Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Memorial Day Weekend, Part I

I have so much to tell you about this past weekend, I have to split it up into at least two posts. Maybe three. It was fiberfully-delicious!

(And yes, Joy, I know. The post was going to be up earlier today, but Blogger won't let me upload anymore pictures today. Therefore, this post is mostly picture-less, and I'll show more pictures whenever Blogger stops being mean.)

Friday night I went to see
X-Men: The Last Stand. I had refused to see the first one for the longest time, and when I finally gave in, I really enjoyed it. I subsequently enjoyed X-Men 2, and the latest one was not a disappointment. It was nicely intense in a couple of spots, and Hugh Jackman was a delight, as always.

Saturday was spent mostly in the yarn store. I had sock club from 10-noon with two participants (Hi Tobie! Hi Lisa!), then I sat with Nicole's baby sweater class and worked on my entrelac bag. (I find it interesting to note that the last time I posted an
update about this bag was two months ago. Scroll down to see the then progress.)

After Nicole's class,
Kimmie came up and we got packed up to head to Wooster for the Great Lakes Fiber Show. We arrived around 9:30 and were greeted with a million hugs and a home made carrot cake. We knitted long into the night (sort of), and fell asleep dreaming of the differences between sheep and goats.

Sunday morning dawned bright and beautiful. We headed off to the Wayne County Fairgrounds around 9:30am. We found at least four different buildings jammed full of vendors, a large barn filled with sheep, and a plethora of tents outside with alpacas, angora rabbits, and more vendors.

We wandered through the vendors first. It was very difficult to be patient and look at everything before deciding what to purchase. (Tomorrow's post will be about my purchases. I haven't taken pictures of everything yet.) Nicole found a drop spindle and quite a bit of different kinds of roving (she's never spun before), and Kimmie found some Fantasia yarn and some pretty brown and cream colored yarns that I'm sure she'll soon enlighten us about on her own blog.

We had lunch at the fairgrounds, visited the alpacas and bunnies, then wandered through the vendors another couple times. We made some purchases (pictures soon!) and headed out around 2pm.

We went to Scoops, a diner/ice cream parlor in Wooster, and we were just finishing up our ice cream when a very large group of 10 year old boys came in, with one parent. It was a birthday party! There had to have been at least 20 boys in the parlor. Each of them got to order ice cream, have a cupcake, and fill a brown-bag-sized bag with candy from the bins. We overheard two priceless quotes. One boy said, "This is the BEST day of my life!" Shortly after, while the boys were pushing and shoving to overfill their candy bags, another boy said, "My parents would NEVER let me do this!" That was pretty much our cue to leave.

We sat outside for a little while, finishing untangling winding Kimmie's Fantasia yarn and letting Nicole thaw out from the parlor's AC. We made a rather unmemorable trip to Wal-Mart, then headed back to my mom's house.

We dined on some ox tail soup that Nicole's dad had brought from Germany. Ox tail soup, you say? That was one of two dishes that my dad had always remembered from being stationed in Germany when he was in the army. Nicole's dad came to visit for two weeks in April and brought the soup. My dad passed away during his visit, so we enjoyed the soup Sunday night in his memory. It was actually really good, and I'm really glad that I had the chance to taste it. So thanks again, Nicole. It was very fun to enjoy something that my dad had such good memories of.

Sunday night we knitted long into the night again, and... well, you'll have to wait until I can upload pictures to hear the news.

More soon!

5 comments:

Brenda said...

I am so jealous. I can't wait to see the purchases! And the entrelac bag! Let us see pictures blogger!

Yonners said...

Wow that is a weekend! (I played Sims2...). I'm glad you were able to do something important to you in regards to your father. The minivan story was excellent! Can't wait to see the fruits of the shopping! (so many exclamation marks!!!)

Kathie Chiu said...

Hi, I just knit the lace sweater from knitty that you designed. I'm wondering if you could help me out. I followed your instructions completely (there was a pattern flaw in the printing on one of the rows) and used the exact measurements when blocking. However, when I put it all together, the sweater turned out very wide and the sleeves very long. Is the the intent of the design? Email me at: ahhhchiugang@shaw.ca and let me know.

thanks... Kathie

Kimmie said...

Oxtail soup was not nearly as scary as it sounded!

Joy said...

Did you actually finish ANOTHER project???? Wow!

Man oh man I hated to miss this trip. The pictures of the animals and the yarn and the roving.... wow. How fun.