The bees are everywhere!

Back in September, I spent my morning at Culture Days at Joseph Schneider Haus, readers.  Ever been?  The K-W Knitters' Guild was there in all of our knitting glory, promoting our guild, our craft, and hopefully teaching a few people how to knit.

A quick confession before we get too far in to this.  I completely forgot about this on my calendar until half an hour before I was supposed to be there.  I had agreed to spend the morning at the booth, and then trade off when other people arrived around lunch time.  My shift was 10-1ish, and at 9:30, when I was typing up a blog post and sipping my morning coffee on a lazy Sunday morning, I checked my phone to see what time I was working the next day and saw a flash of "Schneider" on the screen.  I put my phone down and carried on my merry way, and then sat straight up and probably said a swear as I realized what that meant.

I hauled ass to get ready and pull together a bunch of samples for the table.  I was out the door just before 10am, and was on track to arrive downtown around 10:15.  I rushed into the parking lot across the street, and speed walked over to the building.  Aaaaaaaaaaand there was no one there, and nothing set up yet.  Then I saw that the hours of operation on Sunday are 1-5pm.  Hmm.  Let's put this all together now.  I know that I was asked to be there at 10, and I agreed to be there at 10.  So....where was everyone?  There was another lady standing around looking equally confused, so I took the initiative and went inside to see if I could find someone.  I found people right away, and it looked like we were the first ones there as they were finishing the set-up.  Someone brought over a table and a couple chairs for our tent, and I set out my samples.

  Around 10:30, my morning shift partner arrived with the Guild banner, and I had some company.

I think we must have had some wires crossed about why it was necessary to be there at 10/10:30 when the event didn't start until 1pm.  We didn't have much to set up, and we really just ended up knitting and chatting and seeing what the other booths were up to.  When I left at 1:00, a few more Guild people had arrived, and I entirely missed interacting with the visitors.  Oh well.

The day was lovely, it was bright and sunny, and I hope that the Guild got some great exposure from the event.  I would definitely volunteer with this event again, hopefully during a time when the public is actually there.

Onward,

vrock

A worthy post after months of no action - Rhinebeck 2013!

Hello readers!  Before you even say anything, I'll explain myself.  I went through a bout of no knitting this summer, where not only did I not write any blog posts, but I also did not do any knitting.  I bought a house with Fuzzyhead in June and all of my efforts went to doing all the little things with the house (for your own amusement, you can follow my house adventures at joeyandjanicebuyahouse.wordpress.com).  Now that we're settled in, I think it's about time for me to get back to knitting, and writing about it.

We begin with my most recent knitting excursion to Rhinebeck.  You may recall that Catherine and I went last year for the first time, and we were gung ho about going again.  We went with the same bus group, a bunch of ladies from Georgetown who organize the trip each year.  We were fully prepared for the bus of cackling hens syndrome again, and I think it really helped to know that was coming in advance.  I brought my ipod and I think I chiseled away about more than 12 hours worth of podcasts on the trip.  Let's start the recap!

Here we are, shortly after 8am as the bus is rolling out of the parking lot to begin our journey to Rhinebeck.  As someone who doesn't live in Georgetown, this meant I was up at 5:30 in order to walk a dog and get ready to leave and then drive to Georgetown to meet the group.  The lack of sleep didn't catch up to me until later that afternoon, around the time when I was getting mildly bus sick from the combination of jerky stopping and starting and what I later found out was a vanilla air freshener.

At about 10am, we arrived at ye olde duty free.  They are a well-oiled machine at duty free, since they get so many bus loads of cackling hens arriving each day to load up on booze and designer fragrances, so a kind young lady from the duty free hops on the bus to give us the low-down on the process.  She also handed out two $10 gift certificates, to force us to spend money, and Catherine won!  As soon as it was in her hand, we started chanting "candy! candy!" and the other gals on the bus laughed at us.  Who's laughing now, ladies?  We scored two GIANT Reese's peanut butter bars for $6, with money left over for jelly beans.  Super score.

Our border crossing experience was the exact opposite of what happened last year - this year we were really delayed in crossing to the states, but breezed through the border stop on the way home.  Here we are crossing over to Buffalo, before we even got to the hour long wait in the parking lot before the let us come inside and flash our passports.

In knitting news, this is what I was working on on the bus.  The pattern is Rivercat from Knitty and this is yarn that I bought last year at Rhinebeck.  It's from Cephalopod Yarns, Skinny Bugga in Green Darner Dragonfly.  This is where I was at the start of the trip, and within the last hour of traveling back, I was grafting the toe.  I started the pattern a few days ahead of leaving for Rhinebeck so I wouldn't be figuring out the tricky little parts of the pattern while on a jiggling bus.

We arrived to Poughkeepsie in one piece and ditched the rest of the group at the Olive Garden to run across the street to Chili's.  We were in bed early, and up at the crack of early to get ready for the fair.  Here we are on the bus on Saturday morning, excited for yarns!

I made a list of what I needed to buy on Friday night in the hotel.  I had specific projects in mind, and I jotted down the basic requirements for yardage and yarn weight:

Norie Hat - 260 yards, DK weight


Rockefeller Shawl - 450 yards colour A, 505 yards colour B, light fingering weight


Larch Cardigan - 1580-1720 yards, Sport weight


Hemlock Ring Blanket - 600 yards, worsted weight


And I was open to the idea of picking up yarn for a baby project for a coworker, and I wanted to pick up some yarn for Tyler, who just started knitting earlier this year.  His only request was "red", so that left it open for fun interpretations.
 

Blurry, but it`s the entrance to the fairgrounds - Dutchess County Fairgrounds, home of the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival!

The line-up.  This is mostly to show the scale of the event - when I tell people I went to a knitting festival, they don't really get that it's a big deal, with THOUSANDS of people.  It was way more crowded on the Saturday than last year, and I'm not sure what made the difference.  A lot of the vendors were the same, the weather was equally nice, so....?

Waiting in line to get our chance to squeeze all the yarny goodness.

We took a different approach to shopping this year; we weren't just going to browse all day on Saturday and miss out on getting the yarns we wanted.  Last year, our "take notes first, and buy later" philosophy meant some of our choices were sold out before we got back on Sunday with money.  This year's plan was to hit up the popular booths first and make impulsive purchases so we wouldn't regret it later.  First up, Miss Babs.

As soon as we were inside the gate, we did a hop, skip, and a jump through the leaf piles and booted it up to Building C to visit Miss Babs.  Last year they were crazy busy all weekend, and I never ended up buying anything from them.  This year I wanted to get something, and I was open to what that would be. I decided on getting the worsted weight yarn for Hemlock, and I picked up four skeins of Heartland Worsted in "Fieldmouse".  The line-up to pay was stretching outside the building, and one could describe her booth as CRAZY.  We waited in line for one hour and five minutes.  No joke.

I was almost more excited about the food options than I was about the yarn.  We chose this cute little food truck for lunch on Saturday.  They make flamms, which are like pizzas, but super duper thin.  I chose the Traditional, which had spiced creme, red onion, scallions, bacon, and some other kind of cheese.

It was so delicious, I can't even tell you.  The only thing I didn't love was the charred edge bits and the amount of flour that they had to use to get the flamms to slide in and out of the oven easily.  Catherine described it as eating an ashtray after a while, and because of it she didn't finish all of hers.

We did more wandering and shopping in the afternoon, and we also hit up the other very popular booth of the weekend, Cephalopod Yarns.  They had a pretty big line-up last year, and by the time we got there, there wasn't much selection.  This year, we were ahead of the game, and we went there with guns a-blazin'.  I picked up a skein of the DK weight in "Arkham" for my Norie hat.

After the two big names were out of the way, we wandered around and took in the sites.  I wish that I could have bought a $10 bunny:

But I'm pretty sure I couldn't get over the border with one, plus it didn't look like they had anything for you to carry it around in.  Too bad.

One of our major afternoon stops was at The Fold and Blue Moon Fiber Arts, which is where I bought the yarn for the lovely sweater I wore on Saturday.  They carry Socks that Rock, and I remembered their booth fondly from last year.  From them I picked up a skein of mill ends heavyweight sock yarn for some winter socks for Fuzzyhead, and the yarn for my Rockefeller shawl in the form of mini skeins of Socks that Rock in "Sabertooth Caterpillar" and "Cozy Fierce and Dirty Orange".

By 4:00, we were tuckered out, and we spent the last hour or so sitting on a grassy and leafy hill, resting our tired little tootsies.

  Back at the hotel, I documented my scores from the day, on my hotel bed, in poor lighting:

That's Heartland in the back, my Socks that Rock for Rockefeller in the middle-right, Socks that Rock for Fuzzyhead's heavy winter socks on the left, and Cephalopod DK up front.

Sunday went by a lot faster, and we were mostly concerned with doing our quick final shopping and getting back to the bus, with food in our bellies, by 11:30.  We went back to all of our "saw it yesterday and kept thinking about it" booths, and Catherine picked up a few more things.  I only needed to grab Tyler's red yarn and a mini skein of white sock yarn from Miss Babs for an upcoming project.  I went up to Miss Babs first thing in the morning, and the giant line was already starting, so I almost dismissed the idea of getting the mini skein.  I left it for the time being, and I went to another booth and got two skeins of Shepherd's Wool in a nice bright red for Tyler.

I still had some US cash burning a hole in my wallet, and I really didn't want to have to exchange it back to Canadian.  And what's the one thing everyone needs more of?  Sock yarn!  I went to TuckerWoods and got a skein of Rory's Toes, which is their tweed sock yarn.

We petted a few sheep and walked through a few more buildings to make sure we weren't missing something fantastic, and then made a break for lunch.  While Catherine was still finishing lunch, I zipped back up to Miss Babs, hoping that the line wouldn't be too big to mess up my timing to get back on the bus.  I saw some other people from my group, so I figured at the very least, we would all be late, and I picked up one last skein.

We were back on the bus in plenty of time, and I got some solid knitting done on the drive home.  We made record time on the way back, mostly due to the fact that we only stopped once before the border (and there was a Starbucks, hallelujah!), and we were through the border control stop in less than 10 minutes.  We arrived back in Georgetown at 9pm, and loaded up our bags for the drive home.

And now, the final yarn round-up:

I've still been taking pictures of all of my knits and yarn purchases, so I'll work on putting together some catch-up posts of everything I've been knitting.  You can look forward to that, and now it's lunch time.

Onward,

vrock

See my vest, see my vest!

Yesterday I expanded by knitting shopping horizons and went to the Downtown Knit Collective's annual Knitters' Frolic in Toronto.  The Guild organized a bus to the Frolic, and for ten measly dollars, I sat in comfort on a big yellow school bus and chatted and knitted while someone else worried about driving and parking (shout outs to Dee-Anne for being a rockin' chauffeur!).  I've been to the local Knitters' Fair a number of times, and it was at the Fair that I first learned about the Guild.  I've been part of the planning committee for the Fair for the last two years, and part of the reason I wanted to check out the Frolic was to compare notes and see if we could be doing things any differently/better. 

Let's start with what I bought:

I finally own a yarn bowl!  I've been seeing these at every fair and festival and yesterday I took the plunge and bought one.  This little beauty came from a vendor from Quebec, called Sheppard Handmade.  I toured the whole Frolic before coming back to buy my pottery here.  Her stuff was the best by far.  I especially like that the notch for your yarn is SMOOTH.  Every time I've seen other yarn bowls, if you run your finger along the notch it's all catchy and grabby, and the exact opposite of what you would want for your yarn.  Kudos Sheppard Handmade!

 

Look how cute it is!

She also makes ceramic buttons, so I search through the piles and found 6 relatively small buttons for my finished paulie cardigan.  I sewed them on when I got home, and now my sweater is officially complete.  Ps. I love moo cards for tags on yarn and knitting notions, don't you?

My favourite project bag maker, Zig Zag Stitches.  The robots make me think of Fuzzyhead, so I've decided this project bag will be for boy projects, like boy socks.  Which leads me to...

The TARDIS yarn from indigodragonfly!  Fuzzyhead and I watch Dr. Who on a regular basis and I thought this would add some much-needed colour to his handmade sock collection.

Yarn bowl in action, securing Maeva from rolling around all over the place.

I didn't buy a whole lot, since I haven't gone through the stuff I already have in my stash, and I have big, exciting plans for it.  I brought $200 cash to the Frolic, and I still have $65 left over.  I did real good!

I liked the Frolic a lot over all, they had a great selection of vendors, including some I had never seen before at the Fair.  The venue was really nice too, it was held at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, which was pretty and open and easy to navigate.  The vendors were mostly set up through different rooms on the main floor, with a small strip of vendors upstairs (only about 5 in total, which makes me think they were last-minute additions).  They also had fantastic food options - the Knit Cafe handled all the food service, and I loved the sandwiches Catherine and I shared.  Everything was vegetarian, which also happened to be what I was in the mood for, and the sandwiches were very interesting.  We shared a grilled zucchini and mozzarella and a sweet potato and cheddar sandwich.  Sweet potato on a sandwich!  I have never even thought to do that.  I rushed home to tell Fuzzyhead about my sandwich epiphany.  

And of course, there were some things that could have been improved on, and I'm keeping these ideas in mind as I work with the Fair committee.  There was no bank machine on site, which caused a hiccup for the two people I was shopping with when they needed more moola and many of the vendors don't accept plastic forms of payment.  At the Fair's previous location, Bingemans, there was a bank machine on site which, I heard, regularly runs out of cash before the day is over.  At the Aud this year, there are TWO bank machines on site, and they care about keeping them full.  Hooray!  Our next committee meeting is coming up soon and I'll prepare a run-down of my thoughts and comparisons, since the only committee members who went to the Frolic were Catherine and I.

In current project news, I'm making good progress on Maeva, I'm on to the second sock, and I'm more than halfway done the foot.  I'm debating whether I should start a second project at the same time (gasp!) since I completed neglected Maeva while I worked on paulie.  The very next project for me will be my Annis shawl, and I hope I can get that one on the needles by the end of the moth.

Happy knitting,

Onward,

vrock

A journey to Rhinebeck, and back again

As promised, my lovely readers, here comes the massive Rhinebeck update!

Our day began at the crack of dawn in Georgetown to meet our bus group for the first time.  We met at a coffee shop to sign in, fork over some cash, and get a hot beverage.

Breakfast of champions, plus gift bags for the housekeeping staff at the hotel.  I did not include the picture of Catherine at this early hour, where she was secretly hating me but putting on a good face.

Before we even got to the border, Catherine discovered a the perfect hole in the seat in front of her for storing a pen. 

Our bus ride on the way there was about 10 hours, but really only about 7 of actual driving time.  We were tuckered out on Friday night, and after getting super scammed by the local taxi services for a ride to the mall and back, we hit the hay to rest up for a full day of fun.  This is the site that greeted us on Saturday morning, look at all those knitters!

The very official sign that tells you I was actually there.

I took SOOOO many pictures of sheep.  All the animals were lined up in pens, and I had no idea there were so many different kinds of sheep. 

This one might be my favourite.

Don't forget about llamas!  The llamas and alpacas were regularly paraded around the fair grounds for touching and photo ops.

This little monster was at the Good Karma Farms booth, one of the first places I saw on Saturday.  When I came back on Sunday to make a purchase, this guy was already sold. 

Llama llama llama

Inside one of the vendor buildings.  SO many people!

Sheep dog demonstrations!  That'll do, pig.

On Saturday night after we got back to the hotel, we held a show and tell in the hallway.  Everyone unfolded their ironing board in the hallway and set up a display table.  This is our haul from day one.  Catherine's stuff is on the left, and my two humble packages are on the right.

Future sweater yarn.

Just because I like it sock yarn.

Other knitters with their treasures.

Day two was a lot more buying from me - we made a run-around plan based on all the things we saw on Saturday, so I knew exactly which shops to go back to.  We were only at the fair on Sunday for 2 hours, and I spent most of my money in less than an hour.

We didn't see this sign until we were on the bus leaving on Sunday, but this is where we were!

And now, the official stash additions that I brought home from my adventures at Rhinebeck 2012:

The Periwinkle Sheep, Oh so fine! sock yarn in "Memories of Summer"

BitsyKnits Sock82Me in "Fawn"

BitsyKnits Sock82Me in "Bronze"

Good Karma Farm 60/40 Wool/Alpaca in "Chicken Beak"

Sliver Moon Farm bulky wool in "Fern"

Cephalopod Yarns, Skinny Bugga in "Green Darner Dragonfly"

Blue Moon Fiber Arts, BFL Sport in "Manly yes, but I like it too!"

Blue Moon Fiber Arts, BFL Sport in "Tumbleweed"

My Cephalopod sock yarn next to the pretty bag it came in

My new project bag from go Monkey Design.

I've already updated my Ravelry queue with a few must-start projects since I've got knitting on the brain now and I've got that itch to start something new.  First up will be the baby bunting bag with the Sliver Moon bulky green yarn, and I chose a different pattern from the one I originally posted about.  I was looking at the specs for that one and realized the pattern called for more fingering weight yarn than it would take to make a sweater for an adult.  Yeah, no.  New pattern is a simple baby sack with some ribbing at the top.  Looks simple and cute, and it will be a fast project (instant gratification!).  My new sweater will likely be a project for after Christmas - let the swatching begin!

Onward,

vrock