Summer Travels and the Sock Summit

It has been an amazing summer. I have had the privilege of returning to one of my favorite countries, Spain; I visited Morocco, France, and Guatemala for the first time and I ended my two months of travel at the Sock Summit in Portland, Oregon.
There are so many pictures and so many stories so at the risk of boring all my readers :) I will just talk about the Sock Summit and return to the other places in the future.
It has been a week since I returned from Portland and I still feel "homesick." Portland has been added to my list of favorite cities and the Sock Summit is a yarn event I am determined to do again.
Six thousand knitters, crocheters, and spinners attended the 2nd Sock Summit. The picture above is just part of the line waiting for the marketplace to open on the first evening. Lovely yarns and fibers from large and small companies, mostly indie dyers, tempted us in each aisle. I was so overcome with excitement I forgot to take pictures. It was awesome and overwhelming.
I not only bought this gorgeous yarn , I expanded my Signature needle collection.





In addition to the marketplace there were 50 or more different classes on knitting, dying, spinning, designing and anything to do with fiber and socks. I took a Darning class in hopes of repairing some of my handknits, a class on sock design with JC Briar (very infomative) and a class on "beginnings and endings" with Ann Budd (fun!).


Many of us made and brought stitch markers to swap. My dear husband helped me make 91!

Here are some of the stitch markers I collected in the swaps. Many of the markers represented the knitter's state or country, some were just creative and pretty. I almost don't want to take them off the holder and use them.

The Sock Summit was an amazing experience made even better and more memorable because I spent it with my daughter. We found great places to eat, toured the International Rose Gardens, saw a little of Portland and oooed and ahhed over the yarn. She's an incredible knitter and a lot of fun.
More about Portland next time.

Marrakech to Madrid - First Stop - Morocco

On May 27 we took off from Richmond International Airport. I think it's "international" because it has two direct flights a day to Toronto. What we know was the size of the plane. Our boarding passes listed our seats as 7 window and 8 window. How could we be sitting next to each other and both have window seats? There were two seats across, probably seated 22 people, had propellers, and no flight attendent. The c0-pilot/navegator greated us, went over the usual safety instructions and then went through the curtain, put on his head phones and we took off. Less than two hours later we landed in Toronto.

From Toronto we flew to Franfurt, Germany. We spent our two hours there, going through customs, passport check, security and hiking about a mile and a half to our gate, just in time to board our flight to Madrid.
After spending a night in Madrid, we caught an early departure to Marrakech on Ryanair. A description of Ryanair is a good subject for another blog post.
Marrakech Airport is small and modern. We took a cab to our Riad (guest house) which was located down an alley in the old section of the city. This is what we wanted, to experience Marrakech and experience we did. The Riad was very nice, the people helpful, the room clean. We spent the rest of our first day exploring the Marrakech museum which really didn't tell us much and the souks (marketplace). The souks are mostly located on winding alleys, full of noise, people, motor scooter, donkey carts and did I mention, motor scooters? . The sellers/merchants tried hard to interest us in their goods. If we stopped to look at our map we were immediately approached by a boy who offered to show us the way, for a price, of course. It was hard to concentrate on the merchandise because there was a constant traffic of motor scooters (did I mention the motor scooters yet?) coming for both directions. In the big plaza they come at you from all directions and there is no escape! I learned to stand still and pray they would go around us.




Our second day was spent on a private tour of the nearby Atlas Mountains. I need to post more pictures. Our guide Philippe is French and has lived in the Marrakech area for over ten years. I didn't ask him why. The mountains are beautiful! We offroaded a bit, had tea with a Berber family, walked through a field of sheep and horses, ate lunch at a lovely restaurant, and learned a lot about an area I didn't know existed before we started researching for our trip.



On our third day in Morocco, we spent our time trying to find some tourist sights, avoiding the souks and buying some souvenirs for people back home. We did find one palace, the one synagogue in town, and a lot of alleys. This is a picture of the Khoutoubia Mosque. As we are not Muslim we were not allowed to enter but we could walk through the gardens.

I have more pictures for another day. Though our three days in Marrakech were interesting, I was glad to return to Spain and the rest of our trip.

Stitches Midwest and Knitting

I would love to be one of those bloggers who posts the day after something happens. "Yesterday I had lunch in Paris." Alas, I am not one of those.
A week and a half ago I was in Chicago for Stitches Midwest. I had lunch there, too. It was a great four days. My daughter and her family drove up from St. Louis. She and I shopped the Marketplace while my son-in-law and granddaughter went to Legoland.








We knitted in the lobby of the Schaumberg Renaissance Hotel.












We joined hundreds of other knitters dressed in pajamas for a party in the lobby Friday night. Franklin Habit looked great in his robe and night cap. There was food, prizes and knitting, of course.








Chicago is a great city. We walked to the end of the Navy Pier and then took my granddaughter to the Chicago Children's Museum.



We had a delicious dinner at the Chicago Diner.
Vegetarian food!




I bought too much yarn (if there is such a sin), had some great food, met lots of interesting people and spent time with family I don't get to see nearly enough. Loved every minute.

Back again

A friend of mine reminded me that I had not blogged in quite some time. It's going to take some time to catch up on everything so today I'll just post a little of the most recent stuff.
My grandson turned 2 years old last week. He enjoyed his cake.

I'm a teacher so I have my summers off, more or less. Every summer I set goals. This summer one of the big goals is to knit more. In April I went to St. Louis to attend the Loopy Ewe's Spring Fling, I bought a lot of yarn. In May my daughter and I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival where I bought even more yarn Ever since, I've been on a self-imposed yarn diet, (until yesterday when I fell off the wagon and bought some very pretty Merino silk Malabrigo at The Yarn Lounge in Richmond, it was my birthday). I have been knitting furiously to use some of my stash before next month when I head to Chicago for Stitches Midwest where I will no doubt buy more yarn. Here is one of my current projects, the Shipwreck Shawl by Bethany Kok. I'm knitting it in Sweet Georgia sock yarn in the Coastal colorway. I love this shawl and I love this yarn. The shawl and I have had several frogging and tinking times but overall it's a fun knit and I love the way it's turning out. The wooden bowl is a bead spinner (stringer) to speed the process of stringing all the those gorgeous beads. The shawl pattern calls for 5000, yes 5000, beads and anything that can speed the string process is welcome. Besides, it's always fun to get and learn to use a new toy.

Knitting (finally ) and exciting news.

On the left is the Mara shawl I finally finished last week and blocked this week. (What else does one do when stuck at home after a snowstorm?). It was made with Malabrigo Worsted weight in Captstone. A wonderful yarn though it had a little more olive green than I had anticipated and than can be seen in this photo. It was a great knit for riding in the car, watching movies and just soothing the mind and I love the feel of it. The Girasole blanket (Jarod Flood) is made with Cascade 220 Heather and is a much brighter yellow than the picture shows. I'd like to make it again in another color and a more washable yarn. In the meantime, it's a great blanket for keeping warm watching TV.
The exciting news is that I'm going to the Loopy Ewe's Spring Fling in April!! The Loopy Ewe is my favorite internet provider of yarn. Sherri has great service and really knows how to make each customer feel special. What make this news even better is my daughter and granddaughter live in St. Louis so I'll be able to see them too. What a great trip: yarn, knitting people, The Loopy Ewe and my family.

Big Guy

Big Guy passed away last Tuesday. He was our last cat. It's sad because I can't find any decent pictures of him. They are all out of focus. He'd been old for a while; his days of chasing mice and rabbits were far behind him. Now he doesn't have to spend his time begging us for food, he's probably well fed and happy. We loved him, even my grandson. We miss his meows, "Where's my food?" and the was he glared at us when we petted him but then asked for more. It was a privilege to be part of his life.

A Kniiting Retreat

It's been a month since we left Ireland and I'm already planning on what I want to see when I return.
Two days after we returned school started. The first day was rough but now we have settled into a routine of sorts.
I'm still working on the Girasole blanket (I need to take pictures). I keep making stupid mistakes. Also on the needles are two pairs of socks, both from Cookie A's Sock Innovation, a sweater for grandson, and a shawl that will probably take 5 years to complete. The shawl is the Swirl shawl pattern published by Jojoland for their Melody line of yarn. I bought the pattern and yarn when we were in St. Louis this past April, I've made 6 swirls.

I attend a wonderful knitting group every Tuesday night. We meet in the party room of a local grocery store (Ukrops, for those of you who know Richmond). The first weekend in second weekend in September, three days after we got back from Ireland and Spain I packed up my car and drove to the mountains for a knitting retreat with several members of our knitting group. Most of us spent the entire weekend knitting, (with a break to go yarn shopping at On the Lamb in Staunton and a couple of times out to eat). We talked, knit, drank a little wine, and talked, laughed and knit. We are all looking forward to January when we can do it again.
Here is Jo in On the Lamb. If you're ever in Staunton stop in this charming shop.