Hi folks - I’ve got an out of town visitor this week and we have been hitting the shops, chatting, knitting, fiber fondling, spinning, getting ready for the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival and having a general blast of a time.  I will have to catch up with you all next week.

While I’m not  promising - don’t be surprised if I get a break from the fun to catch you all up.  Have a great week.

Well this is my third year living in this area and the first year I made it to Stitches Midwest.  What an awesome time.  A bunch of us went today together and met with other friends and it was a complete blast.  I’m so glad I jotted down some notes on what I was looking for, although I admit that didn’t stop me from impulse buying a bit.

I had three possible projects in mind - one shawl (with worsted) and two sweaters (one worsted and one bulky).  I decided if I found the right yarn at the right price it would be a go for one of these projects.  Well how does $2.99 a ball for 50% Baby Alpaca/50% Merino strike you?  Well, I said what a deal of course and picked out this lovely green.

I know my friend Kathy is totally cringing right now, but I’m on such a green kick and this emerald color is perfect for the Notre Dame de Grace sweater that was in Interweave Knits Summer 2007.

The next thing I had on my list was some Hiya Hiya needles.  These are fantastic.  Pointy, slick (but not too slick) and light weight.  I bought 4 pairs in various sizes.

Finally my impulse purchases were two skeins of Trekking, which I had to immediately cast one one.

I loved these colors and had them on my mind from when I saw them at another store.

Then a little sock knitting bag and a new needle roll.  I’m getting so many sock needles with all of the new needles coming out that needed an overflow needle roll.

Anyway like most shows they had some good deals and some expensive stuff.  This was a nice location and I hope they have it again there next year.

We had quite the storm blow in today.  I was off at work, but when I got home DH informed me the tree in the back was quite the mess.

It actually looks like lightening hit it here.  Although the winds were nuts, so it could’ve just been wind.

I hate having storms hit when I’m not at home.  Especially with my menagerie left unattended.  We moved once to a temporary apartment when DH took a new job and wouldn’t you know the apartment across the street from ours was hit by lightening and burned.  It didn’t burn all the way to the ground, but the top floors were damaged and a man and his dog were hurt.  Terrible to think about.  I know it’s a freak thing, but still I worry.

On the next block over a gas line blew a couple of years ago and set a house on fire and that one did burn to the ground.  It had little kids in it and a dog, but everyone got out safely.  I imagine they didn’t have insurance because the lot to this day stands empty.  Would never know there was a house there now.

Since this is dog’s on Thursday, I have an update about the menagerie.  Well, well, my Sophie has always been jealous, and the green-eyed monster has once again appeared.  Here she is looking innocent.

Even though she had just been out, she purposely let loose where Coco had been playing.  Uh-oh.  I spent a good portion of my morning cleaning up that mess.  I have a rule see - I may live in a zoo, but it will never look like or smell like one.  DH and I spend a good deal of time cleaning and disinfecting around here and I believe all the folks who have come have remarked it never seemed like all these pets lived here.  Anyway, I’ve seen the monster before,  it happened when DH moved in with us, and then again when we got Max.  When she was younger and spry you didn’t want to tick her off.  I believe DH did it a few times and got the brunt of it.  Well, more attention and walkies for her should set her straight.

First off just let me say, if you sorry if you stopped by earlier and could not get on.  I’m not sure what happened.  It was some sort of server problem.  I did some tinkering.  Don’t know if it’s something I did or it just got done, but it seems all cleared up now.

It rained overnight and was hot, muggy, and cloudy most of the day.  It did finally clear up later, but it stayed hot.

So, I did get to play with my loot a little bit, but mostly I spent the day with DH.  He’s been working a ton on a big project he has going on and we haven’t gotten to just hang for a while.  We just ran some errands and had a big lunch, but it was nice.

Onto the loot.  First off I love, love, love this little book.

This book has not gotten near enough press and it is the cutest book.  I also met the author and she is very nice.  There are some great new concepts in the book and new designs.  There is also some great kitty things I will be making for the feline members of this family.  However, I have to tell you all a new little canine member may be joining our family soon.  So, there will be some special knitting for her.  All will be reveled in time, but when I say little, I mean little.

This will be the first thing I knit from this book.  Isn’t it adorable.

One of the things I love about these shows is the plethora of patterns.  They knit up awesome samples to touch and examine, so you can make your own.  They also have such variety and all of the new things.

Now I really liked this one regardless if she looks like Nancy Reagan or not.

I think Mom would look fantastic in this sweater.  I don’t know about this year, but maybe next.  She has other “I wants” on her list.  I also loved the raglan cabled sweater, you don’t see that much.

Finally there was the must have shawls and this delightful pretty shawl/sweater combo (on the far right), which I think would be gorgeous in an oatmeal or off white.

One of the things that seemed to be plentiful as this festival was indie dyers, which let me just say was a blast.  I found many, many things that could’ve gone home with me, but I was totally in love with Gales Art booth.  She does these crockpot random batts that were super reasonable.  She is a really nice person too.  These were just super fun and I can’t wait to spin them up. So all in all, I stayed on budget, which was good and I had a great time.

Today I met up with Beverly and Dawn for a fibery road trip.  We headed out to three different stores on the way to the 2008 Midwest Fiber and Folk Festival.

This year the festival was held partly inside and partly outside at the McHenry Community College.  They had some very nice vendors and overall I think it is a very nice festival this year.  Tomorrow I’ll post my loot, but tonight it’s just photos of the festival.

I did have one bad experience as I was snapping a few general blog pictures, some woman yelled at me for taking pictures.  The worse part about it was she was extremely rude and very aggressive.  She never did give a reason as to why we couldn’t take pictures.  I did post on Ravelry about this and hotliked to the organizer, so hopefully she could explain why.  If you’re on Ravelry hotlinking is an ok thing to do.  You get a little message that says something about your ears burning and you can go to the link.  I should also mention, I never saw a sign about no photo taking.  I also checked their brochure and there was no mention of ‘no pictures’ in the brochure.  DH thinks I should have persisted and asked why until I got a reason, but I think that would’ve created a scene.  I also should note, I’m not profiting at all on these photos and was just going to post them here to let folks know they should go out to this nice event.

Anyway, since I have the pictures already, I’ll share them with you.  This is the inside gym area.  This first picture was the last one I took and was the spot I got yelled at.

This was the outside.

Here’s my friend Beverly.

Here’s one of my friend Dawn.

Here are a couple of others.  So if you decide to head out there, you should have a good time.  Just beware if you take any pictures.

Some months ago DH started talking to me about turning one of the spare bedrooms into my wool room.  Somewhere I can set up my wheels and contain the ever growing wool collection.  With yarn, I can normally take it or leave it (unless it’s a really good deal), but the scent of raw wool, especially beautiful raw wool, sends me into a frenzy.

I bought some new shelving and these great green reclining chairs.  They are quite small, so I was able to fit two in.  I probably would not have picked out the green if I got them in a store, but I got them for an incredibly reasonable price from Craigslist.  We have to drive about 1 hour closer to Chicago, but we went to this great neighborhood and pulled up at this nice house.  I’m not sure they were ever even sat on.

After I got everything into place, I decided I would bring up some of my finished rovings from the basement to put around.  Just to fondle and so I can start to listen to them tell me what it wants to be.  Way down in the basement, it has a hard time communicating with me.  I wish I could’ve brought it all up, but I’ve brought maybe half up.  When I was down there I realized I never finihsed processing a black Shetland.  That and cleaning up that area is the next thing on my list.

Well got the haircut touched up again.

It inspired a new outfit to be purchased.  Complete with new sandals.  They were from Born and were way too comfy to pass up.

I’m letting the layers grow out on the hair and finally got it one-length again.  In the back she cut it up and it really took the bulk off.  Plus the layers were seriously straggly in the back, so they needed a bit of trim as it grows down back to one one length bob.  This is definitely nice for summer tough.  We’ll see how it looks tomorrow when I get a whirl at doing it.  It’s never quite the same (lol).

Finally we had a great day out and were able to pick up my two new-to-me chairs and they look barely sat in.  The folks were really nice when we got to their house and made sure I tried each and pushed all the way back in the recliner portion.  We were loaded and out of there in about 10 minutes and off to catch lunch.

By the time we got home, I got a shot in of my water tower before the rain.

Just about all my life, I’ve thought of myself as a summer person. I loved the summer as a kid. No school, plenty of time for fun activities, no cold. But I swear it gets over 70-degrees out and I start to wilt. Wilt, wilt, wilt…all over the place. I seriously don’t know what happened to me.

Anyway only suffering 3 mosquito bites, I got my garden boxes ready. Two years ago when I did this, last year I was suffering from allergies too much to do it, I put in everything like the Square Gardener tells you too. Well, I don’t know what he used, but I used this magical mushroom compost and before I knew it I had 8 foot tall tomato plants. My zucchini plants were the size of wine casks. Unbelievable but true, this did happen. So this year I *tried to* plan my space a bit more wise, so that everything could get a chance to grow and have space. We’ll see how it works this time.

I think when we moved here almost three years ago, we didn’t realize how much gardening there really was to do on a regular basis.  We got an estimate earlier this month to deal with the entire front and back landscaping and they wanted something like $2K to get the yards back in order, which was just way out of our budget.  So a little Saturday and a little Sunday, and we managed to get the front yards in order.  So far we’ve spent about $80 on buying bagged mulch.  It took 34 bags for the front yard alone.  We’re suspecting another 25-30 for the back yard.  Once we know how much we need, we may try buying it in bulk and having it delivered, if that does in deed end up cheaper, but the bags were convenient.

Next Saturday, I’m working on my garden boxes and a little of the back.

We had a beautiful day here today. It threatened rain a few times, but so far it’s held off.

Here a picture of my mammoth bleeding heart.

I would like to take credit for this beauty, but I can’t. I did attempt to pull a few weeds today, but then my arm started breaking out in hives, so I quit and did a few indoor activities like vacuuming. I got a wild hare and had my hair touched up a little. I cut a chunk out of the back a few days ago that was bugging me, but of course you know what happened, I made it a bit uneven.

Well, I wanted to try out a new salon anyway, so I called up and they got me right in. A little pricier than the old place, but she did a fantastic job. I never flat iron my hair, basically out of fear I will singe it off, but she put a deep conditioner on and flat ironed it out. It is sleek. I’ve been debating just letting it grow back out long. I’m a minimalist and hate too much fussing, yet this also competes with my vanity gene and I know that long hair did nothing for me, but make me look old. Don’t make me torture us all with horrible long hair photos again of me. So in the end I think I will probably keep it bobbed, as I’m growing the back and side layers out for a one length look. I will try to keep it to 10 minutes a day for styling to keep the scales of minimalist and vanity in check. Here’s a snap of it, as I know someone will pipe up and say - why didn’t you get a snap of it.

I’m sure that’s more than you ever wanted to know, so I’m going to show you some more bleeding heart close ups.

See what happens when all you’re projects are in a stage of slow knitting.

Finally, I forgot to show you all what Alexis got for me and gave me at Wednesday night knitting. Aren’t they cute? A little stitch marker kitty and a tape measure kitty.