Monday, October 27, 2008

This is a brief post to answer Phyllis (Spin, Knit, and Life) who tagged me on October 4. It's taken me this long to respond, but I do enjoy reading other blogger's tags, so here goes.....

Six Random Things About Me:

1. I love Chocolate, but the caffeine in it seems to bother me at times. Does that stop me from eating it though? Nooooooo :)

2. I
HATE the wind. We just recently had a windstorm here 100km/hr. It tore the top off of our carport. One of the plastic/canvas ones that you buy from Costco.

3. After wrapping Christmas presents for a marathon six hours I went to bed (at some ungodly hour) and had a hallucination/dream that somebody had put wrapping paper up in the ceiling light fixture. My husband woke me up as I was standing on top of the bed trying to clean out the 'said' wrapping paper.

4. I love collecting rocks for our outdoor pond, and for edging around my flower gardens.

5. Now this is really out there, but I think George Bush is kind of cute. I know, I know, what is she thinking? His politics suck, but I've always thought that George was a funny guy...I find that appealing.

6. I'm fanatical about the British soap, Coronation Street.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Blog...I'm back....

It's almost overwhelming. Where to start?

Back in August we had heard about the Okanagan Fall Wine Festival that's held the first week of October in British Columbia. We thought about going, but our first priority at the time was for our Uncle Otto. Since his passing on September 19th our days before and after the funeral were so emotionally draining, and busy that it was a welcome reprieve to think about getting away. So October 3 we left for Valemount, B.C. picked up my mom and headed for British Columbia's wine country for some wine education. A few pic's......



Fall colours heading into the Alberta Rockies







Just taking a leisurely walk alongside the road.








A view from the balcony at Gray Monk Estate Winery.










Grapes waiting to be processed.










Mom and DH tasting some grapes right from the vine.











The cellar at Mission Hill Winery.













The view from the outside bistro at Dirty Laundry Vineyard.












Wine tasting at Jackson-Triggs Okanagan Winery.






It was great to get some knitting in while driving, and I started a new sock KAL designed by Kirsten from Through the Loops. The free pattern can be found on Ravelry: Fans of Through the Loops.

I had full intentions to get all these 'in progress' sock pictures with the vineyards as a back drop, but after the wine tasting I never remembered to do it...Geesh.

A great time was had by all three of us. We visited 16 wineries in five days, and we all agreed it would be something we'd love to do again. There are so many wineries and vineyards in the Okanagan that a person could go back and not visit the same ones.

Of course no trip is complete until I've visited the local yarn shops. There was only one shop in Kelowna. Kelowna Yarn and Needlecrafts........




I bought this......

And I couldn't keep my hands from smooshing it the rest of trip.

The second fibre shop stop was in Armstrong B.C. on our way back to Valemount. We stopped in and had a visit with Sharon Wickstrom from Homespun Haven. What a wonderful shop she had! It's in her home in a big room situated over her garage. I was inspired, and she had such patience with all our questions. I found out that she's hoping to teach some courses at next spring's HWSDA's conference at Old's College in Olds, Alberta, May 22-24, 2009. Hopefully next spring I'll be able to attend one of Sharon's classes.









I've never seen so many spools of yarn. Click to embiggen.










Sharon was showing me one of Ashford's looms. This ones called The Knitter's Loom. She gave us a mini demo and I'm putting it on my Christmas list.


I bought this for the stash...............










This grey is something I never heard of before. It's combed wool in a natural gray colour. It is a bit on the itchy side, but it has some wonderful fuzziness to it which I'm hoping to incorporate in some projects..................................>






So I need to take pictures of my works in progress right now. That'll be my next post....Stay warm everybody!

Monday, October 06, 2008

Sorry for the long absence.....

Just wanted to say that the last several weeks have been so busy attending to matters concerning the passing of Uncle Otto. Since then my husband and I decided to take a week off for a bit of R and R, and visit with my Mom in Valemount, B.C.

I will be back home soon to share in our travels.....