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“Would you stop, I’m trying to sleep!”
Hubby and I spent the morning shopping. We went to, shudder, the mall, and considering how close it is to Christmas, we weren’t fighting crowds. I did point out that most normal people were at work and perhaps that was why we were so lucky.
Shopping went quite quickly, in and out . . . MIL . . . check . . . BIL . . . check . . . SIL . . . .
Actual conversation at the Ann Taylor Loft (let me note I am not what Ann Taylor Loft would consider their “target demographic” financially or size wise):
After browsing for a few minutes I pick up a cashmere sweater in a S and an XS, had a brief mental debate about the overgrazing of cashmere goats in China leading to desertification of large regions vs. getting the damn shopping done (sorry to say, the “git ‘r dun” won), and walked up to the register.
me: What’s the difference between the XS and S size?
shop drone with blank look on her face: The XS is smaller.
me: Yes, I understand that. What’s the size?
Perhaps fearing the drone would point to the tags and say “this is a small and this is and extra small”, another associate swooped in and told me the size difference (one was a 0/2 the other a 4/6, I don’t think either would have fit my big toe) and I was able to check the SIL off the list.
I’ve been knitting dishcloths, lots and lots of dishcloths. This seems to happen every year at about this time, I have no idea why. This year the dishcloth knitting came as a need to knit something other than garter. I’d been working on the garterstitch blanket and just couldn’t take it anymore. These little dishcloths provide distraction, a chance to try out new stitch patterns, color combination, and sense of accomplishment all in a 9″ square of cotton.
I ran into a bit of a snag when there were no darning needles to be found anywhere in my house. None. I know I own three Chibis, poof, gone. After a quick stop at the local mega-craft store, I am ready to start some grafting.
I was able to attend the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby again this year. Wow, it was a lot bigger than I remember two years ago. I forgot to send off my class registration so I didn’t take any classes this year, but I did still have to be there on Friday since my friend, Emma, had a booth (Dragonfibers) and about half of her supplies were in the back of my truck. After the booth setup (and let me say I’m glad there were four of us!) we headed back to our hotel and hit a bar across the street for dinner and, possibly, a bucket of drinks.
Now, with no classes and a festival ground of booths before me, what do you think I did? Shopping, you say? Well, heck, you’d be right. I was a good girl on Saturday, I picked up a basket (I had to have something to carry my purchases)
and a Taylor/JMM Clever Kate,
then there was lots of browsing and watching the livestock judging.
Sunday was the parking lot fleece sale. I was so tempted. I walked through, and may have drooled on a couple of the fleeces, some beautiful CVMs and shetlands. Sigh. Oh, and the Gottlands. Double sigh. No fleeces for me this year, but that doesn’t mean I went home fiberless.
This is 4oz of 50/50 Merino Silk, from Butternut Woolens.
These are from Dicentra Designs, 100% BFL
and 80/20 Merino Tussah
This is one of the mystery batts from Superior Fibers
Did I need stitch markers? No, but Betty did, and while she shopped, I browsed. Found myself buying these beautiful stitch markers with the matching tin, from Miss Purl, how cold I not.
I also did some blogger stalking. Saturday I was doing some innocent browsing when I saw a man who looked a LOT like Franklin Habit, The Panopticon, but it couldn’t be, because he blogs in Chicago, and what would he be doing in Canby, OR. Well, it finally dawned on me that it WAS actually Franklin, could have been one of his companions saying ‘hey, Franklin’ – no grass growing here. It took much self restraint to not squee and fawn and gush.
Sunday while Betty and I were watching the booth for Emma, so she and Jen could go shop, Rabbitch stopped by. This time I did gush a bit, we chatted about her loss of virginity in Portland, alpacas, and car repairs. Good times.
After fortifying ourselves with a hearty breakfast, the gals and I headed down to the Third Place Books Commons for a little quality time with our spinning wheels.
I had planned on starting the tour with a new project, what is it they say about plans . . . anyway, I ended up finishing off the 2nd and spinning the 3rd bobbin of 8oz of DragonFibers Corriedale (Potluck #73), then plying.
After a good soak and thwak, I have 2 skeins of 3ply drying outside. I’ll get a yardage and weight after it’s dry.
While the Corriedale was soaking I moved on to some of the oldest fiber in my stash, a Dragonfibers BFL. This is from deep in the stash, so deep that it technically isn’t even Dragonfibers, just some BFL that Emma dyed up for me. Shocking!
I managed to spin up about 2oz of the 8oz waiting to be spun before passing out.
. . . with 200% more cats.
Yes, I’m officially on my way to becoming a Crazy Cat Lady.
Last autumn, the mother started hanging around with one of her kittens, we called them Smokey and Bandit, and because I am such a sucker we stared feeding them. Smokey warmed up to us, eventually, and let us pet her, but Bandit was quite skittish and wouldn’t let us get near her.
Fast forward to the spring, Hubby heard a strange noise outside the front door. He opened the door and a group of raccoons had Smokey cornered on our front porch. She dashed inside and has been our cat ever since. We figured she had been owned by people and abandoned, as she took to being a house cat so easily, was house trained, etc. Bandit on the other had is still quite feral, she can be caught on occasion, she goes limp instead of fighting and clawing like crazy. We still put feed out for her and hope to be able to trap her to get her spayed.
Mother’s Day eve Smokey gave birth to one kitten (yes, we have an appt this week to get her spayed, now that the kitten is weaned). We knew Smokey was preggo and I had been preparing the kids for the fact that we would be finding homes for the babies, but when she had only one kitten we decided to keep the baby, and named her Pickle.
All together now, “Awwwwwwwww.”
We knew Wednesday was going to start early so we ordered breakfast the night before to be delivered to the room . . . I highly recommend this.
We headed out to catch the 8am ferry. We asked the doorman to hail us a cab, but instead he asked had the hotel town car drive us to the ferry terminal . . . I also recommend this. We arrived in plenty of time to purchase our tickets and get to the ferry gate.
The weather looked a little threatening, but since we would be inside for most of the day, we weren’t too worried.
The ferry ride to Vallejo was uneventful and when we arrived we were picked up by Steve of Platypus Tours. What a kick! He entertained us all the way to the train station in Napa.
After a wine tasting in the station, we boarded the train. We were seated in the dome car.
Dinner was amazing.
The soup was so good I didn’t even get a picture!
The Napa Vally Wine Train . . . highly recommended!
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