There's some happy dancin' goin' on...

out there in another part of the country.

My sock-ret pal got the package I sent the other day and man, was she happy! I'm just loving shopping for her. Buying stuff for someone you don't know can be difficult, but when you figure out what someone might like and then they actually do like it, it's a ton of fun.

Some days you have an "ah ha" moment...

And then you just have to kick your own butt... like between yesterday and today I spent hours uploading pictures just so I could show my trip to Rhinebeck. They looked lovely on my site, but then when I went to brag about my shots show my friend my blog, all you saw were these tiny boxes where my pictures should have been.

How ANNOYING is that???

So I got really pissed off and shut down the page and didn't give it anymore of my time. Then, as I was sitting here doing something entirely unrelated, it just came to me. Ah ha! That was the problem...

So, I've corrected the stupidty problem on my end and my pictures in my Rhinebeck post should now be visible. Tell me what you think...

On the Road to Rhinebeck

I’d been thinking about going to Rhinebeck since the first time I heard about it at my Knit ‘n Stitch group. My daughter jumped right on the bandwagon with me and we decided to do it. Even the cats were excited about it and couldn’t wait for me to print out the directions…



Well, I just knew we had to go. After all, I've been hearing about RHINEBECK for the past year and how wonderful, exhilarating, glorious, and every other adjective you can think of to describe it, so on Saturday, my little girl and I set out for our adventure.

I'd heard there would be petting zoo stuff and Halloween stuff and other things to keep her interest (someone promised her that if we went to see the Llamas, one would spit on her and she was very excited and looking forward to that!) so I knew she would not be bored awestruck by the whole thing, but would possibly hopefully enjoy the day with me.

So, we got on the road and we saw this:



and I was so happy with the scenery and the prospect of getting there reasonably early, that I started to do this:




But recently having to deal with a speeding ticket caused me to be more cautious and I brought my speed back down.

Then, we got here…



and I knew we were only about ½ mile away from the main gate, but look what we had to deal with next (insert HUGE sigh here):



and it took us about ½ hour to go ½ mile… talk about frustration, knowing that all that glorious yarn that was just screaming my name could potentially be gone by the time I got into the fairgrounds and parked.

But when we got inside, I could not believe how crowded absoultely beautiful it was there and I just had to take another picture just to show you:



So we walked around a bit and my kiddo went into the haunted house (no less than six times, mind you) and had a blast while I sat freezing my ass off waiting outside for her like a good mom!

I ran into some of my knitting buds in the middle of the day and was awed by the things they bought, but I didn’t yet see anything that absolutely screamed out for me to take it home, so I kept giving it a fair shot… and then I spotted this at The Fold (thanks, Toni!):



This was a second choice for me, but by the time I got to Rhinebeck, 2 ½ hours after it opened, ALL the Socks That Rock, with the exception of two very questionably colored skeins, WERE GONE!

So, I continued ambling around and decided on this:



to make a couch blankie for myself.

All in all, the trip was lovely, the scenery was beautiful, we had a nice time and it wore my daughter out. I spent the 2 ½ hour drive home singing the score of Rent at the top of my lungs while my daughter did this:



Would I go again? I don’t know. I found it overwhelming, way too many people (though, as a class of people, I truly do love other knitters) and not enough in the “new and exciting” department. I’d have to give it some thought. But those who know me know that I do anything to feed my yarn addiction, so would I go again? Probably, if I’m honest with myself.

Some very exciting shopping...

Well, today a friend and I went shopping and man did we get a great buy... We found a yarn store that, as we were about to leave, announced a sale on yarns in the back of the store. The owner had just moved to a new location and had too much stock to fit her new location, so she had these large 72 quart Rubbermaid containers filled with a wide variety of yarns. Her thing? Fill gallon ziploc bags with as much yarn as you could stuff in them for $15 a piece. Well, we really went to town. We got fabulous angora, and cottons and silks and so much more and spent so little. It was really an exciting day...

So, I came home and decided that my library of knitting books is simply not large enough and my music collection could use a little filling in and, oh, by the way, there are some books I'd like to have, so I put together a little (yeah, right!) wish list on half.com because the holidays are coming. So, to my family and friends, if the inclination strikes that you want to buy me something and don't know what to get, here ya go (I can't believe I've actually compiled this list). Little by little I will be chipping away at it, but it was certainly fun making it. Here it is...

My wish list

One of these days I will learn how to hide a link behind a word that you can click, but until I do, I just have to do it the old fashioned way... hahahahaha

What kind of knitting needles are you????

What kind of knitting needles are you?

You are interchangeable.Fun, free, and into everything, you've got every eventuality covered and every opportunity just has to be taken. Every fiber is wonderful, and every day is a new beginning. You are good at so many things, it's amazing, but you can easily lose your place and forget to show up. They have row counters for people like you!
Take this quiz!

What time of day are you?

You Are Sunrise

You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary. You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward. Caring and giving, you enjoy making people happy. You're often cooking for friends or buying them gifts. All in all, you know how to love life for what it is - not for how it should be.

What Time Of Day Are You?

More about the blanket... and the sweater!

Well, as I mentioned in my last post, the blanket is finally finished. Have I mentioned how crazy great it is to be me sometimes? I can sit in the same place, doing something for hours, with something right in front of me and, without moving or doing anything else, it simply disappears? That's typical of my life.

Here I am, ready to put the buttons on the baby sweater, knowing exactly where they were put (for safekeeping, naturally) and now, when I go to my safe place to find them, poof! They are gone. It's surreal magical. Hahahaha. Hopefully they will turn up, but it remains to be seen. Anyway, this is the blanket...




If you continue down, you will might see the matching baby sweater (having trouble getting more pictures in here now... huge sigh), sans the adorable buttons I have for it somewhere in my house. Yanno, I know I'm jumping all over the place here, but I left for Mexico having finished the baby sweater completely and only having about six inches done on the blanket. When I left, my life-long girlfriend's husband was painting my house, building shelves for me, rearranging furniture, etc., etc. (He could NOT believe the amounts of yarn and books on knitting that I have, but he empathizes. In the things he loves, he is a true pack-rat kinda person, so he gets it, but he "spreads the wealth" around in his collections. Me, I'm truly focused. All yarn, all the time.

And here it is!!!!!



Anyway, I digress. When I left, I knew where everything was. It was a mess, but it was my mess and I could lay my hands on things right away. When I returned, my house was in GREAT shape... walls painted in my choice of colors, shelves on the walls where storage crates used to be, acrylics in large bags on the way out for a yard sale so I could make more room for the good stuff now that I've got shelves to put yarn on, you know... but I don't know where anything is now (like those damned buttons!) so I have to search things out now. What fun... NOT!

Here's a side view...


I would have liked the set in a solid color that would have made the stitches pop, but this was the choice my close friend made for her great granddaughter. It really is cute, but I'm so glad I'm done. Now I have to finish two tiny bits on two sweaters for my daughter, work on the socks for my secret pal and then I get to do something entirely new and exciting...

Make something for me!

Well the interminable blanket is DONE!!!!!

I finally finished the baby blanket while in Mexico and all I have to do now is sew the buttons on the matching sweater and off this goes to my friend's great-granddaughter. I have to say, when I first said I'd make this for her, I never thought about what I was volunteering to do. The blanket turned out beautifully, though, as did the sweater, and I will post pictures later this week.

I have already moved onto a couple other projects. While doing the blanket, it was the only thing I'd let myself do (that was a HUGE mistake). The blanket was so complicated and required such a huge amount of concentration that I would not let myself do any mindless knitting, but maybe I should have.

Now that I'm free, I've got two pair of socks on the needles, about to start a 3rd pair, and I want to start a bag for myself that I want to design as I go and felt when I'm done (never done that before, but I'm looking forward to it). I also want to teach myself to dye yarns. I have a boatload of Henry's Attic waiting to be dyed and I bought about 21 different color dyes to play with.

Thank G-d I'm on permanent disability so my former job (high level executive assistant for an international corporation with branches in 22 countries) does not interfere with my hobbies! What would I do if I could not knit anytime I felt like it?

Anyway, time for bed, but I just wanted to get my progress report in.

And to my sock-ret pal, the 3rd pair going on the needles tonight is yours. Hope you like 'em!