Hypocrite!!

Yep, that's me! My last post...nearly three months ago...was all about how I'm not doing too bad on keeping to posting...um...uh, yeah...whatever you say...

I'm sorry it's been so long...I've wanted to sit down and blog a bit here and there, but there's been so MUCH to say that I just couldn't get myself to sit down and DO it! So, I'll try to give you a brief recap of my summer, then a little more detail.

What have I been doing?

Well, you knew about the SCA (Society for Creative Anacronism) thing.

In July L, K, Gwenore and I went to St. Petersburg to the Res Textilia event. It was an entire day of fiber classes! Among other things I learned the basics of Blackwork while there. Also had the pleasure of meeting Francesca who joined us for dinner.

Sometime in here, a friend of mine had a 70th birthday!! Her family decided to have a surprise party for her. Her kids flew in from California and New York, all of her knitting friends, her work friends, her church friends, her family friends... and the amazing thing about it was that the secret was kept perfectly! She had no idea whatsoever and was happily shocked when she walked through the door of her home to find all those people there. She's an avid sock knitter, so I spun this up for her birthday.
















At work we had a surprise Baby Shower for my boss. He was having his second child, a little girl. We decided to keep it small, but I made a super quick baby afghan for him. It's just a diagonal dish towel pattern in stripes, then picked up around the outside and finished with a feather and fan edge. I knit that in about a week and a half.


Remember the snowman and scarf that I made back in December? My co-worker made her snowman in Green Bay Packer's colors. Another co-worker, who was a Wisconsinite and a HUGE GBP fan left us to move back home. So for his gift, she brought in her GBP snowman for him. She thought maybe we could make it a joint going away gift from the two of us, so we went out and raided the yarn stash in the back of my car and I whipped up a second snowman scarf.


In August I met a guy and started dating him. We spent a lot of our weekends together, which also precluded blogging :( One weekend we went to Sarasota to Siesta Key Beach. What a great day!

Labor Day weekend I went to another SCA event - Fall Coronation. Witnessed the death of the king and queen





















and coronation of their heirs.


















































Transformed into their new regalia...


And more importantly...I learned to make FIRE!!























Had another blackwork class, learned a bit about Viking Pennanular Brooches (the ones in the class were not nearly that fancy...very simple really - they'd make a GREAT shawl pin!). Made some other new SCA friends that weekend too. Oh, and one scary story...I was sitting in the front row at Court Sunday night with my new friends knitting (on my very non-period CTH jacket!) when the new Queen stood up and stated that she wanted hand crafters to be a more active part of Court. Suggesting that we should request seating and sit up in the front (next to the royals, facing the populace!!) to "entertain" others with our work during court!! :o And yes, she pointed me out specifically since I was in the front.

I meantioned the CTH jacket...I was actually doing edging in court...and finished it later that week! So yes, it's done! I actually think the second one lays flatter and looks much better than the first! I took it home with me when I went to NY on vacation. My mother commented that it would be BEAUTIFUL in Greens and Browns...which is completely true. I was trying to figure out if she was suggesting that I should make one for her... At the rate that she wears the things I've made for her in the past, I really don't see that happening...

So yes, I also went home in September. Got to see my parents, do a bunch of cooking (for 13 people!!) at the cabin, with fresh veggies from the garden (homemade marinara that cooked down all day, zucchini bread, stuffed zucchinis...). Went up to Saranac Lake to visit my brother, sis-in-law, and adorable niece
and saw his new restaurant and the newly rebuilt lodge.with the view of WhiteFace Mountain...

We had dinner there and it was AMAZING! He's the one of the opening team Sous Chefs at the Lake Placid Lodge. Did a bit of retail yarn therapy while I was up there. Visited a little shop in Saranac Lake, a nice big shop in Lake Placid, and an Alpaca Store in Jay.
On the way back from the Alpaca store, I stopped near the base of White Face Mountain to take some pictures of the river that runs off it.

Turned out the day I was there was knitting night at the shop in LP, so I went back and knitted with them! Several people there have been trying to learn to spin, but not having a ton of success. So, I sat with one and taught her park and draft drop spindling. She was thrilled and had great success with it. I had lunch with my sister in law before leaving.

After Lake Placid was the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival!! What a wonderful weekend! Got lots of great stash items, learned a bit, and met and saw lots of people. I'll do a whole post on that very soon. Thought I'd get it done tonight, but this post has taken several hours.

After returning to Florida, I went out this past weekend for the National Alpaca Farm Open House Days at Green Ginger Alpacas in Eustis.


M, D, and L joined me and we had an awesome time!

I got to see Judy's friend OP (see the early April post), recently back from his summer at a rehab home for kids where he was a huge hit!


He has a new career and it all started back with Judy and I in March! He came out to meet the kids several times each day last weekend and was GREAT with them! Talking with Jane after we finished spinning, we are going to offer some spinning classes at the farm in the near future, definitely for basic drop spindling, but possibly also some wheel spinning classes. I'm also thinking of spinning up some novelty yarns in Alpaca to possibly put in her new farm store for purchase!

In other Alpaca news, I was contacted by another Alpaca farm a few months ago who is interested in getting some of their fleece spun in exchange for some of the yarn. Wouldn't you know, my first box of roving arrived on Wednesday!


There's a lovely white roving that spins up with a bit of an oatmeal color to it, as well as a couple of samples from some of the other alpaca fleeces that they have. I started spinning that this morning and it's beautiful!

And yes, I'm single again...as of yesterday. My choice...there were some pretty major cultural differences between us, but it looks like we'll be able to remain friends, so that's a happy ending too! Still fishing though, so we'll see. I think those are most of the highlights...

And if you're wondering how I finally found time to blog, it's because I'm currently sitting in the Tea room (with IM turned off) listening to my friend and her beautiful singing voice! What a lovely - and peaceful - way to spend the evening!