Frolic Eve

 It's that time of year, and I'm working a lot of hours, but there has been some knitting  going on the past couple of weeks even if it hasn't been as much as I would like.

Tomorrow after work, I head west to Sapphire Valley and the Carolina Fiber Frolic.  I've been getting some things I finished a while ago blocked to take for "show and tell".

First I washed and blocked my Find Your Fade shawl, although blocking in this case just meant laying it out to dry without really stretching it, because it was already huge enough!

 

This picture shows the colors better.

 I also finished and blocked my Snowmelt Shawl MKAL.

And last in the just needed to be blocked category is the Moroccan Days/Arabian Nights shawl I finally finished at the end of 2016.  This is also a giant shawl, but I finally took the time to pin it out.  I couldn't figure out how to get a really good picture of this, and there are beads, but they are very similar in color to the yarn, so they're subtle, which is what I wanted.

As for the projects I was trying to finish in time for Frolic, the Cayambe is finished.

But the Sweet Chilly sweater is not.  I only have one sleeve and the neckline to do, so I'm hoping I can finish it up by Friday in time to give it a steam with the hotel iron Friday night and enter it in the "what I made with my door prize" contest on Saturday.

Pic of the body before I started the sleeves.

One sleeve done, second one started.

As usual, I'm sure I've packed way too many projects to work on at Frolic, but that's nothing new.  I'm looking forward to seeing friends, making new ones, learning a few things, and just hanging out with my people.

Friends & Fiber - Part 2

Although the fiber retreat was in Candor, just south of Asheville, we actually stayed in Burnsville, just north of Asheville because Roxie has a very kind friend Maryann that has a house there she lets us use on occasion.  Not having to pay for a hotel room really helps out and we REALLY appreciate her letting us stay (I don't think she even knows about this blog, so I'm not saying that just to suck up either).

Silk scarf dyed by Roxie

Roxie had a class Saturday morning to learn how to do another kind of dyeing, so we headed back down to the retreat for the morning.   The plan was to spend the morning at the retreat, have some lunch somewhere and then head back to the house to spend the afternoon crafting.  But the great thing about traveling with Michiele and Roxie is that plans can change and we all go with the flow.

The retreat was actually held at a middle school just up the road from the Friends & Fiberworks store, so after we left there we stopped by the actual store to browse around (and maybe make a couple of purchases).  While there we found out about yet another yarn shop just north of Asheville on our way back to Burnsville, so we had to stop there as well.  That store, The Knitting Diva, is relatively new, but it is an awesome store.  They dealt oh so well with our particular brand of crazy while we were there & we will definitely visit it again when we're back in the area.  I may have spent a little money in that one. (Have you been keeping count?  That's five yarns stores in the general Asheville area.)

Cute sheep outside Yummi Yarns

There's also a yarn shop in Burnsville called Yummi Yarns.  We had been there before, but they've moved to a new location since our last visit, so we had to check it out as well.  I did buy a skein of sock yarn there to make Rob another pair of socks.

By the time we got back to the house around dinner time, our massive crafting plans had dwindled a bit, but that doesn't mean we did nothing.  Michiele had brought her drum carder so I spent a little time turning some fiber I had dyed at Carolina Fiber Frolic, but wasn't really thrilled with into something that I may actually want to spin.

This, which was muddy and kind of compacted

Turned into these, which are light and airy and hopefully will be nice to spin

I also used the drum carder to blend two different colored fibers together into batts.

This became....

This

We took our time heading out Sunday.  We stopped by to see a former coworker of Roxie's who has recently moved to the area and then had a wonderful brunch at Kirkwood's Cafe before finally getting on the road.

Overall, a great time, and I can't wait to do it again!

Friends & Fiber - Part 1

I love the "epic" part

A couple of weekends ago I went to the mountains for the Friends & Fiberworks Summer Retreat with my friends Roxie and Michiele.  As usual when the 3 of us go somewhere, we had a great time, did a little shopping, and had a lot of laughs.

Friday afternoon Michiele & I took a class on Photographing Your Fiber with Franklin Habit.   This is the 2nd class I've taken with Franklin, and I just love him.  If we didn't both already have husbands I'd ask him to marry me.  But back to the class, although it doesn't show in any of the pictures in this post, I did learn a lot about how my little point and shoot camera works and tips for lighting, etc. that I can use even with my iphone.  Hopefully one of these days I'll sit down and go through my camera manual and really learn how to do something with all he taught us.

Miss Babs was also attending the retreat as a student and was in Franklin's class too.  She's a fiber celebrity in her own right because she dyes the most gorgeous yarn and fiber, so I had a double fan girl moment.

That's the only class I took, but there was a small market there, so I did a little shopping as well.  I bought my Cricket loom (the subject of yesterday's post) there as well as a little yarn and fiber.  But of course the shopping didn't end there.

We went into downtown Asheville where there are three shops that sell yarn, count them, three in one downtown!  Only one of them is exclusively a yarn shop, but the other two have more than just a small amount of yarn.  I managed to curb my spending and not buy anything at any of them except for a couple of pairs of needle tips I needed.

Check out the cute sock monkey ninjas!

And sock monkey pirates too!

The perfect accessory for UNC football games dontcha' think?  If I could find a pattern for this my entire family would get them for Christmas!

Also while we were downtown, Michiele proved that I am not the only person who has become obsessed with crafts.  When we were at the Carolina Fiber Frolic in March she learned how to eco-dye using plants and flowers.  As we were walking around she noticed some marigolds at the end of their life and couldn't resist deadheading them all so she could use them to dye.

I'm sure the Battery Park Apartments thanks her.

And all that was just Friday!  I'll tell you about the rest of the weekend tomorrow.

Celebrating the Baby-to-be

My sister's getting ready to have a baby.  She lives just south of San Francisco ("on the peninsula" for those who know what that means) so I only get to see her a couple of times a year and usually because she & her husband come to North Carolina.

My mother & I flew out there a few weeks ago to throw her a baby shower, and we had a great time. Not only was the shower fun, but we got to do a little mother/daughter time as well with a nice lunch and massages at the spa.

Pictures are better than words sometimes....

Julie & Phil opening some gifts that arrived in the mail.

This baby will definitely be raised a Tarheel even if he does live on the left coast!

7 months pregnant, but still gorgeous.

Mom, Julie & Me (and some of the "spread").

Jen & Ava (Phil's sister-in-law and niece) naming the children's stories.

Decorating blocks.

The finished blocks.

Getting some practice in....

All the Hayes & Hartsteins that were there.

Miles the nephew-dog enjoying the ride

I love my nieces (my brother's girls) to death, but we're all very excited that Julie & Phil are having a boy.  I can't wait to meet him!

A Weekend in the Mountains - Part 2

If you haven't read the first part of this, you might want to start here.

There isn't a lot open in small towns on Sunday, so Sunday morning we drove up to Grandfather Mountain.  Growing up in North Carolina, I had been there several times, but not in years, and Rob had never been. 

He actually smiled for this one!

They have several types of wild animals who for various reasons can no longer live in the wild.  We timed our visit right because we were able to see "enrichment" activities for several of the animals and that means they came up close where you could really see them.

Bald eagles

Male bear

Female bear

Female cougar

Male cougar

We drove on up to the top of the mountain to the swinging bridge.  The bridge is not nearly the frightening thing that it was when I was a kid.  It seems to me that it's been stabilized a great deal since then, but maybe it's just my imagination.  It was extremely windy on top of the mountain.  I mean push you around the parking lot, hang on to the rails so you don't get blown off, windy, so we decided not to cross the bridge.  We were worried less about the bridge than we were about the open rocks on the other side where there's nothing to hold on to.  So we were cautious adults.  Hey, we live in NC, it's not like we can't ever go back!

Yeah some people were crazy enough to hang out on top of that big rock in the wind, but not me!

After a stop for lunch, we drove out to Penland to check out the school.  Classes had just ended last week, so we just drove around and checked things out.  The school has a little different focus than the John C. Campbell Folk School, which we've been to a couple of times, but it seems like a nice place.

We stopped at Barking Spider Pottery near the school and bought a new piece for our ledge.  I didn't think to take a picture of it before I put it up on the ledge, so sorry for the crappy picture. 

It's the one on the right.

We drove in to Burnsville for an early dinner at a restaurant we like there, which doesn't seem to have a website, but it's called In the Garden. Then we made our way back to the Inn for the night.

Monday morning we got up and headed home.  All in all it was a nice weekend away and I look forward to going back to the area again and hopefully someday calling it home.

A Weekend in the Mountains - Part 1

Rob and I headed to the mountains this weekend.  We've spent the past couple of years checking out small mountain towns, looking for the area we'd like to purchase some property for weekends and eventually live there when we retire.  We really like the Burnsville area, so this weekend we headed to nearby Spruce Pine, just one county over to check out that area as well.

We left Friday morning and took our time driving up.  We went a little out of our way to stop in Black Mountain for lunch and a little wandering around.

I spotted some of Sue Dial's gorgeous buttons in the yarn shop there.

I was very tempted to purchase 4 of these for the members of the Sock Monkey Sisterhood, but I resisted.

We got to Spruce Pine in the afternoon and checked in to the lovely Richmond Inn.  We've discovered that we prefer staying in a Bed and Breakfast when we're spending a weekend away.  It's enjoyable to meet other travelers over breakfast and have a nice place to hang out when we're not out & about.

The Penland School of Crafts is not far from Spruce Pine, so art there is a lot of art and artists.  The Inn's neighbor is apparently somewhat of an artist as well.

We had dinner Friday evening at a great restaurant called The Tropical Grill.  Fabulous food and very friendly people.  Then we wandered around downtown for a while, and saw some more art, that was a little more practical this time. 

Saturday morning we headed back to historic downtown Spruce Pine for a while to investigate the shops that had been closed the night before.  The Toe River Arts Council was having an event with several artists selling their art, and I might have purchased a few things.

After that, we drove out towards Bakersville.  We went by a piece of property that was for sale, that looked somewhat promising online for a very good price, but after looking at it, decided it wasn't really what we were looking for.  We went into Bakersville, which is tiny, but it had a couple of art galleries where we browsed for a bit. 

In Bakersville we saw a sign for a wolf sanctuary.  If you know Rob, you know he has a fascination with wolves, so we started following the signs.  We had great timing because they are only open for tours on Saturdays certain parts of the year and this Saturday was the first time this year they'd been open.  We saw some gorgeous wolves, and even got to pet one of them.

After the wolves we drove around a bit and drove over to Little Switzerland just to see it.  We went back to the Inn to relax a bit before dinner, then had another wonderful dinner, this time at Knife & Fork.  They have some very unique items on their menu.  Rob had braised rabbit, which was very good.  I opted for a more traditional steak and potatoes, but the blueberry tart with lemon curd that I had for dessert was different and delicious.

Back at the Inn, one of the resident animals took a liking to Rob's lap.  Actually, she wasn't really particular about whose lap she was in, but I was knitting, so I guess she found his more relaxing at the time.

*In the interest of not going on too long, I'm going to chop this up in to two posts, so more tomorrow.