Time Warp: October 10, 2009

It's my birthday! The retreat began with a chat around the pool, as the conference room was full of vendors setting up fibery loveliness. And Good Dr. G got everyone to, well, click below:

The pretty blond at the end of the video was my roomie: CD. She brought me a giftie from Las Vegas: a mug from Cirque du Soleil where she works. (How cool is that?) After we checked in, we each received a more than generous gift bag with yarns and unspun fiber and soap and stitch markers and more. This picture is just a part of the wonderfulness:These whole skeins were in the goodie bag, too!My brain boggles just trying to understand the generosity of the donors! And even more: there was a major drawing! Everyone got something--I'll tell you later what I got.

I took a drop spindling class, borrowing a spindle from Freckle Face Fibers. I really have no idea what I'm doing with that, but I appreciate the effort that JoBaby made. Seems that, when it comes to drop spindling, I'm really good at the drop... but not so much with the spindling.

Here's the idea: you use a bit of fluff, aka raw fiber such as wool (below) or alpaca or silk or whatever you can get your mitts on. (Hmm, I wonder if lint works...)Then you use this disk on a stick combined with gravity to produce yarn. (?) This is my "yarn". And it's not the picture that's fuzzy: it's the yarn. Well, at least I have the idea. I think that if I was determined, I'd get it. Maybe someday. I even took a second class in the afternoon and still... really just the dropping.

And now for the shopping...

While I was browsing, my little hitchhikers asked to have their picture taken. Here they are with some of Freckle Face Fibers. Here's what I bought from the same vendor:

It's sock weight and hand dyed: the colorway is Ruby. Parfait, n'est-ce pas? I also picked up this bit of gorgeousness: The colorway is...wait for it... Cowboy! (True Love Fiber) Can't you just see the denim jeans and the leather boots? I just couldn't resist. We won't be going to the ranch this year, but I can imagine I'm there with this in my saddlebag! And one more thing: the Koigu was on sale. There was no way to walk away from this: it looks like a mermaid's dream.

A total surprise...the mind boggles: I am such a podcast junkie and two more podcasters showed up this morning: Gigi (red shawl) and Jasmin (pink hair) from The Knitmore Girls. I was so thrilled to meet them both!

I had to take a nap after all this excitement and my late night so I missed a couple of classes, but sanity is usually preferred in public. I can't wait to see what happens tonight!