Best Weekend Ever!

This weekend was the best. I took Friday off from work, which pretty much means I only worked a 1/2 day instead of a full day plus.

My parents arrived in time for a late lunch and we ate at a lovely Indian buffet close to my home. Tikka Masala, yum!

Then we did a little shopping and I found a gorgeous winter coat. Full-length cashmere and wool blend with a hood for, get this...80.00! Oh, I was so pleased! I had been fretting about what I was going to do with my current coat wearing out. This was just the right price and much better quality than I was expecting to get.

The weekend only gets better from there!

My birthday is coming up, and I should not be getting a thing at all for it. I recently bought a spinning wheel and it is everything I wanted and more. I am learning how to use it (slowly and rather messily!) and really am glad we invested in it. I am hoping it will last for years and years. So, when my parents brought a birthday present for me I was really excited. It turned out to be the most beautiful purse. Black and Brown and embossed with leaves - real leaves that are so perfect I really have to wonder how they did it. I'll post a pic when I get a decent one.

On Saturday I went to West Linn and visited friends of a friend who have alpacas. They aren't spinners and said they did not need their fleece. This was SOOO exciting for me. They were so incredibly generous! They gave me 4 BAGS OF FLEECE! I am sure that even with my lack of spinning experience that I can make something beautiful from this fleece. It is heavenly soft and in great condition.

The very next thing we did after picking up the fleece was to go to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival (Canby, OR). Here is the spindle I bought at the festival with a small amount of the alpaca spun onto it. Isn't it beautiful? The color has so much depth and it is buttery soft. At the festival I bought some hand carders and as I was looking at the carders a spinning teacher saw me and my indecision and gave me an impromptu lesson on carding and helped me decide which carders to purchase. Isn't that sweet? I was very grateful to her, she gave me so many tips that I was able to come home and start carding and spinning the alpaca right away.

I wasn't exactly done at the festival, though. I bought three skeins of sock yarn at the Blue Moon booth.

I also bought a pvc niddy-noddy, I've been wanting one and this one was exactly my price range, cheap!

I have a class that I am taking right now, a sweater class where I am knitting a wool/silk sweater and I do have to keep up with the class but, I am sorely tempted to just card and spin until I have enough alpaca yarn to knit something with. I wish you could touch the alpaca. We were all tired when we got home from the festival, but we weren't done for the day.

Dad had a problem with his camera, one of the pins that connects the memory card to the camera bent. Four days before they leave on their trip to Asia. This was NOT OK. So we took the camera to a local shop where they were very nice, but suggested that we go home and try to bend it back ourselves. Ummm....SCARY!

On the way home we stopped at the fairgrounds at an Amish quilt and home goods sale and mom got some great hot-pads and we bought noodles and I think there may have been some mustard that hopped into the bag somewhere along the line. The quilts were beyond perfection. If I had spare thousands all my beds would have them.

At home we tried, unsuccessfully to straighten the pin on Dad's camera.

Sad about the camera, mom and dad made dinner for us. One of my favorite chicken recipes, noodles from the Amish sale and a lovely salad. Even when they are sad they are the best cooks around.

After dinner mom and I went hunting a magnifying glass light and some better tools for fixing dad's camera. We were finally successful in straightening the pin! His camera is all better. WHEW!

In the morning mom and I left well before dawn for Susan B. Komen's Race for the Cure in Portland. Mom is a survivor, we go every year to help do our part in the struggle to cure breast cancer. We caught up with Matthew, Joey and Dad at church.

After lunch Mom and Dad headed home and I took a nap until I was no longer sleepy. It was cozy and wonderful.

I'm off to knit the back of my sweater. I know I'll do fine because the perfect weekend mojo is still with me.

Time flies!

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, but what a couple of weeks!

First the family and I went to Sunriver where we white water rafted, bicycled, walked, rode old west trains, shopped, ate and lazed in the hot tub.

Then we started Joey in first grade. My baby is a FIRST GRADER! I can't believe it. On Friday I went to my first ice cream social as a parent. I met his teacher. She said he was a good reader. Yeah! We toured the school. It was pretty different from the schools I went to, very open and it seemed like it had a lot of flexible space.

Yesterday I went to Farmhouse knits and was pleased by the store. It had all of its yarns, save those in the back room, arranged by color. They had a bunch of yarns I'd never seen in person, which was a treat. I left with a couple of skeins of sock yarn and some cotton/linen blended yarn that I am going to try out for some hand towels. I had hoped to see some STR but they only had orange and yellows in stock and I wasn't looking for those two colors. They did have an awful lot of Blue Moon yarns, though, and they are beautiful.

We haven't technically joined a church, but we've started going to one. We also started Joey in Sunday School. I think we'll become members soon. Its been along while since I attended church regularly and I think I'm glad we're starting again.

Today we had the gang over for a rousing afternoon of DND. That always makes me smile.

Oh, yeah, and I did a craft thing or two:

I finished the socks!

And I finally had time to work with Joseph on his idea for a "Wubba." I think he came out adorable. He clearly spends a lot of time looking over my shoulder as I read blogs. He loves the eyes that Lady Linoleum uses on her creations posted on Monster Crochet. He very specifically asked for ONE eye and EIGHT legs. It was my idea to make them curly but it was his idea to make the beastie hocky puck sized & shaped. Joey dyed the varigated yarn himself with Kool-Aide and a little help from mom. He's six folks, and already designing.

While in Sisters Oregon I went to Baabara's and found some nice wool to practice spinning with.

Then after some practice I thought I would try spinning on the wheel.

But what I decided was that I wanted to go back to something comfortable. Like socks! So I started my third pattern from the lovely "Favorite Socks." This time with Lana Grossa. I think they'll be lovely. I'll post a pic of the first one when it is done.