Rhinebeck!

I am sure that all of you knitters out there have seen posts about Rhinebeck before today.

This is what I did at Rhinebeck. I'll keep it to mostly pictures to spare all of you a super long post!


Amazing fiber tapestries:

Wheels! Whee!


Soft and large angora bunnies: they sold very quickly.
I saw lots of fiber animals.

I saw cashmere goats: they aren't as soft as one would think.

I saw animals made out of fiber.
I saw lots of animals made out of fiber. I thought these were really amazing. Such craftsmanship.
I really love these pumpkins made out of roving.

Teeny tiny little sock earrings. Awesome.

Specialty molded soap. Cool, no?

Little fiber gnomes! I swear they sneak into my house and bring me yarn.
I looked over on Sunday and who was standing next to me squeezing the same yarn? It was the Yarn Harlot! I said something, super embarrasing and stalkerish, like "I love your books" and then didn't get a picture with her. D'oh! Then I kinneared her which made her friends laugh. I can't be the first to do it to her?

These guys were interesting-not fiber related, but look at those shirts!
I tried my hand at weaving and liked it. I think I might want a loom!
I watched the fleece to shawl competition. There was an amazing group led by a 13 year old! They had a really beautiful woven shawl with lots of detail. It's below. I hope she won. I didn't get to see-we had to leave.
There were these blankets for sale-really amazing.
This kangaroo has a baby in its pouch. Can you make yarn from kangaroo fur?
I ate some deep fried artichoke hearts-super delicious.
This was the finished shawl from that 13 year old. Jeez. Talk about talented.


This sweater was just a masterpiece.

I saw a leaping llamas competition-there were alpacas too but it was totally not fair. They did not have height classes and they need to.
Here are some more llamas/alpacas in the competition.

We saw some beautiful colors. I can't get these pictures to come up the right way. Dang.
Heather and I fed the goats!
This is some yarn I bought. It doens't show the color well-it's a deep blue.

It's more like this.

This is a mohair/angora blend and is really soft.


Socks that Rock. Enough said. This my first STR and I picked up two regular price skeins and one mill end. The booth was crazy. Barely civil, but just.
I picked ups ome Brooks Farm. All of this will be going on my ravelry stash page and details will be there. This is a wool-silk blend.
I found this random skein of mohair. It's 180 yards and so shiny I thought it was silk. It feels like silk. I have no idea how they got it this way.
I bought a lot of sock yarn, can you tell?
More sock yarn!I did some work on my chuppah last night. I am over halfway done with the cable portion. I cannot wait to be done with the last cable rows. It should speed along after these last six rows where I have to cable-after that it is just yarnovers and such for this middle section. Part of the reason why a single row takes me almost an hour right now is following the pattern, another reason is that the increases in this pattern have it up from 35 stitches a repeat (10 repeats per row) to 51 stitches a repeat, so 510 stitches per row.


I am also at the point of turning the heel on Michael's second (third) sock. Pictures next post!

Happy Knitting!!

Happy Birthday to me!

I'll update with the ridiculous amount of yarn I bought at Rhinebeck soon, I promise! This is a crazy week work wise and it's my birthday today, so I spent a little bit of time enjoying myself and now am working!

I'm off to Rhinebeck tomorrow!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Back to Massachusetts

I am heading back to Massachusetts today, and here are the pictorial highlights of the trip that I have. I managed to forget my camera for the reunion and for the rally but this was what I wore to the rally.


Then we came back and I held the baby and the kitty sat next to me.
Then a few days later we made baby burrito.
I did a fair amount of knitting on the sock-it is almost done. It's almost time to rip the first one.
I bought some yarn at a local yarn shop in Cherry Creek. It's really beautiful, different tones of red and very soft.
I bought another skein as well. It's beautiful and soft too. And now, I am about to leave for the airport for my flight. Happy Knitting!
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Colorado, it's the land of memories for me!

I am in Colorado right now, yup, you guessed it from the title of the post.

My big sister just had her first child, and boy is she a cutie. They just happen to live in Denver, where I lived for a year after college (coloradocollege.edu) and it is nice to be here for a short visit. I have Monday off from work and took Friday off and am here for about three days total. I will have a picture for you of me holding her in the next post, promise. Right now the only pictures are on J's camera.

It just so happens that my 5 year college reunion is taking place an hour south of here in Colorado Springs this weekend too. That made two great reasons to come out here this weekend.

I was very apprehensive about the reunion. I haven't been very communicative with people from college since law school and now work and wedding planning have swallowed my life, so I didn't register for any events, I didn't plan in advance what I was going to do, and I certainly didn't tell anyone or e-mail them back about me going. In fact, I was on the fence about going until I actually walked out the door of my sister's apartment, and did the 70 odd mile drive I used to know so well. That was the first sock it to you memory lane moment I had on this trip. College friends and I did that drive probably a 100 times and I did it alone a bit too. I went through Denver, down to Castle Rock-at that point you know its only 40 miles to go. Then you hit the Black Hole in between Castle Rock and Colorado Springs-it's still there-15 or so miles of nothingness. Then you hit the top of Monument Hill-18 miles or so to go until what used to be home-the campus. Then you hit downtown and get off and there you are!

I was at a bar off campus-I didn't even drive through campus-it was too dark and I won't get there.

I walked into the downstairs after easily finding a parking spot less than a block away-C Springs is nothing like Boston, and walked in. Downstairs there was NO ONE I recognized-uh oh was my first thought, this is going to be the bust I feared. I walked upstairs and the room was full of people I recognized. I was afraid I was going to spend a half hour to an hour at that point still walking around the room awkardly saying hi to people and doing the what have you been up to in the last 5 years. That was thankfully not the case. I had a great time. I wandered around upstairs for a minute or so, looking for the nametags, I was going to violate my no nametags policy but they were out-when I was greeted by a friend saying "Oh my God, it's Becca!" From there, I spent the night catching up with that group of friends and talking to a few other close friends here and there and all in all, I am glad I went.

I also learned that none of that group of friends have really talked to a particular friend in a good while. She's kind of disappeared off the face of the earth from all of us who were her closest friends. I was sad about that for a while and now I am going to try again to get in touch with her again just to see if she wants to get in touch with me at least again. It's weird going from talking to or seeing someone every day to having no idea where they are in the world.

Today, I plan on going to an Obama rally then look at bridesmaid dresses with Jess, then come back here to watch the Red Sox hopefully beat those (Devil) Rays again! We might get Thai food from my favorite Thai restaurant here too!

Happy Knitting! I did a little work on my second sock-what will be the first when I rip the now first one out, it's nearing completion.

Debate and knitting, it's keeping me from yelling at the TV!

I am not sure that the line "I've only been at this five weeks" is a good point for Sarah "I am totally unqualified" Palin. As she said, we must learn from the "blenders" of the past.


Here is what I have been working on:


The Second Sock for Michael. I think this one is going so well it is just highlights how the first one was a working one and was a lesson for me. I think I will be ripping the first sock out and knitting it again. I like this toe a lot more.
Big Papi agrees with me. He even leaves the sock alone as you can see.
HAPPY KNITTING! May it keep you sane and happy in these difficult times.

Oh, Happy New Year!

Phishy, Phishy, Phishy!!!

Phish is back together, now my brother and I will travel to concerts again soon!