A hard hat is not enough protection against a flying pumpkin...

Sunday was much more leisurely, though just as awesome. We slept in a little bit before making our way back to the fair grounds. The crowd was thinner, and a little less intense. There was more time to wander, visit with people we ran into, watch the alpacas on parade...I would say the line-ups were better, too - until I found myself here:

The line for the chicken pot pie. It was well worth the wait! Fresh out of the oven - literally, so I had to wait awhile to eat it.

So while I was waiting, we wandered over to the field to watch the "punkin-chunkin" competition. Which was...an odd-but-awesome thing to behold. There were 5 high school & college teams, all in team colours...and hard hats:

They built these:

And had to try to hit a target about 150 feet away. Quite a feat, as the trebuchets were a bit unwieldy, and I cannot fathom how they managed to achieve any kind of accuracy. (But - they did!) Once the slings were loaded, an air horn would sound, and the pumpkins would fly:

What you can't see is that this particular pumpkin was painted gold, as were the hardhats of the team lobbing it. They hit their first 2 targets spot on, too. The carnage on the field was something to see! Though I think there were a few disappointed young spectators, as I overheard one young boy gleefully reporting to his brother that after the pumpkins, there would be sheep-tossing....

More time to wander meant more time to take in some of the non-fibre arts on display:

This one's for my Baby Sis:

Then, despite the warm weather (I actually got a bit of a sunburn!), we took some shots of new knitwear in action:

We imposed on a very kind knitter to take a picture of the two of us in our Rhinebeck sweaters...

I'd just like to point out that Anne spun the wool for this sweater from the Rhinebeck fleece she bought last year - how cool is that?

Finally, after some apple crisp (NOM!), it was time to go. Anne dropped me back at the hotel and headed home; I had the fun of trying to get everything into my suitcase. Before I packed, though, I got a pic of all my ill-gotten loot, all at once:

(I did not, in fact, roll around in it naked. Although I was sorely tempted...it's not all superwash, and there's some very sexy silk in that pile. I didn't think it would be good for the yarn.)

Rhinebeck weekend was over. I would totally do it again! But I had the next leg of my adventure to look forward to: a prophylactic against post-festival let-down. Next: the train!

The Rhinebeck 500

I'm puttering around, getting things sorted before I head to the train station, and then north to Montreal for the next leg of my adventure. I woke up early, which gives me a few minutes to finish up a post about Saturday: Day One of Rhinebeck Madness. (Fittingly, my first ever Rhinebeck post is also my 500th post! Woo!)

There is no possible way I could capture the essence of Rhinebeck in words. Also, as it was my first time, there was waaaayyy too much to absorb and process! Happily, I was surrounded by awesome people to help me get my bearings. Some folks I met at Sock Summit last year, like Girl Unravelled, who not only helped me get my sea legs, but also some Bugga! yarn...NOM! And Glenna C, who totally rocked her Rhinebeck sweater, finished at the very last minute. Annie, my hostess, was indulgent and enabling, and her very, very funny friends broke me. (By which I mean, had me laughing so hard I almost peed myself. Literally!) There were also lots of other fantastic people that I met...which is the true magic of Rhinebeck. So. Much. Fun! (Also, So. Much. Yarn!) (Oh! And maple cotton candy!)

But there's no way I could possibly tell all the stories, or even most of them! So here are some pics that I hope give an idea of what Saturday was like.


The antici.....pation....builds in the early-morning line-up:


Once we finally got in, one of the first people I ran into was a woman who had also knit Red Oak - as far as we can tell, we were #1 and #2 to knit the new pattern...and she's a Canuck, too! Cool! (This is possibly one of the least flattering pics of me ever, but we had just escaped the madness of the Sanguine Gryphon booth...

There was hot cider, and lamb stew, and excellent company:

Handknits and Ravellers galore, at the lunchtime Ravelry meet-up:

There were walkie-talkies:

Sheeps:

Alpacas:

Lllamas:

And after a break for dinner, there were back seats on the school bus, like one of the cool kids:

And the Ravelry party, with a bonfire and cupcakes and a photobooth, and some pretty nice pumpkin ale:

And then another bus ride back to the car, so we could drive back to the hotel & try to fall asleep...though we were so wired, it took awhile!

Where to begin?

I don't even know where to start with the last 3 days. I am absolutely exhausted, and it has been worth every sleep-deprived minute! My pal Anne, who was my Sock Summit roomie last year, picked me up at the airport and took me back to her house. I slept like a log, we had a leisurely morning on Friday, and sometime after lunch, we hit the road. We arrived at our hotel in Poughkeepsie with some time to spare before meeting some of her crazy (and way cool!) friends for dinner, so we drove up the road a bit. We took in some of the local history:



Sculptures made from pieces of the Berlin Wall:


A shot (poorly capturing the colours!) of the valley, from the back yard of FDR's house:


A better shot of some of the local colour:


During dinner, I managed to weave in the ends of the fingerless mitts I had been working on. But to have them ready to wear for the morning, there was still the matter of washing them...and drying! Knitterly ingenuity came to the rescue. I had the forethought to pack a small bottle of Euclan, and there was a hair dryer in our hotel, as well as a space heater:

Victory! And a good thing, too, coz the wind at the fairgrounds on Saturday was wicked-cold! We got up at 6:30 to get to the grounds early, which would have been OK except that my laptop was still showing Pacific time. 3 hours earlier. Oy!

But the rest will have to wait for another post, as I am bone-tired, and have yet to finish packing before I go to bed. More tomorrow!

Squee!

After a long but uneventful day (if you don't count getting grossed out by zombies eating people's intestines, watching Shaun of the Dead for the first time!) I somehow found myself here:

Am now cozily ensconced at my friend Anne's place, and getting ready to hit the road to Rhinebeck....Squee!

Happy Turkey Day!

Being Thanksgiving up here in the Great White North, I thought I'd post about some things that have recently made me quite happy. I have come down with a wicked sinus cold, but I have the makings of hot toddies close by (and, in fact, the first toddy is half-way gone!) But I am still happy about a lot of things!

First, I finished these:

In Sanguine Gryphon's "Little Traveler" sock yarn, which was a joy to knit with, and is even better to wear. It was a Sock Summit score, and I have another whole skein (in a gorgeous orangey-red) to play with.

Then, I finally got the buttons placed on this beast:

My Rhinebeck sweater. I think it makes me look like Grimace; Mr.Q and my friends very sweetly disagree, but really? I don't care. I love it. It is warm, and comfortable, and the Cascade Eco+ washed up a lot softer than I expected. Also, that oak leaf panel stretched my knitting brain in ways I would never have anticipated. It's imperfect, and I don't care. I love it.

(Of course, it's warm and sunny again...19 degrees (Celsius) outside...I may never actually get to wear the thing. But I love it!)

We had a fantabulous dinner at my sister's place last night: whiskey-molasses glazed ham (Oh. My. Bob!) & veg, and I made this for dessert. (I meant to take pics, but it totally didn't last long enough. It's a really, really good thing it only made enough for a small-ish serving for each of us. Because I'm not sure I could have stopped until it was all gone, and any more would have been a bad idea! It was amazing.

But before dinner, I had some fun watching Mr.Q bond with the nephew-person over home improvements:

A good time was had by all!

Also, we got ourselves an early Christmas present on Saturday: tickets to see Leonard Cohen when he's here in December. If that's the only thing we do to celebrate the holidays, I think we'll both be more than ecstatic. Word on the street is that he still puts on an astonishing live show.

Now Mr.Q's out for coffee, while I sniffle around the house in my pink flannel nightie. He set me up with some chicken broth and juice before he left, and the cats are keeping me great company. (By which I mean: sleeping like the big fat lazy lumps!) And I have a million loads of laundry to do, and packing to start sorting out, because I leave in THREE MORE SLEEPS!

(Really, more like TWO MORE SLEEPS, coz I doubt I'll sleep much on Wednesday!) I'm rather a little excited. For Rhinebeck, of course, and especially to see some of the friends I made at Sock Summit last year. But also for the train up to Montreal, and a few days of solo-exploring there. I have taken planes and road trips alone lots of times, but always to meet somebody else at the other end. Montreal will be the first trip I've taken alone...I have a feeling it won't be the last!

Now...to see how few clothes I really need for 9 days...to make more room for more yarn!

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Victorious!

I finished up the collar & the last of the hemming on Red Oak last night...WOOT! I still have to put the buttons on - I bought them today, and hope to do that tonight. But for all intents & purposes, I am DONE!

So, of course, I had a victory drink last night. In, appropriately, a sheepy shot glass:

WOOT! Will, of course, post pics of the finished jacket as soon as I get some decent ones. Hopefully tomorrow, in the course of a massive Yarn Crawl. Meanwhile, I'm getting myself organized for the Expedition of Insanity, and a bit of knitting, to the accompaniment of Robert Plant's new CD.

It's awesome. And that man is still far, far sexier than anyone has any right to be, in my humble opinion. There are worse ways to spend a Friday evening, indeed!

Now...back to the task at hand. If I'm lucky, there will even be time to bake cookies...

(I wonder) What am I doing here?

I finally decided to take a bit of my own advice - after living on the Wet Coast for many years, I ought to remember that you just can't wait for the rain to stop in order to go out, or you'll never leave the house! So I tell my students often...but often fail to remember myself. This weekend, though, the stakes were high, as it was the last chance we'd have to go to Playland - something I've never done, for all that we can hear the screams from our place.

There was a rainfall warning in effect today, and I was quite disappointed. A timely tweet from beentsy, though, hinted at blue patches and lifting clouds. I knew it was probably too good to be true, but I jumped at the chance anyway. Mr.Q was unceremoniously rousted from his sleep, rain jackets were donned, and we headed out into the day.

See, here's the thing. There's kind of this wee fad of "bucket lists" going on. And you may have noticed I kind of like to jump on fun bandwagons. So I did up a "40 by 40" list - giving myself a little over 2 years to see what I could accomplish. A lot of it is pretty banal, really - but it makes me happy to have goals to cross off my list, and a reason to do things I would otherwise have a tendency to put off. Like taking French lessons (I now meet with a private tutor once a week and mangle the language with great abandon!) - so easy to say "I'd like to do that, someday." And then never really bother getting around to it.

I gave myself a lot of lee-way with the list - items could be small-but-meaningful-to-me (making a perfect pie crust! or at least a decent one), or big and highly unlikely - zip-lining and para-sailing will likely never happen, and I won't really feel like my life is meaningless if they don't. But - what the hell! You never know, right?

Well, one of the things on my list was to ride the wooden roller-coaster at Playland. Considering that ferris wheels freak me out, that's a pretty big step. But dagnabbit, I was determined to make it happen! So, today, it did. Along with some other fun rides, too! Even ones that made Mr.Q a little queasy (the pirate ship was SO MUCH FUN! I couldn't get him to go on again, sadly!) and a few milder ones in between, to give my tummy time to settle. (Word to the wise: greasy breakfast before a rollercoaster? Bad Idea!)

Some highlights from the morning...no pics of me on the coaster, as I had my eyes screwed shut the whole time, and may have blown out Mr.Q's eardrums with my screaming...but I did it! (I also kicked his arse at Whack-a-Mole & won myself a stuffed wiener dog...Hah!)

I had a really long nap when we got home!

(And the ferris wheel at the end? Totally not scary at all!)