Hello Mr. Plant!

After 6 1/2 years of living in the St. Louis area, I finally made it to The Fox Theater. Talk about swanky, this place is amazing (click on the link for pictures). It seems like every time someone would talk about going to The Fox they’d look at me like I had a third eye or something because I’d never been. But I was just waiting for something great to come along, like Robert Plant, Zeppelin’s front man! He’s on a tour with Alison Krauss and they are actually really good together. It was a little funny that my husband asked if I wanted to sneak around back to try to meet Robert after the show. If I was a teenager I would have done it in a heartbeat, but I just looked at him and laughed a little. I did manage to take some really bad pictures, but a couple of them turned out decent enough to post so here ya go.

Now all I need is for Led Zeppelin to go on tour and actually get tickets to the show. I’ll tell you now that you can’t even begin to imagine the level of excitement I would have. It might just actually kill me!

The wrap-up

I think Alex had the best birthday ever! His mom and all of his brothers and sisters except one came in from Ohio. I know that family being here was the best present as far as he was concerned. After the party, we all came back to the house and had a bonfire until late in the night. We roasted marshmallows, drank beer (I had to have espresso) and spent a lot of time telling jokes, laughing, sharing stories and listening to those who could sing sing. Afterwards all the guys got together and played poker on the new poker table Alex got for his birthday. Alex just happened to be the big winner of the night, not sure if that was due to luck, skill or everyone letting him win because it was his birthday.

I finished his hat and it fit him perfectly. Thank goodness, because he has a big head and I’ve never made a hat that fit him right. This one does and he actually likes it. It’s Alpaca that I spun a couple of years ago. It is super soft, so his head will be wrapped in luxury!

Here are some pictures from the weekend!

I’m not ready, but it’s coming anyway

It’s only 2 days until the big party and am I ready? No! I still have yet to decide what to get my husband for his birthday. He usually gets hand knitted socks, but for some reason this year I didn’t get any started. He doesn’t need them anyway, he has quite a few pair. I spun some Alpaca a couple of years ago to make gloves for him, but ended up making them out of something else. Maybe I’ll use the yarn to knit him a hat. After all, he does need to keep that growing bald spot warm! He needs something more than that though and I have no idea what else to give him. The one thing he told me he wanted was a wood vice and, since our son was experiencing the same dilemma as me, I told him to buy that. My husband is so hard to buy gifts for and I want to buy him something that he’ll love and use. I may have to enlist some man help from a friend of his or one of his brothers. Too bad he doesn’t want some hand dyed roving. I could supply him with that. Here’s a new one I dyed that I’m totally in love with.

My week

This past week has been a busy one for me. I have been dyeing, spinning and helping to get ready for the sale at work. If you’re in STL, check out the classes we’ve got going on this fall.

Here in Missouri we had a ton of rain from the remnants of Ike and I was worried that would keep many people from coming out yesterday to the sale. But the knitters showed up. It was a little slower than usual for a sale, but I think a lot of people just couldn’t get to us because of the high water in many places. Never the less, it was a fun and yet exhausting day. I came home with a ton of yarn too. Most of it I’ll use to knit Christmas presents with. That means I have to do some Christmas knitting though!

Here’s a couple pics of some BFL roving I dyed this week. They are up on my shop. I’ve got more dyed, but no pics yet.

This is Falklands wool that I spun and dyed. I’m putting my handspun on Etsy. The pink one sold quickly (it was very tempting to keep it for myself). I’m putting the blue up today. There’s a story behind the blue one too. My BIL wanted me to dye some roving to resemble the sky with puffy white clouds and birds flying. So that is how that one came to be. It is a mix of blue and white, with bits of black here and there to resemble birds.

Party planner I’m not

My husband is turning 50 this month and of course that means a party is in order. I’m trying to plan everything but I must confess that I’d make a terrible party planner. I’m expecting a lot of family from out of state to come in for this so I had to ruin the surprise and tell him about his party. That was probably my first mistake but he was going to know something was up. Since I am not the party planning diva, anyone have any suggestions? I did manage to reserve a space at Chevy’s and his cake is going to be one of these.

I’m still getting things together for the shop. I managed to get a few silk caps dyed and I made some really cute tote bags today. If anyone is interested in purchasing one that reads “knitters” instead of “spinners”, just email me and I’ll hook you up!

I’ve got some other designs I made to embroider out but that is for another day. Right now, my migraine medicine is kicking in so I’m off to take a nice nap!

Little lovelies

It’s a dreary, rainy day here in Missouri so I thought I’d pull out my beads and make some orifice hooks for the shop. It was fun making these. I’ve had the brass rod for some time and well…you know how that goes!

I love them all but I’m selling them. I can always make another one or two for me, right?

Tonight’s the big night. Obama on O’Reilly and McCain at the convention. Why is it that every time there is something worth watching on TV that it falls on the same night that my knitting group meets? I haven’t been to knitting in at least 3 weeks. I guess I’ll make it four.

What’s going on

Here is a little taste of what I’ve been up to this week. Except for the green, these are all superfine merino. This merino is particularly delicate and is going to be yummy to spin. They’re all for sale in my shop which has undergone a huge facelift. I love its new look.

I finally got my husband to make some niddy noddys and nostepinnes for the shop and he is down in the barn working on them now and I’m planning to make up some batts from other fiber that I dyed this week. I guess you could say we are laboring on labor day. But it’s fun work and that’s okay.

Adam started school this past week so he is now an official college student and, thanks to the GI Bill, his tuition is paid in full. He’s been studying hard this week, which is really amazing to me because he sure didn’t want to do much of that in high school. He seems committed to doing well and is majoring in nursing. He wants to be a doctor’s assistant or an anesthesiologist nurse (not sure what the right title is for that) which is totally surprising to me. I’m proud of him and I really think he is going to be okay.