How quickly things change.........

Today's blog post was all planned out in my head and was supposed to be about (strangely) one of the most exciting things in our "loot" that we came away with at SAFF. This.........



Not sure what that is?

How about now?

Any ideas? Take another good look.

That's right - worms. We bought worms at SAFF. Let me say that again for all of you confused fiber folk out there - yes, we actually bought worms at SAFF and were astonishingly excited about it. Enough so that I planned to devote my entire blog post today to these crazy new pets.

John and Donna had the booth next to us. Wayne and John just went on and on and on talking and talking like 2 little school girls the entire weekend. I thought they were funny and I was so glad that Mr. Man had someone to talk to while I was busy talking fiber. He didn't get bored at all. We only knew them for a couple of days but they are one of those couples that we just felt like we had already known for a lifetime. I didn't get a chance to talk to them as much as Wayne did though, unfortunately. John and Donna sold handmade soap and they also promoted organic gardening. John makes these "worm houses" and was selling them. You use these to put your compost in and the worms break it down really fast giving you the most excellent organic soil ever for growing veggies.

John taught Wayne an amazing dearth of information about all kinds of things - especially worms. So, on Sunday we were all excited to take our bucket of worms home and start with the natural composting - something we were already doing but not nearly this efficiently. We settled them in under a nice warm window. After we got home, Wayne emailed John with more questions about organic gardening and worms and such. He was really learning a lot.

Until this morning.

We got an email from Donna this morning telling us that she was so sorry to send us sad news. John had a heart attack and died right after SAFF. Ummmm......what?!?!

We couldn't believe it and were in total shock. This is a guy who was in great shape, did lots of hiking, ate right, lived as organically as possible and he just died. Just gone. John and Donna were married for 32 years and together for 37. They were best friends. That makes the second friend that I have had in just a few months that has lost her husband suddenly like that. I just don't know how you go on and I wish that neither one of these wonderful women had to figure it out. I wake up every single morning and am thankful that I have another day with this wonderful, loving, caring friend that I am lucky enough to be able to call my husband.

I told Donna that I'm not sure what it says about John's posterity but that we would be thinking about him everytime we look at those worms. I think he would probably like the idea of that.

I will leave you with the words that Donna wrote to me this morning:

"Hold onto each other"

Quicky Reminder!!

Don't forget that you have until midnight tomorrow to enter!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SAFF - Day 3 - LOOT!

Sunday was SLOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW. I think everyone was on total fiber overload by that point. I didn't really have time to do much shopping since we were working but I managed to pick up a few things here and there.

First of all - our raffle basket went to lucky Claudia!!! Here it is - it has a yarn bowl, 2 skeins of Knit Witch hand dyed sock yarn, a Knit Witch hand lotion (Lavendar), handmade soap from Rosi G. and a couple of Knit Witch pens in it.

I picked up a couple of naturally dyed merino/mohair batts from PetuniaLu and I love them! I can't wait to spin them!

And I also got a handmade journal and notebook from Heidi - aren't they so cute?!?! And, the beautiful lemon book is so well made - I love it!

I picked up this beautiful orifice hook from because the one that I made for myself totally blows.


And..............drumroll please.................these awesome sock blockers from Cristi!!!

Hee hee - she does not know that I bought these from her. I have been eyeing them and when she brought them to sell at our booth on Saturday I just had to snag the perfect size. Look how cool they are - they are numbered each way so you can measure your progress whether you are doing toe up or cuff down socks. Of course, no need to point out the obvious fact that I actually need to finish a pair of socks in order to appropriately use the blockers.

And I stole some stuff - from myself that is. I will be spinning up one of these yummy 50%merino/50% alpaca rovings in the color Dream World. There are still a couple left on the site if you are interested.

I managed to snag this picture from Donna. She bought one of these 50/50 rovings from Knit Witch and gave it rave reviews! She posted this picture on Rav. The colorway is Apparition. There are still a couple of these left too.

More loot pictures tomorrow!!

SAFF - Days 1 and 2 - The Fun Begins!

On Friday the weather was pretty miserable. It was cold and rainy. Even though we were outside in the sales arena we still got a lot of traffic. We really were not sure what to expect since this was our first year but we did better than we expected so we were excited!!!! We saw a couple of alpacas.........

Worked the booth - we are such a GREAT team!!:

Then on Saturday the weather was beautiful and we did a BUNCH of business! Lots of people stopped by the booth to introduce themselves and we saw lots of friends that we hadn't seen in a while. We had SO MUCH FUN!!!!

Claudia and Sandy stopped by.

And Claudia just happened to win the Knit Witch raffle prize!!! Congratulations Claudia! I will post pictures of all the "loot" tomorrow.

Then there were the "Sheep Guys". Famous Steve, Lou, Doug and Stuart.


At the end of the day Saturday we got together with the Atlanta crowd at a Thai Restaurant. Before that though, Cristi and JP came to our hotel and we got started with the festivities before dinner! We had a great time. I can tell you right now that the 4 of us are a dangerous (yet wildly amusing) combination.

What a ham eh?



We had dinner with The Sheep Guys, Sandy, Claudia, Regan, Grace, Jane and Kat (who incidentally neutered our dog - well the neutering wasn't incidental, you know what I mean). I hope I'm not leaving anyone out!

OK - I think that is enough pictures for one day. More tomorrow!!

SAFF - Day 0 - ROAD TRIP!

Well, it seems that the best place to start is at the beginning. On Thursday we had a wonderfully beautiful drive up to Asheville, NC. We left early in the morning so that we could get there, get set up and then go play in Asheville. Here are some pictures of our drive up. It took us a little under 3 hours to get there.

Then we got there and got our booth all set up.

And I got a couple shots of everyone else getting their booths set up.

Then we got checked into the hotel.

Then we went to downtown Asheville for a yummy dinner at Doc Chey's!! We have been missing Thai food here in good 'ol Blue Ridge.

That pretty much sums up day 0. We were so anxious to get going and we had heard that the weather was going to be kinda crappy for day 1 so we were hoping for a somewhat decent turnout. Our booth was outside in the Sales Arena so we weren't sure how much traffic we would get in the bad weather.

Wow!!

First of all - a

HUGE THANK YOU

to everyone who came by the Knit Witch booth and supported us!!! We had more positive feedback than I could have ever imagined. It was so wonderful to meet so many people and I wish we could have talked to everyone longer - our booth stayed very busy!!! Thank you so much to everyone for their time and purchases. We are coming home with very little inventory left! We will be busy at work getting our inventory built back up again. We made some great LYS contacts so you may be seeing Knit Witch yarn in your LYS soon!!!!!

We had such a great weekend!!!!! We had such a good time meeting so many new friends and seeing some of the old friends. Understandably though, we are dog tired today! We got back late last evening. The good news is that the house is still in one piece and all pets are still living. The bad news is that this is going to be a really boring blog post. I will definitely get some SAFF pictures up after I have had a chance to download them and get some of our stuff unpacked. So, look forward to some pictures soon!!!!

My Corner of the World

Actually, this post should be titled "My Former Corner of the World". I took some pictures when we were last in Atlanta. I know, boring for all of you that live there but hopefully it will be of interest to some of you. I lived there for 35 years (my entire life until we moved here) so I still consider Atlanta "my corner of the world".

This is a part of the Atlanta sky line. It was kind of a rainy day so the pictures didn't turn out great but this is driving on 85 South going towards downtown Atlanta.




Here is a (distant) shot of the Cobb Energy Center on 75N. It's the building with staggered sides. I THINK this is the building that Stitches South is going to be held in when it is in Atlanta in April. I heard that it was going to be in the Galleria and I just kind of assumed it would be in this building but I'm not sure.

Here is a shot of the VA hospital where we get to spend some good times. The parking at this place is a nightmare so I usually drop Mr. Man off and then head here.



This is my mom's house and the house that I grew up in.


Here's a shot of the High School I went to - Druid Hills. Mr. Man and I actually went to the same high school believe it or not. He was just there 22 years ahead of me!!

Knitting! Well, Sort of

Swatches. I know, I know but I had to do some. I wanted to have at least some of our yarn knit up so that people could see how it looks knit up and get a good feel for it. I wasn't able to do a swatch for everything because I did not necessarily have yarn left over for each type we had but I think this is a pretty good sampling. My blocking board actually had cobwebs on it when I got it out!


My favorite to knit with was the 100% merino sock yarn. That's the turquoise and black on in the picture (Pisces is the yarn name). It was very easy to work with and I love how it looks. It has a nice "bloom" to it. Nice and stretchy too!! The three on the left hand side from top to bottom are Helios, Capricorn and Harvest Moon. The one on the top left is not on the website. I love that Harvest Moon and I have already rolled up a ball for my next pair of socks!

I have one more swatch that I am working on - a lace weight. OH MY GOSH!!!! Does working with lace make everyone feel old?? I can barely even SEE what I am trying to knit! So, maybe that one will get done before we get there and maybe it won't. No promises there!

Well, we are off to Asheville!!! My son and his girlfriend will be here watching the ranch. Hopefully all our pets will still be alive when we return. If you are going to SAFF - see you there!!!! Be sure to come by our booth which will be out in the Sales Arena - space #29!! We will definitely be joining some of you folks out there for a few brewskies on Saturday night - looking forward to it. I hope everyone has a safe trip there and back!

Tie Dye Again!

Here is one of the aprons that we had tie dyed by Tina. Mr. Man did the graphic and put it on afterwards. I think they turned out great!!! It is going to be really handy to wear these and have all of the pockets during the show this weekend.


He looks so happy doesn't he?? This guy is ALWAYS smiling and happy! I love it!!!! He looks especially happy for someone who pretty much spends 24/7 with his wife, eh?

We are busy getting everything packed up today so we will be ready to get out of town first thing tomorrow morning. EARLY. Don't worry - I have already done the posts for Thursday and Friday. I don't want anyone to miss out on their Knit Witch blog fix! Haha!

Pond Work....

.....is moving right along. Unfortunately, we had to have a tree removed. It always makes me sad to have to take down trees. I hate it. But, it had to be done. We'll be using the tree for firewood though next winter. It took these guys about 5 minutes to remove this tree. The whole process was pretty amazing.





Then...........the dreaded hole. Here's a picture of the hole all cleaned out. That pile of trash next to it (not Mr. Man - the OTHER side!) is what they took out of the hole.



That is the hole the bonehead former owner of this house dug in the pond with a backhoe and all the trash he put in it. In the picture Mr. Man is assisting a water snake in making it's escape from the hole. There were also two snapping turtles and a pile of tadpoles to rescue. All were removed to safer living quarters.

Here's what the hole looked like after they finished.

YAY!!! I can't wait to start filling up the pond again. There is still more work to go but hopefully we can start filling it again as soon as we get back from Asheville.