ya know, a vacation is a goooooooood thing....

After a few too many days of this:

.... I realized I needed to get AWAY. I counted it up and discovered that in the last 35 days, there were only two days that I had not come into the store or been working in some regard. I wanted just a teensy bit of time where I looked at something that I didn't see every single day... I wanted to look around and see something new, and I am not talking about new yarn, either. I wanted to drive down a new road, not have to talk to anyone if I didn't feel like it, and be a person that other people helped instead of being the person they looked to for help, just for a day or two.

So I took off. I asked Joe if he wanted to come with me, but he was unfortunately busy... just as well for him , since everyone knows that yarn shop ladies who go on vacation..... buy yarn!!!!

I'm on vacation. Right now. I'm actually in a hotel room right this second as I type this. I took off Thursday after work and I will be back at the store on Sunday morning after I drive back from Bar Harbor. Yes!!! That's where I went on vacation!!! Bar Harbor, where everyone in the world goes on vacation in Maine. I figured, why not??? It's like being on vacation without having to work very hard. It's practically next door (well, if next door takes you two and a half hours to drive to), it is easy to get to in the middle of October, and the ocean is just as pretty now as it ever is. Prettier, maybe.... lordy lordy lordy, you should see how gorgeous the foliage is up here. My, my, my... such pretty colors, orange and yellow and red and green and brown and the blue/green ocean.

I realized that in my two days off, one day, today, would be rainy (and yes, it poured), but one day promised to be a little bit sunny. So I am going to Acadia National Park to do the ocean & nature thing tomorrow. Today, my lovelies... ah, today..... I went to THREE yarn shops!!! All by myself!!!! I am still shivering with the delight of it.

First I went to Bee's, which is the most fabulous combination in the world: a yarn and chocolate shop. Sigh. I quiver at the perfection of that combination. I indulged mightily in yarn at Bee's, and I got enough Elsbeth Lavold's Silky Wool to make a sweater, along with the pattern book and needles to start said garment cuz ya know. I only brought about 9 projects with me, already started, and you know I neeeeeed to start this Silky Wool thing. Geez. I also bought a skein of utterly lime-a-licious sock yarn and teensy needles.... I tried to start the sock yarn in a restaurant, but why is it that the more you want to get started on a project in a hurry, and the more you are in a public place doing that, the more the yarn you pull out from the middle of the skein is a monstrous tangled mess??? I got the tangle half untangled and then my pie came. Guess which I finished first. Oh, and I also bought some loverly chocolates from Bee's as well: coconut snowballs, Grand Marnier truffles, espresso truffles, coffee creams. Yum! Here's the yarn porn for you to look at:

Off I trundled to Southwest Harbor, where one of the best yarn shops in the state is located, Lilac Lily. I love this store very very very very very very very much. I had never been there before, and I am duly regretful. It is a fabulous and awe-inspiring place. You'll never meet nicer people, find a richer or more varied selection of products or have a more comfy place to sit and knit. It is amazing... a whole house filled on two floors with yarn and needlework supplies. I filled another bag with goodies and had a nice long talk with Chloe, the owner. It was truly wonderful to meet her! I walked out with a seriously decadent yarn haul: two skeins of 100% silk, hand dyed by Great Adirondack, a pattern and Lantern Moon rosewood needles for said yarn (see above about needing to have required goods to start any project immediately) and several skeins of that new sock yarn that has chitin from crab shells in it (it's new to me, anyway... ). And needles for said sock yarn, of course!! Here's the Lilac Lily haul:

The last shop on my daytrip list was Shirley's, in Hancock, of course. Shirley's is truly a legend unto itself. It has everything. Really, everything. It is a huge gift shop and candy shop (with homemade fudge!! which I somehow escaped buying), but it is also one of the biggest yarn/needlework/craft/beading/paper shops I have ever seen in my life. So when I say Shirley's has everything, I mean it. It is no exaggeration. The people there are so friendly and wonderful, too. I love going there. I was kinda hungry by this point, it was after 2 p.m. and I hadn't eaten any lunch, so I shopped fast -- I had a serious pie date at Helen's in mind. Nevertheless, darlings, I managed to find some treasures to make your heart stop. I got a wonderful fingering weight 100% merino, hand painted yarn from Claudia yarn -- a skein of limeade and a skein of Tropicana, which has lime in it. Socks, of course... And I got some Omni Knit Sticks needles because I like the points on them better than the points on the needles I got at Bee's ... just in case I start that Silky Wool sweater before I get home. Never mind about the 27 sets of size 6 needles I already have at home. At Shirley's I also got a skein of luscious merino/alpaca/silk yarn from Araucania, a slightly thick and thin singles, hand dyed in Chile... in such beautiful, glowing colors! I had to have it. I'm thinking mittens. So I got dp needles to make mittens, in case I want to start them now. I am so pathetic, no??? Yes ... I did need a vacation... Here's the Shirley's loot:

Tomorrow I am going to sleep late (again)(I always sleep late, heh heh) and then I am going to have a little brekky and head to one of the lesser-traveled entrances to Acadia National Park. I haven't been there in so many years... and it is such a gorgeous place. You could never see the whole park in one day, so I am going to re-visit two or three of my favorite spots, take lots of pretty ocean and rock pictures, and find a lovely place to knit for the rest of the day. Tonight I will have a little supper (better be a salad, after that pie at Helen's!!!) and knit my evening away. Yes, I think this is the perfect, perfect vacation, and it is just what I needed. :D

And just to end this on a really grand note, did you know that the Unique One fall yarn sale is going on right now? 20% off regularly-priced yarn in stock; the sale ends Oct. 21. So if you want to go on a little vacation too, come to Camden and snag some yarn at a good price! We have a lot of new yarns, so if you haven't been in Unique One for a while, now would be a mighty fine time to go!! And what the heck, wander up to Bee's and Lilac Lily and Shirley's too, if you have a few days. It is definitely worth the trip!!

Smile while you knit, darlings... :D

xoxo

2007 June Knitting Cruise!

Hi! I just got back from another great knitting cruise! It was fabulous.... we had so much fun! Here are some pictures for your amusement :

Rockland Harbor in the morning before we left

Amy knits socks :)

Breakfast!

American Eagle sets out.

We pass the Rockland Breakwater Light and set out for some knitting and sailing!

Shawn runs up the signal flags: "Knit Wit"

Sailing past the Spark Plug.

Nemo goes along for the ride (but he can't knit).

We ran up the Jolly Roger so we could attack an approaching cruise ship ;)

The cruise ship we shot our cannon at.

Hell's Half Acre island where we had our lobsterbake. It's all granite, no sand!

These rocks on Hell's Half Acre are amazing...

Shawn and George escort the crustaceans to the pot.

The lobsters emerged all red and yummy!

Making S'mores! mmmmm

After s'mores... fun with hula hoops!

Penobscot Bay, home of the best sunsets in the world.....

In the Meantime...

While I was finishing my Diamond Patch Sweater, I did have a couple other things going on. For one thing, Victoria and I went to Columbus, Ohio to the TNNA Needlearts Market. It was fun! We had a pretty easy trip, flew on JetBlue, which I never had done before. I love JetBlue; it was great to be able to listen to XM radio (although I noticed most people enjoyed watching television more).

There were a lot of exhibitors at the show and I think we saw each of them twice. Well... the knitting exhibits, anyway. Half of the booths were for needlework, like cross stitch and needlepoint, so we kinda blew right by them. Although, I will say, I really wish I knew how to do that stuff, and had the patience for it. Some of the items were really beautiful. Unfortunately I am too impractical to do needlework. I am not much for hanging things on walls, so working for 200 hours to make flat art doesn't appeal to me that much. (Sorry, to all the needleworkers out there.... it just isn't my thing.) It sure is beautiful, though!

I didn't really see too much of a trend at this year's show. Even though it is the "Summer Show", the exhibitors show fall and winter items at this show. I would say the hot fiber was alpaca... it seemed like everything had alpaca in it. I love alpaca! But we already have a lot of alpaca in the store. There were also a lot of shawl pins, beautiful shawl pins. I thought about ordering some that were magnetic, but passed on them.

We looked hard at a couple of Classic Elite yarns... one is an alpaca sock yarn, and another is a really wonderful 100% not-superwash wool that comes in amazing colors. Pam Allen, Classic Elite's new creative consultant, was in the booth and it was nice to see her again! She had designed a gorgeous sweater from this new yarn. The yarn reminds me a little of Jo Sharp's wool dk yarn, but the Classic Elite version is about $2 cheaper per skein and comes in better colors, in my opinion. We did look at the Jo Sharp yarn.. but I just couldn't do it. Too expensive, and there are about 10 kinds of Jo Sharp yarn now... and her pattern books include designs for many of the Jo Sharp yarns. That's fine, if you carry 10 kinds of Jo Sharp yarn. I didn't think my customers would want to buy those pattern books only to get one or two patterns that they could buy the Jo Sharp yarn for locally. Also the sales person mentioned the Jo Sharp wool dk yarn wasn't a really hot seller in the Jo Sharp line, so we decided to keep looking. I wanted a good, basic, high-quality 100% wool, dk weight, non-superwash yarn that came in a great selection of colors. Classic Elite has one of the best color pallettes in the industry, as far as I am concerned. Throw in the fact that Pam Allen particularly loves this yarn and will probably come up with some amazing designs for it...yup. I didn't order it at the show... but my Classic Elite sales rep will be visiting us soon, and I can order it then. I will be looking for a late summer, or early fall ship date on it. I believe the yarn is called Classic Elite 150 (it has 150 yards/skein).

We ordered some fabulous Morehouse Merino knitting kits. There are some really cute, whimsical scarves, and some very fashionable scarves and shawl kits. We also ordered a really neat wool/hemp blend yarn from LanaKnits. I think it's called Wool Hemp. Or, Hemp Wool. Can you tell I am blogging with no notes? heh heh. I will have to go look through my orders from the show before I go on, I think.

Victoria and I took classes at the show, of course! Victoria took the Sally Melville class on creativity that I took last year, and I think she really liked it! She also took a class on short-row shaping, but I kinda got the impression she already knew most of the material. I took only one class, Portuguese Knitting, from Andrea Wong. It was great! When I was in college I had a friend who was from Colombia and she knit in a very different way from anyone else I had ever seen. I kept trying to figure out how she did it... she had the yarn around her neck and she made the stitches with her left thumb. She could purl about 5 times faster than she could knit. I tried to figure out how she did it, but I never could. But now, I have finally learned! The technique is fascinating, and it is a totally different way of knitting and purling than anything I knew previously. I am not that fast at the technique, but like with anything, with practice, I think it could be a pretty speedy way to knit and especially purl. In this technique, purling is WAY easier and quicker than knitting.

Home, Finally

Well, we did in fact make it back to Bangor, and I did end up having to drive in the messy yucky weather. I took Victoria home and then got back to my house at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. Driving was slippery and yucky (I had to go about 35 mph the whole way!) but a slightly worse problem was my extreme tiredness. The warmth of the car and the rhythmic slapping of the ice-coated windshield wipers created a soporific effect that I barely staved off by opening the window for most of the ride home.

I slept for about 6 hours and then jumped back in the car about 9:30 that same morning and drove down to Marlboro, Massachusetts for the New England Apparel Club (NEAC) show. This is where the clothing companies show their summer (and some fall) clothing, and it is the show where I must order all the clothing that we sell at Unique One in the summer. I had an appointment at 3 pm to look at the new Icelandic sweaters/jackets, and I was able to get a few orders for scarves and straw bags and hats in before my appointment. (I got to the show about 2 p.m.) I looked around a little more but was really too tired to make any good buying decisions, so I went back to the hotel, checked in, had a nice supper and a couple of martinis and then pretty much collapsed into bed.

The next morning after a great breakfast, I really went to work. I had two important appointments right off the bat, at 9 and 11 a.m., with Produce, and with the representative for Cut Loose, Click, and Color Me Cotton (CMC) -- all very popular and well-known clothing brands. I ordered such cute clothes for summer! Wait till you see them! :) The only thing I didn't order much of was shorts, oddly enough ... all the shorts they were showing were knee-length Bermuda shorts and I think they look rather silly on pretty much everyone. So I only ordered one line of them. I got some very cute dresses, several different types of pants sets (capri and cropped lengths) and all kinds of shirts... camisoles, sleeveless, short sleeved, long sleeved, T-shirts, gauzy tunics... all in great colors! I started out a little heavy on blue and white for colors at first, but then I threw in a good bit of taupe, brown, neutrals; and coral/orange/peach. I got a little purplish periwinkle, and a little lime green and avocado, quite a bit of white, a little black... one color I really wanted more of was pink, but *nobody* was showing any pink anywhere (sorry, Peggy!). Colors in general are rather muted and not wild and bright, but that may be because many of the vendors "New-Englandize" their lines for this show, and show the bright, wild stuff to the southern market.

I also ordered quite a few nice sweaters from the Alps company. We used to sell a ton of sweaters from them, but got away from their products in recent years. They offer well-made, classic styles for very reasonable prices. Most of their pieces retail for between $45 and $80. They also had several great styles that I ordered specifically for men. We get a lot of "what do you have for men's sweaters?" but when we show them the sweaters that we make, and the Irish sweaters, we don't always get a good response.... many people find those sweaters to be great, but many people really are asking "what do you have for inexpensive men's sweaters?" I think the Alps sweaters will fit their needs and we will not lose those sales, as we have in the past. We really didn't have much for men that cost less than $90 last year, but this year we will, and in cotton, too!

One of my really favorite finds at the show was fabulous godet skirts by Sandy Starkman (you can see one here -- I didn't get that color, I got black, turquoise, a blue/white print and a brown/taupe/beige print). I also got one of her jackets... it is so colorful and gorgeous that it made me happy just to look at it. And it goes perfectly with the turquoise skirt, too! Also, our Unique One cotton sweaters will look great with the Sandy Starkman skirts as well. :)

I ordered a bunch of wild and crazy scarves and some lacy shawls and a knitted lace shrug/bolero/jacket thing with very cute ruffles, the perfect thing to wear over a sundress to go out to dinner in. I also ordered some great new watches, and some cute reading glasses in a variety of colors and strengths.

I picked up info from a company that sells utterly gorgeous, fully reversible, cotton quilted jackets in Indian prints and paisleys .... far more beautiful than the ones we have sold before. They also sell really gorgeous silk and/or rayon scarves, also from India. I wish I had found them first! But unfortunately, I found them at the very end of the show on Wednesday, and I knew I was too beat to make reasonable decisions. And, they offered such a huge selection! So many designs and colors and patterns to choose from! I took their catalog and I will place the order soon.

Almost all the clothing I ordered will be arriving between May 1 and June 30, so I hope you all come in and buy, buy, buy... because I will have to *pay* for this clothing! It's really cute, and I must say, buying lots of great summer clothes made me happy ... just knowing that summer really will arrive, and sooner than we can believe.

So after the show, I went back to the hotel because it would be crazy to try to drive home that night. I had another great dinner and only *one* martini, and fell into bed. :D The next morning dawned cold and sunny, I ate breakfast and drove home. All in all, it was a great show. But I am so glad to be home!!!!

Now I can concentrate on getting my next newsletter to the printer on the 29th, and promoting my upcoming classes, and getting stuff on my blog and website about the upcoming March knitting weekends. Oh, and getting things ready for the SPA weekend in Portland in February! Wooohoooo! I am really looking forward to that! Man, it is going to be April before I know it...... And then the summer clothing will be arriving shortly after, heh heh. Maybe I will just start listening to the Beach Boys now.....

TNNA Show January 2007 Day 4

TNNA Show Day 4

Sunday morning we had another great breakfast at Cafe 222. Victoria headed out to a lace knitting class with Myrna Stahman, but I lazily went back to the hotel room to relax, as I had not signed up for a Sunday class. It gave me a chance to look over what we had ordered so far and determine what we had left to do and how much money we had left to spend. As it turned out, we really hadn't found that much to order the previous day, and so we were still in pretty good shape.

I met Victoria at 11 and we went into the show. We placed button orders at Blue Moon Buttons (where I found a great pewter moose button and a pewter pine cone button) and at Renaissance Buttons (those are the little "picture" buttons we sell; they had a new series of buttons with cherubs on them that were really pretty -- yes, we ordered them.)

One of my very most wonderfullest favorite finds at the show was a vendor selling circular knitting needles made of glass. I ordered them!! I have by-passed ordering glass needles for two or three years now, but when I saw circular needles of glass, I couldn't resist. And they'll retail for about $30 per set. Currently our rosewood straight needles retail for $20 to $25 per set, so I didn't think that was too bad. Wait til you see how beautiful they are! I was able to test a pair and found the tips to be marvelous and more importantly, the join is wonderful, too!

We also ordered, from Unravelled, Inc., a series of knitting and crochet themed greeting cards. They are funny as hell. I had to have them. I think even if you don't knit, they are funny, and if you do, you will really "get" the jokes. It was a very good find.

We stopped by KnitWhits and placed a re-order for some of their knitting kits. It was nice to see Tina again. :)

The last two stops we made were really as much to re-connect with old friends as it was to place orders. First, we stopped to talk to Austin Wilde at Alchemy Yarn. You know how very much I absolutely love Austin and Gina and their wonderful yarns. We ordered two new kinds of yarn that they are offering at a slightly lower price than their other yarns. The first is "Migrations" which is top-dyed and then spun, not hand-painted as their other yarns are. It travels from one color to another as you knit. They had a scarf knit out of it that was beautiful.... it is a Shaker-rib stitch, and it comes out looking striped because of the color migration. Their second new yarn is "Vita", and 100% raw silk in solid colors. Gina designed the color selections to reflect Alchemy's signature color look. We also ordered Alchemy's wonderful lace-weight mohair and silk yarn "Haiku" in several of their new colors for this year.... their colors are so wonderful!! I can't wait for you to see this Haiku. What a lovely yarn. Lastly, we ordered several patterns to support the Alchemy yarns we ordered.

Our last stop was to visit with Tricia and Chet of Frogtree Yarns. We really intended only to say hi, didn't plan on placing an order.... but they had new colors of their merino, which we ordered, and I ordered their hand-dyed fingering weight alpaca. Wonderful, muted colors of fingering alpaca... so pretty.

So, amazingly, we were done..... and it was only 1:30 on Sunday. So we went back to the hotel and napped. It was an enjoyable coincidence that the Patriots were playing San Diego that afternoon, so I watched the end of the game. (The Patriots won ... barely, but they won!). Then we went back to Fred's for one last night of great Mexican food, and I had a couple of grande margaritas and persuaded Victoria to have *two* beers. Then back to the hotel and bed. We had to get up early.

Monday morning we got up early and boarded a plane back home. I am not looking forward to driving back to the midcoast region in the yucky freezing rain and "wintery mix" predicted for tonight. But if all goes well, I will be home by midnight. Yay! So I can get up and drive down to Marlboro, Massachusetts tomorrow morning. :(

If all goes well, if I can find a place to plug in my laptop (I am at only 33% power at the moment), I will be posting all of the TNNA show posts to my blog at once, from Boston. Wish me luck!

:) We made it to Boston & I can successfully post these blog posts now. The weather looks terrible up in Maine but I think we are going to try to drive home in the mess anyhow. Wish me luck driving!

TNNA Show January 2007 Day 2 (really... Day 2!)

TNNA Show Day 2

The TNNA show went pretty well. Here's a blow-by-blow of what we did:

Friday, as planned, we blew off the educational opportunities and headed out for a day of fun in San Diego. Originally we thought we would go to the San Diego Zoo. However, the weather was iffy in the morning... coldish and with a hint of rain. Victoria and I both realized we liked the idea of having been to the zoo more than the idea of actually going to the zoo. Meaning, we both realized we only wanted to go to the zoo so we could say we had been to the zoo.... not because we really cared about seeing the animals. Plus, it's expensive to go to the zoo. So we decided to blow off the zoo, too, and go do something else instead. What, though, we didn't really know.

First of all, we had to go register, so we walked down to the convention center (about a 15 minute walk) and registered and picked up our badges and stuff. The new products table wasn't completely set up yet, so we didn't bother to look at it yet. I thought it might be fun to go to a yarn shop (of course) so we went to the information desk to see where there was a yarn shop in San Diego. Unfortunately, there isn't one, apparently. There were a couple of shops in Old Town and another nearby town (I forget the name) which we could go to.... we would have to change trains twice to get to the first one... and the second one might not still be there, although it did have the distinction of being across the street from a Hooter's. Victoria and I looked at each other and silently agreed that a yarn shop visit was probably not in our near future. I really cannot believe that there is not only no yarn shop in San Diego, but that there isn't one right near the convention center. Seems like it would be a perfect location, especially given the rise in how many career women & men knit now, but oh well.

As I had left the house on Thursday morning, my husband had called after me, "Take a taxi across the Coronado Bridge and go have a drink at the Del!". See, Joe used to drive a taxi in San Diego. He hated having to take people over that bridge, and they were invariably headed to the Hotel Del Coronado to the bar there. Or possibly to stay there. I have heard him talk about that bridge for 18 years. I, of course, had no intention of doing what he suggested. However, given our sudden whole day with nothing to do, the idea appealed to me.

So Victoria and I gamely climbed into a taxi and headed over the Coronado Bridge to Coronado Island to have a drink at the Del. The Coronado Bridge is high-ish and long-ish, but nowhere near the scary behemoth construction described by my husband. I loved the view from the top. I called Joe from the taxi as we drove across the bridge to tell him where I was. He sounded bemused.

We got to the Hotel Del Coronado and walked down to the beach. It truly is a gorgeous place. I took a picture of flowers:

We walked on the beach for a while. A family from Tennessee asked me to take a picture for them, and we chatted a bit. Victoria sat on the sea wall and listened to a song called "California". We strolled up the beach a ways and watched the birds -- gulls, sand pipers, and little birds that might be plovers? We are bird illiterate.

Then we strolled back to the Del, visited the gift shop, and went to have lunch and the required "drink at the Del". It was a really great lunch... I had a fabulous ahi tuna salad nicoise and a martini; Victoria had something else, I forget. I called Joe to tell him I was having a drink at the Del. Apparently I was supposed to have a *margarita*, but he neglected to mention exactly what type of drink I was supposed to have.

After lunch we walked across Coronado Island (about a mile and a half walk) and took the ferry back to San Diego. It was at this point, I am sad to report, that my camera broke. So the pictures above are the only ones you are getting for this trip. Sorry! It worked fine until suddenly all I got was purple, black and white blobs for pictures. I have no idea what is wrong with it. I didn't drop it or anything... it was fine for one picture, and then suddenly all the others were a mess. Prior to the mess, I did get a "zoom error" which I never have seen before. I hope I can get it fixed.

We walked back to our hotel from the ferry landing and got ready to go to the Galleria and Fashion Show. The Galleria was where several companies set up panel displays for people to get a sneak peek at ... we looked at them, but a lot where for needlepoint and cross stitch, so not too interesting to us. I don't remember seeing anything at the Galleria worth noting. Then we went to the Fashion Show. There were about 120 pieces shown. I remember several shrugs and shawls, quite a few jackets and coats (which seemed odd for a summer show) and a few sweaters, but to be honest there was nothing so outstanding that it stuck in my mind. And I really paid attention, too. The fashion show being over, we toddled back to the hotel and collapsed into bed.

TNNA Show January 2007 Day 1 (more)

Well Victoria and I made it to San Diego! We finally got here about midnight our time and then went and had a great dinner at the hotel restaurant. She had a cheeseburger and I had a salad. And I had a martini. It was good. They have this specialty martini here, the "Crazy Dazy" martini, or something.

There are tons of people staying here for the show. We even saw Linda Cortwright of Wild Fibers magazine in the lobby!

I am so tired I cant' stay awake... I will post more tomorrow. :D

TNNA Show January 2007 Day 1

Victoria and I are off to the TNNA show in San Diego! Right now I am sitting in the Bangor Airport ... we have a couple hours to wait for our flight. It sure is exciting to sit in the Bangor Airport for two hours.... I can write this post, but I can't actually post it until we get to Boston around 2 pm, because I can't figure out how to get the BIA internet access to work. :(

We will be flying out of Boston around 4:15 and getting into San Diego around 7:30 pm. We are staying at the Bristol in San Diego... they tell me it's nice. :) Then tomorrow we will register for the show in the morning and play hookey the rest of the day. Instead of taking classes, we decided to go have a little fun. If it isn't raining (it never rains in California, the song says...) we plan to go to the San Diego Zoo. If it is raining... we will go to all the yarn shops we can find in San Diego and then go over to Coronado island to have a drink at the Del. My husband used to drive a taxi in San Diego, and he wants me to go over the Coronado Bridge at least once while we are there. We'll see, honey! heh heh. I will take pictures, regardless of what we do. I packed the camera in my checked bag so I can't take any now... but it's the Bangor Airport. The only thing worth seeing here is, of course, the Unique One display kiosk. :)

Friday night is the Galleria reception with vendor displays, meet & greet the names, awards, yadda yadda CASH BAR :) followed by the fashion show. The fashion show is always fun, either because it is actually worth looking at, or because the fashions are so awful that you can laugh at them. Some fashion shows, I like everything I see... some, I can't imagine what all the designers were drinking (but I want some of it). When we went to Indianapolis in June, the fashion show was of the latter variety.

Saturday is a class in the morning... I am taking a class on how to make a felted tapestry-crochet bowl. Then we'll go to the show for the rest of the day and look over the New Items table for the 5th time, and see the Great Wall 'O Yarn. This will all be followed by a tasty dinner (man I am so looking forward to getting a good salad.. I have to tell you, fresh produce in CA in January is a rare treat... it hasn't been trucked across a continent before you get it... and I am hoping for fresh pineapple jetted in from Hawaii that very morning...). Then a nice long hot shower, a little blog posting (for you, my faithful readers!) and thence to bed, to sleep, perchance to dreammmmmm....

Sunday morning Victoria is taking a class from 8 to 11 while I wander about. Then we will be at the show madly rushing to finish everything up. Sunday night we will undoubtedly go celebrate somehow, somewhere... we might be able to hook up with some friends and have dinner together. Then to bed... we have to get up early on Monday. Our flight home leaves San Diego at around 9 a.m., and we will get back to Bangor around 8 or 9 p.m. I should be home by 11 p.m. on Monday. :D

This is pretty boring so I will stop writing now... but watch this spot for far more interesting developments, including camel nuzzling (at the zoo) and new, exciting, wonderful yarn news (at the show)! We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog reading.......

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Okay, we made it to Boston so I am posting this courtesy of Logan Airport wifi. We just had a great lunch (well, Pizza Hut pizza, but we were hungry). Now I am posting this and planning to settle into a nice long stint of listening to some blues on my iPod and working on my Pi Shawl (Elizabeth Zimmerman, I love you!) while Victoria industriously works on designing a sweater using O-Wool. She planned to knit a FiberTrends pattern that she brought with her, but the gauge did not work out and she only brought the needle sizes that the pattern recommended. So we decided she should just design her own sweater pattern and then it will be a Unique One original. :D The beauty of designing your own sweater is that the gauge is always right, no matter what... you just go with whatever it is. :)

See y'all after we get to San Diego! Have a great day!