Ups and Downs

I've had a couple of sweet surprises recently and I wanted to share them with you. One, I was a raffle winner in the recent RVSK Raffle for two local families. I won a lovely Schacht drop spindle and some amazing Sakina roving. Here's the spindle.




My second surprise was this beauty. She arrived in the mail Saturday morning from Noolie. Noolie's note read, to paraphrase, "Haven't heard much about spinning from you..." and I had to laugh. Noolie has taken off with her spinning while I'm still the complete slacker. Between the raffle prize and this beautiful fiber, I'm going to have to get serious. Thank you so much for this Noolie; it's beautiful and I'm going to fun with it very, very soon!

Saturday morning, Linda, Dianne, Jessi & I hit the road to Roanoke. Together we attended the NoSoKnit that was organized by two women, Rae & Tere. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's a day of knitting. Cost of admission? A knitted item (of your choice) for charity. There were three great vendors present, ISeeSpots Farm, Orchardside Yarn Shop and Mosaic Yarn Shop. All three had a wonderful selection of beautiful things. I had a blast! It was fun to put faces to Ravelry names, e.g. Catinblack, and to see friends again. Picture 115 knitters sitting down together and doing what they love.

Each participant was given a goodie bag of assorted knitting items and each of us also won a door prize. Many yarn shops and farms like Knitters Knook, Misty Mountain, On the Lamb and others outdid themselves with donated door prizes. My prize was from Fran Stafford, an individual whom I don't yet know. It's a sock bag, complete with a row counter, a millefiori stitch marker, Clover size 2 dpns (I needed these badly!) and two skeins of Knit Picks Essential Tweed. This prize was pure karma...all of you know I luuuuvvvv tweed and ironically, I had been eyeing the ISeeSpots needles for size 2 dpns. Thank you Fran; it was a wonderful donation. :)

Rae and Tere - - y'all are great and thank you for organizing it again (this was the 11th year).

Dianne, thank you for driving us all around town!

While at the NoSo, I worked on my Button Tab Hat. (I finished it later at home).


The one blemish on an otherwise perfect day was to learn that Becky is closing her doors at the end of November. She's going to be travelling to China with her husband and cannot, naturally, keep Knitters Knook open. The four of us left NoSo and went down to the Knook. I'm happy for Becky - - I really am - - but I'm sad for me. On Ravelry this morning, there was talk of an actual "Pity Party" and if it comes to pass, I'll be there with a bottle in hand. :)


All I bought at NoSo were some stitch markers from ISeeSpots. Once we decided to visit Becky, I knew what I wanted to do and purchased the below.
Pinwheel Blanket No. 2: (Mission Falls 1824 Cotton)


and Baby Surprise Jacket No. 2: (Cascade Luna "Pink")


My sister, Denise, recently had a special ?sonogram/ultrasound? at Johns Hopkins due to her age. Denise said that the baby was waving its arms as if to say "Hello World!" and had its legs perfectly crossed during the entire procedure. The doctor said that he thinks it's a girl, but until the amnio comes back, no one can be 100% certain. Me? I thought to myself, "It's a girl and she's teasing Andie." Andie and Denise share a special relationship and when Andie found out that Denise is pregnant, the first words out of her mouth were, "It'd better be a boy." LOL

Last, but not least, I had some visitors Sunday morning. I had washed the Button Tab Hat and the Pinwheel Blanket and hung them over the deck to dry. A mom deer came walking up, staring at the blanket swaying the breeze. She and I were maybe ten feet apart and her twin fawns were right behind her. It's the closest I've ever been to a deer and when I reached for my camera, she ran away a little and from that angle, these photos were taken:


So, that was my weekend. I hope that yours was good.

NOON UPDATE: It's a girl! :D