Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Weekend Away

We spent last weekend (not Memorial Day weekend) in NY, on Long Island visiting with Mom, mostly. We ate out a couple of times, talked a lot, and on Saturday (the only day with decent weather for part of the time) we went to a fiber festival!
We had planned to go to the Arboretum   to see the spring plants, flowers and the ospreys that nest there. Mom found something in the paper, though, about an Alpaca Fiber Festival at this museum farm.
We had a great time. They had vendors carrying lots of fiber related stuff: fiber to spin in various forms, yarn, weaving, rug hooking, sewing stuff. They had alpacas, llamas, angora bunnies (which Mom was very tempted by), sheep and some goats. They had dog agility, llama agility and shepherding demos as well as weaving, dyeing with natural dyes, spinning (including flax and spinning on a great wheel), knitting and I am sure that I forgot something.

I was so good .... I couldn't go home without anything new, but I limited my purchases to some stitch markers, a braid (4 oz) of Polworth in blues and grays and a one ounce bag of a blend of merino/yak/mulberry silk. Yum.

We had no downpours or severe storms but had lots of drizzly, misty, cloudy weather and it never got out of the 60's. If we had stayed in MD we would have had little rain and temps in the 70's and just into the 80's. Imagine the shock to our systems when we got back and dealt with 80-90 degree temps since then!

Bob went to go fishing and to retrieve his half a fishing rod that he had left on the boat during our last fishing debacle.  It was a no-go. They had told him they had it and would hold it, but there was no sign of his fishing rod, which he had made 30 something years ago. I feel very bad for him. I think I'll send an email.

I started on the back of my cardigan and have the picot cast on and 1.5 pattern repeats done. I also made huge progress on Saroyan, which I have decided to push to get finished. A friend lost her 20 year old grandson 2 weeks ago and she needs a hug. This will be it.

Despite my intentions, no spinning was done over the weekend. I did show Mom my raw BFL fleece (part of it, not all of it) and she is fascinated. I'll have to keep her informed of the progress, maybe send her a lock at each stage.

The drive there and back was pretty good but I think the travel time of year has begun and we'll have to plan to avoid Sunday traffic for the summer.

I've taken pictures, but on eldest son's camera and he can't find the cord that will allow me to download the pictures to the computer .....

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