Shout Out to all the Lovelies!!

First, let me send a shout out to GW!! How could I possibly forget the lady that saved me with a loan of yarn and needles?!

The socks got started, but sadly, remain only partially complete.

You have not experienced any kind of senior moment; I was negligent in not returning your needles to you in a timely manner...

(I've had a few glasses of a lovely Shiraz with pizza for dinner; hence the colourful way I'm writing tonight!)

I have located and 'rounded' up your needles and will get them in the mail tomorrow (or Monday). Thanks again for your help; no one understands a knitter's needs like another knitter. :-)

O.K. so here was one of my finds at the KW Fair. Sock yarn with Stirling Silver!! It's new!! I don't know why I thought I should have it, but I know it's mine!

A lovely black/navy clolourway, with a hint of shine, named Midnight (as you can see on the label---duh)---love it!

Now for something that doesn't need to be knit!

This lovely lady? This is Agnes. Isn't she lovely?

'Lovely' seems to be the word of the evening.

Anyway, Agnes came home with me from the last Creative Festival; just because she's so special!

While in Kitchener I met up with the lovely (again) people at BLACK SHEEP AND EWE and met Dorothy.

I love her sweater and still dream of making one very similar!

I also found....

Jack.

I love Jack.

Jack is a sweetheart and someday I hope to go to his wedding.



That, however, is another story!

And We're Back!

The computer is all updated, restarted and apparently happy enough to be here and allow me to post some pictures of one of the best days of my life!!



It was an early start for a Saturday morning for a few of the Cast Offs! We were on the road complete with coffee in hand, and Daniel our trusted (well along with a Mapquest Map) GPS guide, by 7:50 am. I generally don't even get dressed by that time in the morning, never mind out driving and picking up people; but then, this was for yarn.

We arrived in Kitchener (without a single wrong turn---thanks Daniel) around 9:15 (doors open at 9:30) to this:

An ever growing lineup!! Who cares if the skies were to open and deluge us with 100mm of rain? Is it just me, but why wouldn't it be reported as 10cm? Does that sound worse or something? Anyway, why the sock? I'm so glad you asked. Due to an unfortunate Knitting injury one of our Cast Offs was unable to attend the Kitchener Waterloo Knitters Fair. She is also unable to knit---due to too much knitting (without sufficient wine breaks to aid in lubrication of the joints!)---and this is a sock she was working on with a completion date of Oct. 4; I offered to complete the sock and decided that even if Ruth couldn't make it to the Fair, then her sock would! Unfortunately, this is the only photo of said sock until I got home; blame it on the Yarn Fumes!



O.K. we get in the door and then have to decide which room to go to first?! I went with the one I was closest to after we hit the ladies room and also Debbie New was knitting at the doorway---divine intervention I believe.
So, common knowledge that I don't need yarn. Probably just as common knowledge that that very fact has never stopped me before, but this time? This time it was going to be different!

Stop laughing.

My first purchases were not yarn.

Definitely yarn and knitting related (hello? Knitters fair!).

See? Not yarn.

I'm doin' good. I'm o.k. I have lots of beautiful yarn at home and not nearly enough time to knit it all.

And then? Then I saw this.

Isn't that striking? It looks like a lot of fun....someday.

And once I got warmed up...

So yea, I bought some more yarn. See the happy sock in the middle of it all?

You know, I get out to these kind of sales/events as often as I can and am known to consistently Enhance the Stash on these occasions, but I gotta tell you...I did show restraint and after I added up how much I spent (I rarely do that) I spent virtually the same amount as I did the first time that I went to the Creative Festival down in Toronto in 2000! Now, take inflation into account, and I'm sure that I spent far less this time around!

I've now been to the Knitter's Frolic twice and yes, this was my first time to the KW Fair; so I think I've come up with a reasonable plan (we all know about me and my plans! sheez) ! I will (attempt) to budget for those two sales each year. One in the spring and one in the fall. Fabulous!! And maybe as a treat I'll get to a Stitches Event (or two) every(year) now and then.

And now a reminder from the medical community.

To your health!

LATER!!

Somewhere out there in blog photo land there are double copies of the things that I wanted to show you from the KW Knitters Fair on Saturday. Apparently, this isn't the time that I am supposed to do this. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that my computer wants to do a restart for updates and I keep telling it LATER!!
Well, I guess it's a 'right back at ya sista' from the ole keyboard. So I'll post this little teaser, to let you know that you are on my mind, set up a link for another blog that I like to visit. Turns out this lady was also at KW and you can have a look at her photos. Go to Knitting to Stay Sane.
I will try again later, after I've given in to my laptop and let her shut down...
I know how she feels.
Bye for now or rather,
Later!

Well, There went THAT summer!

Yup! Bye, bye Summer '08!
It was a very hectic and rainy summer---as if nobody's mentioned that at least a thousand times! There was, however, a lot of beauty to be thankful for amongst all that Canadian weather!
Here, we see yet, another storm rolling in.

My intention was to enter this picture in my parent's local fall fair, but once again life's just didn't have that in store for me this time around. What was memorable about taking this picture though, was that as I climbed down the hill (and across the road) to get to the dock area of the cottage we rented, my son looked up from putting the cover on the boat (yet again) to see what I was taking a picture of.

"Cool!"

He wouldn't have stopped to notice the beauty or just how much contrast we were lucky to observe as the clouds came rolling in, had I not wanted to win a prize at the fair. You know, I think I'll remember that moment more than if I had won a second or third. (My mom would get 1st; it's just a given!) My hope is that he remembers it too.

The Dear Flies were horrendous, but the dog needed to be walked! So out comes my collection of hats (and a rain coat that I bought the first day up there!) and various landmarkes were set up to give the children some idea of how far they were to take the dog. ie. Not just to the end of the driveway and then say, "She didn't do anything!"

One of the closests landmarks was, 'Debby's cottage'. We were lucky to have friends rent a cottage just two down from us; so that was a short, in a hurry walk. The BIG walk landmark was to go check on the boat trailer; to make sure that it was still chained to the tree at the launch area. To the north this was the landmark that I chose.

I was having such a good time fiddling around with the settings on my camera and I've always enjoyed Thistles (I guess it's in the blood) and finally took a decent photo of one. I hope to implement my Thistle ideas in some of my knitting projects. (sooner rather than later!)

As the end of our cottage time loomed closer, I took to getting as much peaceful time on the dock as the weather permitted (not much!); this is what that looks like.

Like the hat?