Happy Armed Forces Day!

Once again, it's Armed Forces Day!

Happy Armed Forces Day!

Find out more about my eploits in the Air Force, and one very special Armed Forces Day where I helped put on an air show at Charleston AFB, South Carolina here. It was one of the most outrageous days of my whole life! What fun!

Here's the official Air Force photo of me from when I finished basic training.

Anyway, have fun today!

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The Chronicles of Narnia is currently playing on ABC Family, but will be on later in the weekend on the same channel.

The latest Doctor Who episode will be on BBC in America this evening. It's part two of a two part story, The first part is The Time of Angels, which will be on right before Flesh and Stone, so you can see both parts of the story in sequence at 8 pm here. This is the sequel to Blink, one of everybody's favorites! It's also a sequel to Silence in the Library and Forrest of the Dead, where the Doctor meets River Song. River is in this two part episode, too. The problem with all these stories for the Doctor is that he first meets River at the end of their relationship, so she knows him, but he doesn't know her. Apparently, though, at some time in the future, they're married, so she really knows him, and she keeps calling him "sweetie." I can't wait to see this next episode!

Have a great Armed Forces Day, and a wonderful weekend!

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Addition:

I found this poster the other day and thought it was funny.

More Sheep and Wool!

First of all, before I forget, for anybody living in the DC area, here's some information about the Maryland Faerie Festival, which is happening this weekend. It's not far from DC, and it looks like it'll have some great vendors for anyone looking for something to do this weekend.

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On to all the fun from two weekends ago at the Sheep and Wool Festival!

These are the photos that Holly took with the little camera that I'm planning to replace soon.

As you can see, there were a lot of people there. One of my friends said that the parking lot was full when he got there, and they had to park on the other side of 441!

Holly saw the dragons and other assorted felted creatures that I missed, and took a picture of them to prove it!

One of the most interesting shops this year (actually, every year) was Susan's Fiber Shop. Susan brought a lamb along with her to the festival this year. She always has the best stuff, but this year, she had the brand new Majacraft Wheel. This wheel was named Serenity while they were developing it, but it appears to be named Aura now. I don't know why they changed the name. This new wheel was developed with the help of Lexi Boeger (Pluckyfluff shown below) and she was there to demonstrate it.

And what a demonstration it was! She did some amazing things on the wheel. The rest of the photos are mine.

Before she arrived, I took this photo, which shows the Aura from a spinners perspective.

Here's a close up of the handle:

The upright is at a slightly different angle than on the other Majacraft wheels when folded. I didn't actually try folding it, but that's what their website says, and that's what the one I saw looked like.

And here's a close up of the "orifice" which is made to handle yarn that has wildly different diameters as well as yarn that has a more even texture.

The "kink" in the part of the wire closest to the rest of the flyer lets you spin finer yarns without the thumping that you get with a big orifice. I think it's quite ingenious, and watching Lexi use it, it seems to work very well. There was no thumping or unevenness when she used it, and it was quick and easy to change to using the more open part so that it could swallow even big slubs!

Lexi put some yarn out that she'd spun to show what kinds of yarn could be spun on this wheel.

There are some pretty chunky/slubby yarns shown here.

One of the major things that is different about this wheel is that it's a double drive, but very different from any double drive you've ever seen. There are two separate drive bands, and two different tensioning systems, one for each drive band. That way, you can choose the different ratios and different drive strengths for the flyer and bobbin. You can easily change the amount of take up on the bobbin without affecting how the flyer is driven!

You can see the green drive band in the photo, which is for the flyer. It's adjusted almost the same way as the Susie or Rose wheels. Lexi used a small wrench for this rather than the knob that lets you adjust it by hand on other wheels. The additional, new drive band is white, and it drives the bobbin. There is a knob on the right of the support for the flyer and bobbin (marked Bobbin Drive Band Adjustment in the photo) that can be used to change the tension of the band that drives the bobbin, and therefore, the take-up on the wheel.

The flyer is excellent for spinning anything you might want to spin, but it hasn't got very many options for flyer speed, which is why I don't want to trade in my Rose wheel for one of these. I'd love to have an Aura in addition to my Rose, but not in place of it. I spin some finer yarns, and don't want to give up that speed.

Lexi is just starting out here, and is spinning a relatively fine, even singles. That's Susan McFarland behind the yarn that's being formed. You'll see her in some of the other photos.

Here's a slub that's just formed and is spinning so fast that you can hardly see it.

In this photo, Lexi is pulling some of the fiber in her hand toward her left to start to form a fuzzy spot in the singles so that she can attach some other fiber and make a slub.

After she did that, she added some yellow fiber and shoved it toward the orifice to form a big slub.

She stopped for a moment, and I was able to show how she's pulling the fiber to the side. You can also see an already formed slub that's about to go through the orifice, and Susan in the background.

It's a little hard to see here, but she's pulling some fairly ordinary fibers to the left here, along with part of one of those little scrubbie pads with all the shiny silver coils that look like tiny curls. She called it a Brillo pad, but it's not that brand, just a generic scrubber. It looks very glamourous and glitzy in the final yarn as you can see below.

There's just a little of it peeking out, just to the left of the yellow section. Although it looks fabulous, I suspect that it wouldn't feel too good to wear.

Here's another photo of some glitzy yarn as it's being formed into a slub and fed into the orifice.

That's an awful lot of photos for today!

I'm giving up on this post for the day, and I'll show you the swag I got from the festival another day.

Have fun!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

I feel sorry for you because I had the best mom anybody ever had! But I hope yours is really superlative, and if you are a mom, I hope you have the best Mother's Day ever!

Holly and I went out together yesterday to celebrate Mother's Day, and had a fabulous time!

We started by going to the new yarn store in Old Town Alexandria. Holly is about to start a knit-along, and wants to see what colors, etc. the possible yarn comes in and check for availability. They haven't chosen a project yet, so she didn't want to buy the yarn yet.

Next stop was AC Moore. I can usually get four socks out of three balls of Knit Picks sock yarn, so I bought three balls of Red Heart Heart and Sole sock yarn in toasted almond. I knew it had just a little less yardage than the Knit Picks yarn, but I thought I could make it anyway. I finished knitting the second sock, and it's obvious that I won't make it, so I bought two more balls. I'll be able to get an even six socks out of that much. And, as if that wasn't enough, they had it for $1.50 less per ball than JoAnn Fabrics, where I bought the first three balls. And Holly had a 50% off one item coupon for me! Actually, the coupon went toward a fresnel lens bookmark, which I've wanted for a while.

Then we went to Borders, where Holly said to pick out a book and she would buy it for me for Mother's Day! I got the newest Sookie Stackhouse book, Dead in the Family.





I had been reading Forever Odd, but I was almost at the end and wanted to buy a book while I was there. I was thinking about buying this book even though it's only available in hardback now and cost more than I can normally afford to pay for books. So, I was delighted.

The Borders we went to is one of my favorites. It's the one at Bailey's Crossroads, and Holly and I met Stephanie Pearl McPhee there, and I demonstrated spinning in the children's section there, too (wearing a medieval cote and surcote).

Then, we went to La Madeleine, which is right next to Borders. This is a little Parisian restaurant that has some of the most delicious food. We both had the same thing: Their tomato basil soup, which is thick, rich and very tomato, with their Strawberries Romanoff (which is topped with their brandy sour cream sauce). The food was some of the best it's possible to get, and amazingly filling for the little we ate (although the strawberries come in an enormous helping)! We were both full when we left.

I'll be posting more photos from the Sheep and Wool Festival (Holly returned my camera) and photos of my swag (well, the balls of sock yarn and at least one finished sock) in a post real soon now.

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I would have put this up at the top of the page, but I don't think my brother is going to read this.

I want to wish him a happy birthday, anyway, though!

Happy Birthday, Jeff!

He's my baby brother, and I love him, even if he's been a adult for quite a while!

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Eureka is on SyFy all day today! That includes this evening, too! I know they're only reruns, but they're good!

Practical Magic is on cable TV sometime today. I think it's on ABC Family, but I couldn't swear to it.

I wish everyone as happy a Mother's Day as I had yesterday!

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival!

I've been editing photos for what seems like hours, and here it is!

We noticed something new about the Sheep and Wool Festival even before we were really there.

Whoever has been directing traffic for the last 20 years has been doing an excellent job. It slows down a bit sometimes, but it generally keeps moving, even if slowly at times. But they obviously went on vacation or something this year and the job was given to a complete moron to organize. There is a village somewhere looking for it's idiot!

The road leading into the fairgrounds has three lanes. They always leave one free for people to exit, and two lanes for people going in. There are two entrances to the parking lot, so the people in the left lane turn left at the first entrance, and the people in the right lane turn left into the second entrance, and things keep moving.

But not this year.


This year, the person running things decided that just because they had three whole lanes, it didn't mean that they had to use them!

So, they blocked off one whole lane!

Which created a bottleneck that had traffic backed up for miles on Route 70, and probably added at least an hour driving time for everyone there (including people who live just down the street)! Not to mention blocking things up for innocent passers by!

We followed some bikers who were not amused!

Does the Friendship Police Department have anybody on it with even half a brain? You couldn't prove it by their traffic-directing expertise on Saturday!

As the sign says, Welcome to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival!

On the walk in, we saw some sheep (of course).

And the same sheep from the other direction (courtesy of Everett).

There was so much to see! Of course, there were spinning wheels (thanks for the photo, Everett).

And yarn! Lots and lots of yarn!

Photo by Everett

At Susan's Fiber Shop, Susan had brought along a lamb to the festival.

We saw the demonstration of the new Majacraft wheel, which I'm going to postpone for another post, but here are photos of Holly and Everett at the demo.

And, of course, there was lots of food!

Everett saw some stuff that I completely missed, including these felted dragons (the dragons are Everett's photos).

Not as great as the Rapunzel's tower from last year, but impressive, nonetheless!

And we posed for lots of group photos:

L to R: Everett, Holly and Me

L to R Everett, Me and Jeff

Holly and I

And when it was all over, we piled in the car and went to the Double T Diner, where we had a fabulous dinner! It is the place to go after the Sheep and Wool Festival! Just turn left on 441 out of the parking lot, and continue to Route 40 and turn left. There's a short ride, and it's on the right-hand side. They have the best food and so much of it that the waiter automatically brings something to put the leftovers in to take home. They have the best hot turkey sandwiches! And, as if all that weren't enough, this is what's across Route 40 from them:

And I'm totally tired of downloading photos, so I'm going to save all the rest for another post!

I will say that I got some great swag, but not as fabulous as what Holly bought. She bought a lot of Tillie Tomas yarn with beads, similar to the yarn I took so many photos of.

More later!

Have a great Friday, and a wonderful weekend!

Happy Beltain... a Little Late!

You know you've been to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival a lot when you walk into Susan's Fiber Shop, and Susan says "Hey, girl! Good to see you again!"

Yesterday was probably the best Sheep and Wool Festival I've been to!

A couple of years ago, the nearly impossible happened. I walked and walked and walked around the festival and found almost nothing that I wanted to buy! I didn't think it was possible, and imagined it was just me, but Holly found almost nothing she wanted, too. We both intended to buy knitting (or in my case, possibly spinning--fiberarts) stuff, and were disappointed. Holly did get a nice set of runes on semiprecious gemstones.

I didn't do as much walking due to the fact that I wanted to see the demo of the new Majacraft wheel, and got to Susan's Fiber Shop about 45 minutes early. I used up 15 or 20 minutes looking at all the great stuff that is for sale there, and then realized that there was less than a half hour to the demo, so I stayed and waited.

I'll talk more about the demo tomorrow or Tuesday.

For a change, I seemed to be in reasonably good health for the actual festival. Usually, all the walking, and the tree pollen wind up sending my digestive system into overdrive and I spend a significant time at the ladies room, standing in line, and using the facilities. This time all the digestive unhappiness waited until the next day to strike, and I'm really happy about that! If I have to have the misery, I'd rather have it the next day, where I have my own, private bathroom only a few steps away.

But this is making me feel less like sitting here writing than doing other relaxing things.

I will say that I got some fabulous swag, and had lots of fun!

Then I came home and got to watch the new Doctor Who episode, Victory of the Daleks!

I have a pressing appointment with the facilities again, so, more later!

Hope you're having a great weekend!