Home Again, Home Again

Jiggety Jig.

I'm just home from a great weekend at Fiber Daze, in Neosho, Missouri.  I taught my sock knitting class there (Socks Top-Down on Two Circulars), and also an overview of Ravelry.  It was a lot of fun and I had great students! 

I did do a little shopping, but no yarn came home with me  :-)
 

Over on the far left are little "bird's nests" that I made in Diana Armes Wallace's "Blending with a Hackle" class.  It was a lot of fun and I learned that in this process particularly, less is definitely more.  My favorite nest is the one in the middle, which is just two colors of wool and a teeny bit of glitz.  There is a vest pattern - one of Janet Wray's (JWrayco) beautiful designs, and a weekly calendar book that I bought just for the photos of fiber art in it!  The off-white fiber is one ounce of BFL/Silk top, and the charcoal one is one ounce of Wensleydale roving. 

The packages are two ounces each of some of the JWrayco's Sterling Roving (63% superwash merino, 20% silk, 15% nylon and 2% silver poly).  I got a painted and a coordinating solid in two different shades/colors.  You see where I'm going, don't you?  :-)  I keep trying to get enough yardage for socks out of four ounces of fiber  :-D

That last blue braid is Wensleydale top.  I love Wensleydale.  Tammy doesn't.  She gave that to me!

It was a wonderful trip, but it's the last time I'm going to be teaching for awhile.  I made the decision to not teach at Fiber Retreat in March because there are some weaving classes that I really want to take there next year  :-)  I am determined to learn how to really weave.  This decision is also based on my desire to move more balance into my life.  Sometimes it's good to go and just take class rather than go and attempt to teach and take class.  :-)

As usual, my suitcase is exploded all over my guest room.  Prolly a good thing no one is visiting me any time soon :-D
 

Let me tell you about that hideous lime suitcase . . .  It's a Samsonite Oyster - one they don't make anymore - the one that actually fits a Lendrum spinning wheel.  Yeah.  It fits.  And once you get it in there, and get your clothes in, it weighs a really lot.  It has wheels, but it's an older style of suitcase so the wheels are on the skinny end and you have to take the entire weight of the suitcase in your hand to pick it up and roll it along.

When I left, it weighed 48.8 pounds.    I dragged (wheeled) it to the train.  I picked it up (blessing my trainer) and hauled it up the steps at the train station.  I dragged (wheeled) it across the Loop to work (where I took the elevator up to the lobby rather than the stairs like I usually do).  Upon arrival at my desk, I IMMEDIATELY called the car service and made a reservation to be picked up on the way home  :-D   And then I dragged (wheeled) it to the el and all the way through the passage to Midway to the desk, where I checked it.  It weighed 49 pounds by the time I got there.  No clue why.   I was never so happy to check a bag (and pay for the privilege) in my life.  My hands still hurt.  It only weighed about 44 pounds on the way home  (yay me!), but still . . . this is a lesson learned. 

It's one thing to pop my Lendrum in it's carry bag in the back of my auto.  It's another to attempt to fly with it.  I won't do it again. 

Had a wonderful visit and stayed with my friends Tammy and Robert.  They took me to a place called Silver Dollar City.  It was a LOT of fun!  I got stuff there, too, but nothing big - a few things for my shadow box, a few CDs and some other trinkets.  It all had to fit in the backpack, so I was careful. 

It was a great long weekend  :-)   I came home on Monday, and am still attempting to get things put away and the laundry done  :-D

In other news of the day - I'm up on the scale.  Again.  Traveling does that, but still.  I have not done too well for most of this year.  I'm not sure what that's about, but I'm not giving up.  In addition, It's about that time of year where I start going through everything again.  I seem to do this in the fall . . . two years ago I called it The Great Cleanup of 2010.  I'm thinking that a good part of October is going to be spent divesting stuff here.  I don't know how I can divest continually and still have ALL THIS STUFF . . .  but I'm seriously feeling the need to work on it all again.  So - my closet will be first and we'll see how it all goes   :-)  But, that's not going to start for a few weeks.  I've got a weekend to myself to get things put away from this latest trip, and then I'm going to be taking some violets to show.

This is my favorite time of year.  This morning it's foggy and the trees are already turning.  It was so hot this summer that they will not last long, but for the time being, on my block, it's truly autumn.