Presents!

I love getting surprises in the mail! My friend Sarah is probably the best surprise sender ever!

She sent me this:



She just got back from an awesome trip - read about it here... and she went to a sea turtle center. I love turtles, as you may or may not know, and she got me these cute sea glass earrings!



And this one may need some explaining - but I squealed like a little girl when I opened the box!



Remember when you were like 12 and everyone had those Broken heart necklaces for Best Friends where half says "Be Fri" and the other half says "st end"? (Well maybe you have to be 30+ to remember this - but everyone had one! If you need a reminder - look here ) Anyway - we were making fun of those necklaces and I started calling Sarah my "Be Fri"... so she decided to make me a necklace out of it! In a much more fashion forward and updated form!!

How awesome is that!? Thanks Sarah - you're the bestest Be Fri ever!


I also got this amazing yarn from Coleen!



It's Tilli Thomas Flurries yarn. It was a birthday present from a yarn shop at Dewey Beach DE - I love it! I've always wanted to try this yarn - but never could justify the purchase. It's it great when someone just gives it to you!?

Thanks ladies!!

Rhinebeck Loot

At long last I am finally ready to show you what I got at Rhinebeck!

Here's the loot!



Rovings:
1. 2 braids (one merino silk and one corriedale)from the Sheep Shack at Mountain View Farms (no website that I could find)

2. Corriedale roving from Grafton Fibers

3. Alpaca mittens (These were my first purcahse as soon as I walked in the first barn - it was cold!)

4. Merino Silk lace weight from A Touch of Twist

5. Majacraft bobbins and 2 cones of cotton thread. This was my deal of the day! I was so excited to find two bobbins for a STEAL! They still have yarn on them too - hehe. The lady selling these was trying to clean out her supply of random things and I saw an amazing deal on a Lendrum speedy flier. Larissa ended up getting it for her new wheel for over half off retail price! I was just happy to find bobbins for half price and she threw in the cotton yarn for free!

6. A Rhinebeck long sleeve t-shirt

7. A Silk scarf

8. 1 skein of green merino yarn - from Shepherds Mill Farm - maybe for a Koolhaas hat?

9. A Silk cap - I have never tried spinning from a silk hanky or silk cap. I got this to try out the technique.

10. 5 different colors of fingering weight yarn from Shelridge Farms - for Fiddlehead mittens

11. 8 skeins of oatmeal merino yarn from Shepherds Mill Farm - for a sweater to be determined.

12. This gorgeous hand sewn Needle case!



It holds both circular and DPNs - wow!



13. I also was lucky enough to get the signature of Ann and Kay of Mason Dixon fame.


They have the coolest stamps of their pictures too!



14. I also got 2 signed copies of

Steaphanie Pearl McPhee's latest NY Times Best Seller! (one for me and one for Sarah)




And finally the most important thing we did at Rhinebeck was handout these buttons...



Jolene's yarn shop - Cloverhill - is going online!! Now all of you that don't live in Maryland can get the same awesome yarn that I can. Her shop will be open for business starting in November, but you can sign up to receive news and information now!

More Rhode Island fun!

When I last left you - we were at Webs! After enjoying the sights at the land of yarn - we decided to dye some of our own! Stacey and Naomi joined us again and Sarah's sister Jeanine came along for the fun too!

We dyed ALOT of yarn! Sarah's backyard was the perfect location for our mini dye studio. She has buckets for soaking the fiber, every color dye you could ever want - and even set up a hot plate AND microwave!!

Just look at our setup!



Here's the loot at the end of the day - Naomi was the queen of the drying rack and set all of our yarn out just so:



We all dyed some great stuff - I'm very excited about the yarn I dyed for my Lady February sweater - it's the cranberry colored one hanging on the fence in the mosaic. I already swatched and got gauge and now I'm ready to cast on!! It will be my Ravelympics project :)

The next day we headed out for our second day at the beach. This time we stayed in Rhode Island and went to Salty Brine State beach. It was a gorgeous beach but very crowded with people as you can see!



Here we are enjoying the sun:




Later that night - Sarah and I went out for fried clams!!!! We went to Iggy's - which we heard was famous for their friend clams. We were definitley not dissappointed!



I got the "clam dinner" which came with clam strips, fries and clam showder. Yum! Unfortunately - I ate it before I remembered to take a picture. Oops!

After we ate - we walked around the beach in Oakland for a bit - it was so beautiful! It was around 7 pm so the beach was deserted - but it sure was pretty.







Since it was such a gorgeous spot - I had to take one of my favorite "at arm's length" pictures of us:



Believe it or not there is still more to come! Next time - I'll show you our tour of Newport!

Cape Cod Part I

I had the best weekend! I went to visit Sarah in Cape Cod - Falmouth to be specific. Her parent's place is so cute! I loved it!


Here were my hosts:

The Murph:


and Morgan and Caleb


Oh yeah - Sarah was there too!

I was up there Thursday night, Friday, Saturday and left Sunday. We did so many awesome things - I think the only way I'll be able to fit it all in is to post about one day at a time!

Well - you get one and a half days today...

I arrived Thursday around 5 and was greeted at the airport by Sarah and Stacey! How awesome is that - I got to see Stacey again!

We went out for dinner and had lobster rolls.... mmmmm!!! So good. Unfortunately Stacey couldn't stay long - so we soon headed back to Sarah's place - via a short tour of Providence RI.

All the houses on the Cape are so adorable! I love the wooden shingles and painted trim. They all have the most beautiful manicured lawns too. For example... how cute is her house?!



The back yard was just as great as the front...



I didn't get to meet her parents - but they are gardening masters! They have all kinds of gorgeous flowers everywhere ...



And her dad keeps an extensive Bonsai garden. This is only HALF of his collection...



We got to spend the entire day on Friday in her backyard dying in the sunshine.


Sarah ordered us some Louet yarn and Jaquard dyes. It was so nice to dye quality yarn! There's nothing wrong with Knit Picks - but let me tell you... there is definitely a difference!! Once you dye with Louet - you can never go back!

We ordered double skeins thinking we'd just divide them before we started dying. Then we thought about it for a second... we don't call each other "knitting twins" for no reason... we always seems to love the same colors. So - why not dye the double skeins and then divide them up later? Brilliant!

We loved each other's creations of course. Here are some of our colors:













After our day of dying - Sarah took me out for Clam strips - yum!! I've never had such amazing clams.

Tomorrow.... we travel to Provincetown! Stay tuned!!

Sheep and Wool - Part Duex

Second day of Sheep and Wool was just as great as the first - but in very different ways. First of all it was much less crowded! Almost deserted compared to Saturday. I headed out with Sarah and Jolene, and later met up with Erin and her cowboy and also hung out with Coleen. The weather was a bit chilly - so Coleen got to wear her Arwen out - Yeah!


Here she is with the cowboy...



I didn't buy too much on Sunday - some Koigu sock yarn and a spindle were my only purchases. We mostly sat and knitted and hung out and ate! It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon.




We met some awesome people...


Who knit some really awesome things....


Hee hee!


Some of us had fun sitting on the grassy knoll - while other had fun rolling down it!



Oh and did I mention that I have such talented friends!! Here are two of the FIRST place winners!!

Amie's socks...


Jolene's socks....


Jolene and her shawl...


Now - on to the purchases!! There are many - so I'm making them small here - but click on them to see them full size...