I'm not dead, I swear!

I am, however, massively behind in the whole posting thing. Good lord, where to begin?? Okay then, random & barely coherent it is...

First of all, I had a lovely visit from my pal Shanelle, who is an extremely talented knitter, and a fabulous seamstress as well. She's incredibly nice & interesting on the boards where we met, and REALLY nice, interesting, and damn funny in person. And, she brought me fudge, which always wins my heart. I'm cheap that way. She went with my parents, my boys & I to an old-timey steam engine show, where we went half-deaf from the engines, ate corn dogs, gawked at the awesome antique cars & tractors, and just generally had a grand 'ol time. I just love events like this...the whole thing is held in the back 40 of some old farmer guy, and there's huge trees everywhere, and old men in overalls & seed caps, and farm kids learning to run the hundred year old machinery, and fried food, and such an air of history! These are the machines that created America as we know it, and being so close to the country's history like that is just amazing to me.

Shanelle also accompanied me to that wonderous mecca of all things fiber, that black hole of finances, that paragon of yarny goodness...Stitches!!! Oh my good lord, I thought I'd died & gone to heaven. The only way it could have possibly been any better is if I'd had a special card that assured me that every skein would cost only a dollar for me that day. Hey, a girl can dream! It was soooo much fun, though. Shanelle & I were lucky enough to be at the very front of the line to get in, though we were beaten to the door by a *really* determined older woman, who got us laughing so hard that I almost couldn't walk properly. (Seriously, this lady raced us up the stairs! It was a good way to start the day, laughing & running like crazy people. Which we are.) I, of course, immediately made a beeline for Blue Moon Fiber Arts, home of the much-coveted Socks That Rock. I reeeeaaaalllly wish they'd get around to finishing the updating/upgrading of their website. Many of the colors that they had aren't listed there, and dangit, I may want some more lightweight soon! I did, however, come out of there with six skeins of the gorgeous stuff, which pleased me immensely. After we managed to pry ourselves out of that booth (omg, it was packed! I'm really glad I chose to go there first), Shanelle & I started a methodical, don't-want-to-miss-a-single-thing pattern around the room. Truly, it's the only way to do it...there's just SO much fiber, SO many beautiful colors, that you'll get completely overwhelmed & scatterbrained otherwise. I still can't believe all the fibers...it was so amazing just to touch them all! Silk & quiviut blends (oooooh my!), finest merinos, bamboo, buffalo (!!).... Endless amounts of fibers & yarns. Honestly, I just wanted to hop on the tables & roll around in it. There were gorgeous orenburg lace shawls that were so beautiful it almost made you weep, socks in every color known to man (and a few previously unknown), sweaters of every skill level imagineable. Let me tell you, quiviut lace is something everyone must feel before they die, in my opinion. It's so light, so feather-soft, you almost can't feel it as you hold it. Becoming skilled enough as to be worthy of a skein of quiviut laceweight is one of my loftiest goals.

Of course, I was a complete dolt & forgot my camera at home. You do, however, get pics of the spoils! Now, see, this is where my single-mindedness & planning really pays off...I'm really rather poor, financially speaking. Putting a day like Stitches on a credit card is just shockingly unwise, and having much extra money at any given point is highly unlikely, especially since we just bought a car. Knowing all this, I started saving money for Stitches back in May, setting a little bit aside every week, and earning small amounts here & there that also got socked away (like the stupid pun there?). I'm incredibly proud of myself for that, I'll have you know. It was WONDERFUL to be able to buy all the pretty yarns I coveted that day!! Granted, given the opportunity, I could have spent ten times what I did, but I'm still quite pleased with what I brought home.

*SIGH* It seems Blogger doesn't care to post my pictures right now. I took pics of the whole sock stash, too...grrrr. I'll try that part again another time, I suppose. My Stitches loot amounts to 14 pairs of socks, two sweaters, a Booga bag, and a scarf. Yeah!!

More at a later, more cooperative (in the Blogger sense) time...