Celebrating – Page 8

Jan and Andee’s Yarn Retreat Adventure

March 22, 2015March 22, 2015Celebrating, NatCroMo, Yarn, Yarnie Friends7 Comments

The last weekend of Jan’s Colorado visit was the Longmont Yarn Shop Spring Renewal Retreat. This was the event that we had actually planned Jan’s whole visit around. This was my first yarn themed retreat and I was really looking forward to some relaxing with yarn and fiber loving friends. People who understand when you say, “I have to pet this yarn.” or “The yarn was calling to me.”

Jan and I were also excited about getting some nice walks in. Jan wears a pedometer and is always good about getting me to go for walks when we get together. I got a pedometer too, in preparation for her visit, and am getting into the habit of paying attention to the number of steps I do each day. 10,000 minimum is the goal.

Friday, March 13th we loaded up the car and were on our way by 9:30 that morning. We had decided, since the retreat was in Loveland, we would make a trip a bit further north and stop by the Lambspun yarn shop in Ft. Collins.

We ate our lunch outside on the patio and were seated beside this fountain.

There is a wonderful little restaurant that shares the building with the yarn shop. We had our lunch there, then spent a lovely couple of hours exploring the shop and seeing if there was any yarn we needed to adopt.

Sweet little birdhouse in the gardens next to the restaurant patio.

Jan was actually shopping for yarn in large amounts for a couple of projects on her “to-do” list. She doesn’t have easy access to any yarn shops near her home. Partly because she works some long hours at her day job and can’t really drive at night. She was having a great time exploring the options, and we had fun searching for the perfect yarn.

For some reason we both kept being attracted to linen yarns. Blends and 100% linen. I got the 2 different yarns above to experiment with and Jan purchased some other yarn that was an interesting blend of linen and rayon. I was trying to be good about not purchasing yarn that I wouldn’t have time to work with this year.

Shirley, the shop owner, was working on a felting project using a blending board that really piqued my interest. I considered purchasing my own blending board but the price was a little out of the budget for this trip. I may put it on my list for Christmas this year as I think I would have a great time playing with it.

Finally we tore ourselves away and headed off to the Sunrise Ranch for our retreat.

I use the GPS on my phone thru Google Maps to navigate when traveling. There was an update not too long ago and the voice is now very robot like. Jan and I had been calling my GPS gal, Gina, last summer when we did our road-trip to Chain-Link. We decided Gina now sounds like she has become assimilated by the Borg (from Star Trek Next Generation). Fortunately, Borg Gina directed us to the ranch without any problems.

The Sunrise Ranch is nestled in a beautiful valley with a lake to the south, gorgeous colorful red bluffs to the east and lots of wonderful options for hiking. We got checked in and did a little exploring and a short walk before dinner that evening.

SR First night goodies — The goodie bag and my yarn from the evening.

After dinner was the welcome meeting followed by a White Elephant yarn exchange. At the welcome meeting Gail and Jane from LYS distributed “goodie” bags with a water bottle, a bumper sticker, a needle/hook inventory card (that has our shop dog “Kit” on it), and a little felt zipper bag.

The bags were identified with our name tags for the retreat and most everyone made yarn “necklaces” to wear their name tag on. Jan and I took photos of ours.

The other event for the evening was a White Elephant yarn exchange. I’d never participated in one before and it was great fun. My ribs were tender from laughing so hard. I ended up with some Yak yarn that I’d never seen before, so that will be fun to play with.

Saturday, March 14th was the first full day of the retreat and it was Pi-Day! That morning started bright and early with a yummy breakfast. Then Jan and I decided to go for a walk. My fellow teacher from the shop, Gretchen Hofer (whom I took my lace knitting class with), joined us.

It was a beautiful morning and we all took lots of photographs. The one above was my favorite shot of the lake, it was so calm the water looked like a mirror.

Since it was Pi-day I was wearing my new T-shirt, Gretchen made sure we got a photo of me at 9:26 a.m. This Pi-day was extra special because the date allowed for more of the decimal places to be included. Normally for simple geometries you just use the first 2 places after the decimal: 3.14. There are of course many more decimal places to be expressed in Pi.

We all had fun on the walk, saw a pheasant take flight and even spotted a snake trail in the frost (though fortunately didn’t meet the snake). By the time we had returned to our room I had gotten my 10,000 steps in for the day already.

After lunch, everyone got together for Show and Tell. I brought my finished lace scarflette to show, as well as a cloche hat that I have been experimenting with. It was wonderful to see all the projects the other attendees brought to show and to hear the stories behind them.

After dinner that evening we all gathered in the big Living Room area of the main building (called the Pavillion). Everyone had various projects they were working on, so folks had even brought their spinning wheels and looms.

Gail was working on a very interesting weaving piece that would be felted after she finished the weaving. It had big open spaces in it. It came out really neat. I may have to drag out my Cricket loom and give it a try.

Sunday, March 15th I was very excited because the morning activity was Needle felting and trying out the Zoom Looms.

For the needle felting we were using the little felt bags that were in our goodie bags from the shop. Jan wasn’t going to the morning activity so she gave me her little felt bag to play with. I decided I would make a design on it and give it back to her.

It had been awhile since I had done any needle felting. I had forgotten how much I love playing with fiber this way. Gail and Jane had provided a wide assortment of yarns and roving in a variety of colors, so it was almost like painting.

I was also excited to try out the Zoom Looms. These are pin looms and I hadn’t ever worked with one before. I had seen them all over the place at TNNA a year ago and had wanted to play with one. So this was my chance. I really liked how quick it was to weave my little square. I’d been good about not getting a blending board, so I decided that I would be purchasing a Zoom Loom before the weekend was over.

My goodies purchased from the Vendor sale.

After lunch was the Vendor sale. I purchased a Zoom Loom, some lovely handspun from our LYS spinning teacher, cute project bag and a beautiful shawl “stick”. Once Jan and I had finished our retail therapy we went for a photo walk near the Pavilion building.

We had both wanted to get a photo of the sculpture pond and when we got over there we spotted a brick labyrinth path in the lawn just past it.

We decided to walk the labyrinth and then finished our photography. It was an unusually hot day for March, somewhere in the mid-80s, so we decided we would save our big walk for the evening once it had cooled off a little.

Jan, Gretchen and I went for our walk after dinner. We got some good photos of the valley and saw a wonderful noisy little creek while on the walk. Afterward we hung out in the Living Room visiting and playing with yarn for a little while, but we were both pretty tired so headed to our room.

Monday, March 16th was the last morning at the retreat. We got ourselves packed up and loaded the car right after breakfast. Our usual group went out for one last hike around the ranch. Then snuck in a little time crocheting and visiting with the other retreat attendees before it was time to leave.

Pretty little mosaic at entry way near pond.

Jan and I decided we had enjoyed having someone else plan and prepare meals, as well as doing the dishes, that we would make our re-entry to “real” life gentler by having lunch in Loveland at PF Changs. Borg Gina got us to the restaurant fine, but we had a little argument with her when it was time to drive back to Boulder.

Fortunately I knew most of the way I wanted to take and we headed home via the scenic route. When we got to Longmont we decided to go back up the mountain via the road thru Lyons, another town I haven’t been to since the flood. There were signs of the damage from the flood, but the canyon was still beautiful and Jan really enjoyed the drive.

Once we hauled all the stuff up from the car at the house, we ran a couple loads of laundry and played with our yarn and goodies from the retreat. We also started talking about what we would do for our “visit” trip next year.

Funny thing about the retreat weekend. I spent most of my crocheting time working on a very large experiment swatch. Unfortunately, after we got back home, I realized I really wasn’t happy with how it was working out. So I spent most of the evening unraveling the swatch and winding up the yarn. Such is the life of a designer.

The Best Way to Celebrate NatCroMo

March 21, 2015Celebrating, Crochet1 Comment

I’ve been having way too much fun the last 2 weeks with my dear friend Jan. When we told various folks in our lives that she was coming out for 2 weeks they all thought that sounded like a very long visit. “Won’t you get sick of each other?” seemed to be the common refrain. The answer in a nutshell, “Not at all”.

What better way to celebrate National Crochet Month than hanging out with one of my dearest crochet friends? The 2 weeks of her visit flew by, and I was feeling a little sad as I dropped her off at DIA for her flight home this past Thursday.

So what have we been up to?

Sunday, March 8th we headed over to my friend and neighbor’s house for the monthly Mountain Top Stitching Group. Spent a lovely time visiting and everyone was playing with yarn and fiber. 3 of us (including Jan and myself) were crocheting, one was knitting and one was needle-felting. That evening Jan and I planned out the rest of our week’s adventures.

Monday, March 9th we drove over to Estes Park. We parked in the library lot and walked all the way up Elkhorn Avenue (the main street of shops). We had wanted to go the glass blowing shop at the end of the road, Patterson Glassworks of Estes Park, but they were closed. So we started back down and visited various shops on the way toward the local yarn shop near the library.

The Stitchin’ Den is a lovely little yarn shop in Estes located on Virginia Ave. I hadn’t been there since the flood in September 2013. The shop had been closed for a while after the flood and I don’t seem to get to Estes except when we have visitors from out-of-state, or I’m meeting friends from Denver there for a special event at the fairgrounds.

Jan and I both had a great time seeing how the shop had changed in the past 2 years. They had actually grown a bit by expanding their upstairs yarn space. So of course we had to really investigate the new space. Somehow, my determination to not purchase yarn was undermined (I think Jan had something to do with that, but it might have been the shop). I ended up with a tidy little pile of yarn.

Jan's goodies from Sticks and Stones — Jan’s goodies from Sticks and Stones

After we put our yarn purchases in the car we went to a local small coffee shop for lunch. We ate outside at picnic tables since the weather was so nice. Afterward we stopped at “Sticks and Stones” a fascinating shop full of hand crafted wood furniture and home accessories. Jan purchased some items to have shipped home to New Jersey.

Tuesday, March 10th we stuck a little closer to home. We went a short ways down the mountain to my friend Val’s house and had some fun crocheting and showing each other patterns and finished projects. Val enjoyed having a new audience to show her beautiful sweaters she has crocheted the last couple of years.

Then we went down to Boulder and I took Jan to the Pearl Street Mall (this is street that has been converted to pedestrian only traffic). We visited the Boulder Book Store, where I found a wonderful book on Erte’. Then we walked further down the mall to have lunch at The Falafel King and grabbed desert at The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. After that we visited the Peppercorn store and The Little Jewel (my favorite tiny little jewelry store). Jan purchased the Gluten Free cook book for me at the Peppercorn.

Amazingly enough, we finished all those adventures in time for me to drop Jan off at a local coffee shop while I did my math tutoring at the elementary school. After picking up the boys we headed back up the mountain for a cozy evening at home watching murder mysteries and crocheting.

Wednesday, March 11th we started the day fairly early since we were driving down to Denver. Jan wanted to visit some of the Antique shops we had gone to during her previous visit. The one shop we wanted to go to the most wasn’t open, but we found some neat treasures at another shop and enjoyed looking at all the lovely things.

Then we went into downtown Denver and walked along the 16th Street mall all the way down to the Tattered Cover Bookstore. We made a stop at the jewelry store where my wedding ring was purchased to find out about getting it re-sized.

We didn’t want to get caught in the heavier 5 o’clock traffic on the highways, so after getting in a good walk on the mall we hopped in the car and headed toward Boulder. We stopped on the way to check out the Tebo Store Fixtures warehouse. I was on the hunt for a head mannequin similar to the one I borrow at the shop all the time to take photos. Unfortunately they didn’t have any more like that one.

I did get a hand mannequin for my fingerless mitts and an interesting shoulder mannequin. You’ll be seeing more of them both as I use them to as photo props for my designs. The folks there were super friendly and helpful, even though I am basically a “micro” business. I know they will be my first stop to look for any other display needs I have.

Jan and I got back to my house about 5 pm, so it was another evening of Netflix and crochet.

Thursday, March 12th we were headed back down to Denver because we had 10 a.m. tickets to the Cartier exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. Was a truly wonderous exhibit with loads of gorgeous designs. The exhibit was called “Brilliant” and was aptly named. A few of the pieces I thought I might need sunglasses to look at.

One of my favorite pieces from the Exhibit.

I enjoyed the exhibit so much that I spent the money for the hard cover “catalog”. Well worth the money. As much as I loved the sparkly stuff, I also really enjoyed seeing the design sketches and learning more about how these wearable works of art were created. Then it was time to head back to Boulder so I could be at the school in time for tutoring my math student.

Once we were back at home the evening was occupied with getting our gear together for the weekend. We were headed out for the 2nd annual Longmont Yarn Shoppe Spring Renewal Retreat. The retreat started the evening of Friday March 13th and went thru the morning of Monday, March 16th. I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow, otherwise this post would be way too long.

Tuesday, March 17th our last day to hang out at the house. We spent a good amount of our time in my design office winding yarn and doing a small sorting of my yarn stash. When we weren’t in the office we were in the house watching murder mysteries on Netflix and crocheting on various projects. Jan was also packing up in preparation for her departure.

Wednesday, March 18th we loaded up the car with Jan’s suitcases and some projects to crochet on. Then headed down to Longmont for Casual Crochet Wednesday at the Longmont Yarn Shoppe.

We had a little time before the meeting so walked around Main Street checking out the various shops and outdoor art. It was a little nippy, so we stopped off at a coffee shop across from the yarn shop. Jan had coffee and I indulged in some chai.

Musical Sculpture around the corner from LYS

Casual Crochet was very well attended. The lovely Brenda Bourg even joined us for a time despite her busy schedule. We all had a fun time crocheting and discussing various projects we are working on. Jan purchased some yarn that had caught her eye when we were on the retreat.

After the meeting we walked down the street and had lunch at an Indian restaurant I hadn’t tried before. The food was good and Jan told me about some of her adventures in India. Afterward we drove over to the opposite end of the walking path we had explored before. The park was still undergoing construction/repair from the flood damage, but the path was open.

Water Fish without the snow — Fish without the snow

We walked all the way to see the fish water fountain again, then headed back to the car. It was a very cloudy day and was starting to rain a little. We were headed down to Denver to stay at a hotel near the airport.

The drive down to the hotel was relatively un-eventful. We got there with daylight to spare. Once we were checked in we decided to walk to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Since we had been so good about getting lots of walking in that day that we splurged on the delicious gluten-free brownie desert.

We walked back to the hotel just in time to beat the rain, then spent the rest of the evening crocheting and discussing what classes we want to take at the Knit & Crochet Show in San Diego this July. We were both feeling a little sad that Jan’s visit was nearly over.

Thursday, March 19th drove Jan to the airport at 7:30 a.m. It was raining, gloomy and cold. Seemed a bit appropriate. Fortunately, we talk on the phone every Sunday. So that will help us stay connected until our next adventure.

Happy Pi Day of the Century

March 14, 2015Celebrating1 Comment

Jan and I are having a marvelous time at our retreat. So this is just a quick geek blog moment. I’ll post something more extensive when we are back from this retreat.

Meanwhile this is a photo of the front of my new T-shirt to celebrate the Pi Day of the Century – Today. Hope you are having a Happy Pi Day and aren’t running around in circles.

Jan is Here!

March 8, 2015Celebrating, Crochet, Humor, Yarn1 Comment

What better way to celebrate National Crochet Month than having one of my best crochet buddies here visiting for 2 weeks! We are going to have such a great time. Jan’s flight got in Friday just before noon and we had some fun playing in Boulder before heading back to my mountain home.

We had lunch at Mad Greens and then our desert was some yummy french fries from 5 Guys, our favorite. We decided we’d better walk off those fries, so we headed across Boulder to visit Shuttles Spindles and Skeins yarn store. We did our walk while moseying around the store, petting yarn and drooling over buttons.

Jan's Yarn and Buttons — Jan’s Yarn and Buttons

A few buttons decided that they needed to go home with Jan. There was also some Southwest Trading yarn she couldn’t resist.

I had to adopt some buttons too, and a lovely ball of Berocco Mixer.

Saturday I taught at the Longmont Yarn Shoppe and Jan joined me there as one of my students. She has been wanting to take my Perfect Fit Crocheted Hat class for ages, so the timing of her trip worked out perfectly for her to get to be one of my students this weekend.

Both of us are keeping track of our daily steps, so we decided to get a walk in at one of the Longmont parks beforehand. Since it is very muddy and slushy up here on the mountain, not to mention a tad colder than down in the plains. Our first choice of a park was busy with a special event so we headed across town and ended up at Lefthand Creek Park.

There is a nice paved path around the park, as we explored we discovered that there were art installations all along the way.

The first sculpture we met were these “interesting” ants, they sort of freaked us out.

We really liked this snake. The tile work was amazing and the sculpture is actually functional as the head of the snake is a drinking fountain. We didn’t try it to see if it worked though.

We turned around a headed back to the car after we reached these wonderful Dr. Seussian looking “trees”. We decided we would have to go down again and attempt to do the entire path to see all the other artwork.

After a quick stop at the grocery store for a few items, we headed on over to the yarn shop for some pre-class shopping and I set-up for my class. Students get a discount at the shop the day of their class, so of course Jan needed more yarn.

She obtained two lovely hanks of Raven Ridge Hand-Painted Yarn’s “Alight” 50% Merino, 50% Silk. The color is outside her usual palette, but is really gorgeous.

Then she needed to adopt a ball of the luscious Berroco Boboli Lace.

Alens have landed at LYS. — Aliens have landed at LYS.

During the class Jan and one other student finished their class project very quickly. I had the students practice measuring and making hats to fit “heads” which were whiffle balls. Jan and I decided the holes in the balls actually make these look like they are little faces. Next time I teach this though I think I need to use “egg” shapes. Fortunately with Easter right around the corner I should be able to find some that will be just the right size.

Next weekend is the Longmont Yarn Shoppe’s annual retreat. We are going to be hanging out with other yarn enthusiasts and eating great food at the Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado. It’s a long weekend, Friday thru Monday, a nice amount of time away from my boys and family responsibilities. So I’ll likely be posting after we return on the following Tuesday.

National Crochet Month just around the corner

February 28, 2015February 28, 2015Celebrating1 Comment

So February is over after today. I can never figure out why it seems like such a super short month, after all it’s only 2 days shorter than most of the other months. Though, once again, it went screaming by.

Tomorrow is March and National Crochet Month. I’m reminded of the saying, “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.” I’m really hoping there is some truth to that this year.

This is the scene outside my front door right now. It’s rather beautiful with the sunshine and blue sky, but the temperature is a balmy 17 degrees Fahrenheit.

I am definitely in the mood for crocheting warm accessories. As many of my readers know, my very favorite accessory to crochet is a hat. And in keeping with my goal to create “teaching” patterns I am pleased to announce I have published my first one.

My “Perfect Fit Crocheted Hat” pattern/lesson is available now in my Ravelry shop for $6.50.

This pattern was based off my Perfect Fit Crocheted Hat class that I have taught the last 2 years at Longmont Yarn Shoppe. I’ll actually be teaching this class at the shop again next weekend. But for those of you that are too far away to join me for a class, this pattern is a chance to be able to learn the skills for making hats that are exactly the size you want.

What I like the best about this pattern/lesson is that you can use the formula taught in it to use any size yarn or hook to create a hat that is just the right size. A great way to use up the bits and pieces of yarn you may have left in your stash, since I usually only need about 110 yards of worsted weight yarn to make a standard woman’s size hat, even less yardage is needed to make hats for children.

So celebrate some crochet this month with making a warm hat or 2 for yourself or others you care about. Hoping we will all be seeing a more “lamb” like March by the end of the month.

Happy Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2015February 14, 2015Celebrating, Crochet2 Comments

I made the little “pocket” heart above with some surprise chunky yarn that came to me from Edie Eckman. She was mailing back 2 of my little birdies from the “Christmas Crochet for Hearth, Home and Tree” book, and she said she thought they needed a little nest.

I liked the tones of red in the yarn color and felt like the browns and oranges balanced it enough that it wasn’t too feminine for a gift for my husband. 18 years ago he asked me to marry him on Valentines Day, so it’s a special celebration for us.

Even before I had a partner in life though, I always liked Valentines Day. I think we don’t celebrate Love enough in our lives, so it is nice to have one day a year that is dedicated to celebrating that emotion. I’m very blessed to love and be loved by good friends and dear family members. Plus there is always my love of art and playing with yarn.

It’s simple and quick to make you own “pocket” heart. A great little envelope for a small gift or note for a loved one.

I used my heart pattern from the blog post “A Tour Through Crochet Country”, the chunky yarn and my new Clover Amour Size 7mm hook.

I crocheted 2 of the hearts, completely finishing them off with weaving in tails. Then held them wrong sides together and sewed the edges together, leaving an opening of 6 stitches along the top of each heart. Tidied up the ends and put some candies inside with a note. Took me maybe 30-45 minutes from start to finish.

I hope you all have a Happy Valentines Day. Now I’m off the computer to go enjoy some chocolate.

First Bear is Finished

October 22, 2014Activism, Celebrating, CGOA, CrochetLeave a Comment

Today was our local CGOA Chapter meeting and I brought in my nearly finished bear. I facilitate the meetings, so I wanted to demonstrate how I sew my bears together. I had filled the arms and legs and head with stuffing and brought stuffing for the body. By the end of the meeting I had finished the bear and given him to my friend Kathy that is organizing this effort. My friend Margie wins the prize for the most bears completed. She brought in all these bears. She said she cheated a little as these were bears she had made on a knitting loom and were just waiting to be finished with stuffing and bows. Kathy and I both said, they still count and will be very appreciated. Before my little bear left the shop, he had a cuddle with some wonderful Malabrigo. I am feeling very inspired with ideas about how I want to design my bear. Hopefully I will have a prototype worked up by Christmas time.

Very Big Bears

August 11, 2014August 10, 2014Celebrating, Humor, Latest News2 Comments

Many of you have heard about my bear adventures up here on my mountain over the years. Bears come with the territory when you live on a mountain in the Colorado Rockies. We make decisions about when to take in bird feeders and how early we put out our trash for pick-up based on bear sightings in our neighborhood.

Last week when I took my boys shopping for back-to-school supplies they found bears they couldn’t live without. We were at our local Costco and they had 53″ tall cuddly toy bears. These bears are big, I’m talking crazy big. Big enough to completely fill a single twin sized bed. They were soft and squishy like over-sized pillows.

I had noticed the bears before, when I had been on solo shopping trips to Costco, and knew that my boys would love them. As soon as the boys saw the big boxes of them they made a beeline for them. “Please mommy, could we get one?” tumbling one off the top of the boxes into eager arms.

I was laughing “Where would you put it?”

“It could stay in my bed.” says Thing 1.

“No it could stay in my bed.” says Thing 2.

Quick look at me, “We would share.” says Thing 1, with Thing 2 nodding his head yes.

My next question “How much are they?”

“$29.99, so $30” says Thing 2, who is always quick to spot the price tags. “Is that too much?”

Inside I’m thinking, that really isn’t too much for such a large cuddly toy. And I’m remembering a very large cuddly toy I had wanted when I was about 10 years old that was $120 (with inflation it would probably be around $400 – $5o0 these days).

I smile, “Well, it would be fun to get one and put it on Daddy’s side of the bed to surprise him when he comes home on Friday from his trip.”

“Yes, Yes, Yes!” “That would be so funny.” boys are now bouncing all over and trying to decide which color of bear they want to get.

“Listen, we need to finish the rest of our shopping first because those bears are going to take up a lot of room in the cart” I now have their full attention, “So let’s shop and you two can think about what color bear you each want to get.”

Thing 2’s eyes become wide, “We each get a bear?”

“Yes, you may each have a bear.”

A small riot ensues until I remind them that my generosity might change if we don’t get our shopping done. Once all the rest of the shopping was finished and we are headed to the front of the store they had almost forgotten about the bears. Then I said, “Okay, go pick out your bears and we will go check out.”

They each picked out a bear as I tried not to fall down laughing. I offered for them to put them on the top of the cart, but they wanted to carry them to the cashier. Since the bears were almost bigger than them it was an entertaining walk to the register. Once we paid for all our purchases the boys decided the bears could ride in the cart out to the car.

One woman in the parking lot jokingly called out to me, “You’re making me look like a bad mother.” I just laughed.

Then we had the challenge of how to fit the bears into the car with all the rest of our purchases. The boys first thought that it would work to put both the bears in the passenger seat with them, but they were way too crowded. Only one bear was going to fit in there. Then I had a brilliant idea, I put a bear in the front passenger seat and buckled him in.

Once we got the bears home they were tucked up in the boys’ beds to be their snuggly pillows, I even tested out the comfort and they were great body pillows. I had no difficulty getting the boys to go to bed each evening.

When Friday rolled around, the boys were very excited to set up the bear surprise for their dad. The bears were carefully positioned on the bed with another little bird toy sitting on the brown bear’s shoulder. Then they had to wait for their dad to make it home from the airport.

It was all worth the wait, Dad was properly surprised and amazed. Then the bears were moved back to their beds, where they are continuing to be the favorite snuggly pillows for both boys.

Who knows, I may be using the bears to model some scarves and shawls over the next couple of months. I just hope the boys don’t decide the bears have to go with us on our next family road-trip, these are some seriously big bears.

Seeing Friends

August 6, 2014August 6, 2014Celebrating, CGOA, Chain Link7 Comments

For me the very best part of going to the Chain Link conferences is hanging out with my various friends and meeting new friends. I was really trying to be better about taking photos this time, but there are still many that I didn’t get. Next year I may need to go with a check list to be sure that I get photos of all my yarnie buddies.

The following are a few photos of many of my wonderful friends that were fellow attendees. A few are “selfie” photos, still trying to get the hang of that, so forgive me if they came out strangely. I got a lot of these photos the last night of the conference, since many folks were leaving the next day, that’s why so many with me in them I’m wearing my sparkly top (more about it later).

My CGOA mentee Jessie Rayot and I after the Awards Ceremony where both of her designs placed. — Jessie Rayot and I after the Awards Ceremony where both of her designs placed – thus the big grins.

Dan and Mikey of The Crochet Crowd fame.

Joan Davis hanging out in the Crochet Lounge.

Randy Cavaliere and Me at the Banquet. We all got to sing Happy Birthday to her. — Randy Cavaliere and me at the Banquet. We all got to sing Happy Birthday to her.

My good friend Amy D. We have been Ravelry friends for a long time and always enjoy seeing each other IRL.

Mary Beth, Deb Seda-Tetsut, Andrea G. at the Banquet.

Margie Fultz and Jane Rimmer (just a bit blurry cause they made me laugh).

Karen Ballard and I, what this woman knows about crochet tools and history could fill a book.

The Lovely Delma Myers. She has been to every Chain Link from the beginning.

Linda Perman and I cracking up taking a selfie.

2015’s conference is going to be in San Diego, California. Dates are July 22-26. I am really excited about having another conference closer to my end of the country. I’m hoping we can get lots of folks to come and play. So many of my yarnie friends in the Southwest and West Coast aren’t able to make it all the way back East for those conferences. This will be a great chance for them to make it to a show to take classes, shop for goodies at the market and hang out with fellow yarn enthusiasts .

I know my family is super excited because we will be making this a combined family vacation/conference for mom trip. Should be a big adventure.

Springtime on the Mountain

April 24, 2014Celebrating, Latest NewsLeave a Comment

Springtime weather on the mountain bears a distinct relationship to a Yo-Yo. Officially the first day of Spring is March 20th, but it generally doesn’t start to feel very warm here until a bit later.

Our springtime teases us, we get a day with a few hours of warmer temperatures and then the temperatures plummet and we wake up to snow. Sometimes significant amounts of snow.

But I think the weather may be trending to more warm and rainy days than cold and snowy.

Last Thursday morning we woke up to a thin layer of snow, but by 9 a.m. it was melting. I went down the mountain a bit to Jamestown to see a friend. We went for a walk around her garden and in town.

The Squills are blooming in her garden. These are so pretty with their bright blue spiky flowers.

Fore foot and Back Foot print from a Black Bear running.

On our walk we discovered evidence that the bears are out of hibernation and starting to look for food after their long sleep.

Yesterday I heard the familiar whirl of hummingbird wings and today I noticed the aspen trees are beginning to bud. So true spring time has finally made it’s way to our mountain.

There will probably be a few more snow storms before summer arrives. But it is nice to enjoy the warmer days and seeing the world come back to life on the mountain.

Very soon I will be sitting out on my deck to crochet in the cool breeze while the hummingbirds zip around at the feeders.