Oh, the places you'll go!

So, as I have held out on the knitting content a bit lately, here is an update from the knitting/spinning side of the world:

Rendezvous happened!

Do you think that I was going to let a little (god-aweful) sinus infection keep me from attending rendezvous? NAH! Instead I headed out with Rick and Tommy in tow to
Fort Braxton to attend the event of the year for the Mountain View Weavery Spinning Group. (Oh, we so need that on stationary) Anyway, my camera kinda sorta got left at home through this event, but you'll have to take my word on it, and a picture of the
purchases.

This is a fleece from PJ, one of our spinner's alpaca fleeces. This is the cria fleece, or the first shearing of the alpaca, and in case you don't know anything about alpaca, the cria fleece melts like buttah! It is so incredibly soft, and I can't wait to spin some of this up. One of our alpaca ladies also had three of her alpacas there, one of which was deaf, and kept bleating this adorable but sad bleat to figure out where his surroundings were.

There was also a merino (both sheep and wool) dealer there, and we did obtain three bags of nicely carded merino wool from him. He had this adorable lamb with him that he sold while he was there.




PJ is the left and middle, the merino is the right.




I also made a purchase of various soaps'n'stuff from Aubrey. I love her lip balm-if you get a chance to buy some from her, try it out, it's great. I like it just as much (if not more) than/as my Burts' Bees

There was lots of spinning going on, even in the insanely hot Oklahoma sun, and attendance was down this year I suppose due to it being held the weekend of Mothers Day, as well as a number of graduations being held that weekend as well.

Side note: I did go see my Mom on Mother's Day, and she had quite a few ducks and chicks hatching while I was up there (3 chicks and 7 duckies). If I can figure out how to get a picture from my cell onto blogger, I'll post a picture later. It was a fun weekend, and I enjoyed getting to hang out with Mom. We watched movies at their place that Sunday and went to go see a movie later that day. We also went shopping that Monday at the mall-Mom enjoys it when I come up because that's about the only time that she gets to go shopping at the mall. Mom likes to shop and uses me being up as an excuse to go. There was no spinning or knitting that weekend, but I had fun hanging out with Mom and my stepbrother, Shane. (Karl was at the farm most of the time I was up there, or at work. This was excused because I know I have irregular days off, and besides, it was Mother's Day weekend-they all knew who I was up there to see.)

And without further ado:
The SWAK Corral Weekend Synopsis!

The weekend started out slow, as I got there at around 12:30, checked into the Pollard Inn B&B and headed across the street to an intarsia class held by Sherry Stuever. Sherry is Keely's Mom, Keely being the shop-owner of SWAK. I dig Sherry, she knows a lot about intarsia, a lot more than I think I am ever going to utilize.















The class project was a washcloth with fruit on it, and although I think it had every technique for intarsia in it, it was about to make me pull my hair out. So many yarn ends! I am still having knitting nightmares where the yarn ends from the washcloth come after me.

Anyway, after the intarsia class, we had dinner, as well as a game of Lets Make a Deal.



There's Sue-isn't the yarn she's knitting with lovely? That's because she dyed it herself!







Our table decided that we would be the Gourmet Cheese Tray table. Isn't that a lovely flower in the centerpiece?










It was really fun, and I was reunited with friends from last year, namely Carla from Texas, seen to the side playing the game with GASP!
Who is that?

Why, Lily Chin! How did she get there? Surely there must be some mistake?

NOPE! I had two classes the next day with Lily, one a Computer Aided Designing class, and the other a much more upbeat class about borders. The first class opened my mind to all of the different ways that you can use paint to design stuff, although she talked about a couple of what she called 'more sophisticated design programs', I'm not sure that I am interested enough in the design aspect of knitting to invest that much into it. The second class should have really been called 'ways to keep stockinette stitch from curling', and it actually really was a lot of fun.















My favorite part of the class was when, on break, Lily told this joke: "Three knitters were sitting on a bench in a park knitting away, when a flasher walked by and opened his coat and flashed them. The three women dropped their needles, and two of them had a stroke. The third knitter couldn't reach." Even if I didn't get anything else out of that class (although I did), it was worth taking just to hear Lily Chin tell that joke.

You know, Guthrie is kind of a strange place.It's the only place I've ever been where you can walk down the street and see people re-enacting gun fights.

That evening was filled with some more good food, and a fashion show put on by SWAK. I saw a couple of things that I might knit sometime in the future, but mostly I was intrigued by use of novelty yarn by Berroco. After dinner, as with the previous evening, shopping ensued at SWAK, along with some knitting in the parlor of the Pollard Inn with Sue, a friend of mine that I met last year at the Corral, and was reunited with at the MVW Spinning Group. We spent a good portion of the spare time hanging out and knitting, and had a couple of classes together. Thank you to Sue (blogless) for teaching me the ways of the beaded knitting, also known as 'quick ways to get beads from a hank to your yarn'.

Sunday felt a little slower, as there was only one morning class, with Lucy Neatby, who is, (ahem) a very colorful character to say the least. Her class was also really fun, and she talked about different ways to combine colors in knitting.

I was somewhat fascinated with the color of her hair, which was a combination of purples and pinks. Oh, and her chicken purse was... interesting.


This woman is a color genius, to say the least, judging by the different sweaters she'd brought that she'd knit.

After class we had lunch and all parted ways.















Just as proof that I actually met these people, here are some pictures of me with above said famous knitter. As an added bonus, Cat Bordhi is in the picture with me and Lucy Neatby. I did not take any classes with Cat, however.



Whew, after that synopsis, pictures of my own knitting & spinning will have to wait!