Knit Witch Blog Saves the World!

Catchy headline, eh? So, check this out. Remember all those pictures we lost? It totally sucked right and I was REALLY ticked at myself for a few days. In fact, when it happened I promptly started crying and decided that a glass of wine was in order. I looked and looked and looked and tried like mad to figure out a way to get the pictures back. I figured that it could probably be done but I am a very far cry from a computer expert. In fact, it gives me heebie jeebies to even use the words I, computer, and expert in the same sentence.

But, check this out. Yesterday, I was writing the post about the yarn shops and went to see if I had the pictures from Hanks. Nope. They were gone into the great oblivion with all the other long lost shots. But then, I noticed something weird - I pulled up my usual picture file through the blog and................ALL THE PICTURES WERE THERE!!!!!!!! I can't get to them through the actual file where they reside (which is totally weird) but I can get to them through the blog! So, I guess I will have to download a bunch of them to the blog and then get them off that way. Bizarre but it makes me infinitely happy that we have some access to our pictures again!!

So, I bring you - the Key West Aquarium!

Nurse Sharks

Moray Eel and Pufferfish

Lobster - I love lobsters - they are so cute! I was really sad that we had lost this picture

A grouper.

A sea turtle

And a little octopus

Are you all sick of Key West pictures yet? Now that I have them back I can share them with you so there will be more vacation pictures this week. I have actually knit about 5 inches on a sleeve of the FLS but honestly I think these pictures are much more interesting!

Yarn Shops you ask?

Why YES! We did visit a few yarn shops while we were on vacation! Our first stop was Hanks Yarn and Fiber in Gainesville, FL. I can't say enough wonderful things about this shop!!! The gals who own this shop are simply awesome. The store is very laid back, very comfortable and we immediately felt like we belonged as soon as we walked in. This is my favorite type of yarn shop to visit.

The really cool thing about this yarn shop is that they do their own dyeing! They have a little dye kitchen right there in the shop and if you join their sock club they dye their own yarns just for the club - pretty cool, eh??

We didn't meet Ginger but Lorena and Sharon were there. Pictures you ask? Here's a picture of me and Sharon. Seriously - I love this woman. She is made of awesome. Hanks will be at SAFF also in the outdoor sales arena with us! I'm looking forward to having them as neighbors for a few days!

We also visited Knit 'n Knibble in Tampa. This was a great shop too. Caroline, the owner, was there to meet us and talk for a bit. She had several customers to attend to in the shop (always a good thing!) so we didn't stay long.

We tried a few times to visit Knit Wits in Key West but every time we managed to get by there it was closed though. They clearly had their days and hours on the door but we just couldn't manage to be in the right place at the right time. September is a slow time down there so a lot of the shops take vacations and cut their hours this time of the year. Unfortunately we weren't able to catch up with them though it looked like a lovely shop through the windows!

Some Reminders

Before we begin this week of exciting Knit Witch blog posts we have a few reminders for you.

- The September contest ends on Wednesday at midnight. Entry into the contest is simple - just post your favorite vacation picture(s) in the Knit Witch group on Ravelry. All the details for the contest are posted there.

- Don't forget that we still have FREE SHIPPING in the US for all yarn until Wednesday at midnight as well.

- There are a few new bowls on the website

- There will be 2 new colors of Witch's Brew on the site this week.

- Of course, October is Knit Witch's favorite month! We will have a few fun things going on for October including a new contest that will start on October 1 for a chance to win more goodies from Knit Witch!

- We will be at SAFF October 23-26. At SAFF we will have a few new things so make sure and visit us in the outdoor sales arena
- We will have our NEW YARN - Esoterica - a 70/20/10 Merino/Silk/Cashmere blend in the 7 chakra colors
- We will be releasing another NEW YARN as well - Cauldron - a 80/10/10 Merino/Cashmere/Nylon blend
- We will have "Knit Wish Kits" which are some new kits we have put together for intention knitting. Each kit will have a skein of luxury Esoterica yarn, a scented candle custom poured into the chakra symbols and a vial of essential oil. While you are making your project, you are thinking good, positive, healing thoughts about the person you are making the project for and the scents and colors from the yarn, candle and essential oil will help you achieve the most positive infustion of good energy for your recipient. We will have a VERY limited number of these kits available so come to the Knit Witch booth early if you are interested in them.

Whew!! October is going to be a busy month around here! In addition to SAFF we will also be speaking at the Charlotte Knitting Guild on Tuesday October 6th. We'll see you there!!

Key West - Day 4

On our 4th and final day in Key West we did a little more sightseeing.

We went to the Key West Aquarium and saw sting rays, lobsters, nurse sharks, alligators, sea turtles, a huge array of fish and a giant grouper.






















Then we went to the Key West Cemetery. Lemme tell ya - that place is HUGE! I had no idea how big it was until we got there and started looking around. It was so hot though we didn't stay very long. There wasn't much shade there and I was afraid that our sunscreen would be wearing off and then we would be fried.




























Then we went to a famous Episcopal church at the corner of Duval and Eaton. This church has their stained glass windows insured for over a million bucks. The windows are really beautiful and we got some great pictures of them.





















By this point you are probably thinking that I was slack and forgot to put the pictures into the blog post, right? Well, you are wrong. I would have LOVED to put some pictures in here for you. I downloaded all the pictures, spent about an hour organizing and renaming them and all and then promptly started working on the blogs. In the middle of my doing that I transferred the pictures over to our other computer. However, not all of the pictures made the transition. I THOUGHT I had copied and pasted the pictures but I had actually CUT and pasted the pictures. Of course, I had already deleted them off of the camera. Big mistake and hard lesson learned. On top of that all the names got messed up so none of them are named for what the picture is actually of anymore.

Luckily, I had already done several blog posts so the pictures were at least on the blog and I could get them off and retrieve them (of course not all of them). However, I hadn't gotten to the day 4 post when this happened so the day 4 pictures are gone. It really sucks. We had some cool pictures of a huge lobster and a nice shot of some nurse sharks. So, I was really bummed and pretty ticked off with myself for a while but, what good does that do, right? Lesson learned. At least we didn't lose any the pictures of Wayne and I together - those are the ones that can't be replaced. The whole situation is seriously annoying though.

After all of that we got back on the boat and headed back to Ft. Myers. Here is one of the pictures of the beautiful sunset we had that night on the trip back.

Key West - Day 3

So, the next morning we get up and have a quick breakfast at the hotel restaurant because we are supposed to be down at the dock by 9AM. As you can imagine, we weren't moving too fast!! The weather was kind of crappy so we were keeping an eye on the weather channel while we were down there. Finally we headed on our way to the dock and we got a phone call from the people we had booked the trip with. We had booked the 1/2 day trip but as it turned out, we were the only ones on it. The guy offered to upgrade us for free to see if the weather would clear up and put us on the all day trip leaving at 10. Ummmmm - OK!!

We walked around in the rain for a while and then headed to the dock around 10. There were 3 other couples there and we were all willing to go ahead and go out in the rain because chances were it was going to clear up pretty soon. Off we went on a sailboat that included snorkeling, lunch and kayaking. Oh yeah, and more wine!! Just what I needed, right?

Here is Wayne doing some sailing (sort of). We didn't really get to sail much because there wasn't much wind. The weather cleared up after we had been on the water for about 30 minutes so we were good to go!

Unfortunately, we could not find our underwater casing for our camera so we didn't get to take any underwater pictures while we were snorkeling this time. However, another couple that we met on the ship said that they would send us copies of theirs so if I get them at a later date I'll show them to you. We saw a lot of very cool fish down there.

Once we got out to go kayaking we saw a bunch of nurse sharks and bonnet head sharks. Here is one of the nurse sharks although you really can't see it too well.

This is a jellyfish called a Cassiopeia.

This is a part of the mangrove forest.

From the boat we saw dolphins, a few sea turtles (they were way too fast for me to get a picture of unfortunately) and LOTS of jelly fish. At one point while we were snorkeling I was just swimming around looking at the coral reef that we were swimming over. All of the sudden I looked up and there was a pretty good size jelly fish RIGHT in front of my face!!! That taught me a really quick lesson about watching where I was swimming.

Luckily, the crew was smart enough to not start serving us alcohol until after we finished snorkeling (always a good plan) but after that - they were more than generous with the beer and wine. I probably drank another freaking bottle of wine that day!!! It was a really great cruise though - we went with Danger. The guides were great and we went out to the Key West Nature Preserve to go snorkeling at the coral reef around Man Key and kayaking around Woman Key.

Later that night we joined one of the couples that we met on the boat for dinner at Sloppy Joe's. This is Cindy and Harry - a SUPER nice couple from Michigan.

Key West - Day 2

On day 2 in Key West we got up and went walking around a bit more. We had breakfast at a great locals place called Pepe's. Then we did a bit more wandering around visiting various bars and restaurants until it was time for our sunset dinner cruise. We really lucked out because we were the only customers on the boat that night so we had our own private dinner cruise! The captain and his first mate were really a lot of fun. They cooked a wonderful dinner and we brought whatever we wanted to drink. Wayne and I had a bottle of wine..........EACH! I couldn't believe that I drank a whole bottle of wine by myself. We were on the boat for like 5 hours but still - sheesh!

Here is one of those glasses.

Here is our captain, Alex, and his first mate, Laura.

Here is Wayne and I (and Alex).

We had a pretty nice sunset that night out on the water.

Now, the bad thing about me drinking all of that wine was that we had to be back down at the harbor at 9AM for a sailing and kayaking trip!!!

If you are ever in Key West though we highly recommend sailing with Captain Alex! The food was wonderful and it was really a lot of fun.

Heading to Key West

From Clearwater we drove to Ft. Myers (about 2.5 hrs) and caught the Key West Express to Key West. It took about 4 hours to get there but it was a much nicer trip than driving 8-10 hours to get there! They had plenty of lovely cocktails on board but our ship left harbor at 7:30 AM - even though I was on vacation I just could not bring myself to drink that early in the morning!!

Here is the boat we rode on.

And some shots from the harbor - see the Dolphin?? The Ft. Myers harbor was FULL of dolphins - we saw a lot of them while we were waiting for the ship to leave.

Here are some shots from the boat.

Check out this boat I saw!!

Once we arrived in Key West we saw these!

We didn't really have anything planned for our first night in the Keys so we just did a lot of walking around - it was HOT and HUMID!!!! Holy cow I could never live in that heat all of the time. We finally settled in on doing the Ghost Tour. However, our guide never showed up! So, they gave us our money back and we went wandering the streets looking for something to do. Most of the nightlife there is bars and we just don't drink that much (especially at like $9/drink!!) so we finally settled in on going to a drag show. We haven't been to one of those in a long time and it was a lot of fun! My husband had an especially good time as you can see!!! He looks kind of drunk in the second picture but I swear he isn't - I think we only had one drink each the whole time we were there.

The people there who had never been to a drag show before were pretty obvious and they were pretty funny. I was kind of thinking that if you are an "uptight person" then a drag show is probably not the best place for you to spend your evening. In that last picture you can see a woman off to the left in the picture. She was there with 3 others and they were from Scotland. Those people were having a BLAST and they were hilarious to watch.

Clearwater Wildlife

Of course we got some pictures of some wildlife while we were in Clearwater. First up - a Green Heron. He was sitting on this rope next to us while we were chatting with Walt. We saw him get a couple of fish while we were there.

A mama duck and her baby.

Check out these Osprey - these birds are so pretty and they have a huge wingspan. Doesn't the first one look like he is wearing a tuxedo?

And pelicans. I love pelicans - they are so cool. They look like they have just stepped out of Jurassic Park.

While we were walking on the beach one day we saw this woman on the beach with her 2 kids. They were having some lunch. The seagulls swooped down and took a cracker right out of one of her kids hands. She was holding a sandwich and they just started dive bombing her. She was screaming and running and trying to shoo them away. The kids are screaming - what a scene. Obviously, the birds had done this operation before because they were relentless. Finally, the woman just THROWS the sandwich and about 50 birds just dive after it and then THEY start screaming at each other trying to all get a piece. It was an entertaining scene for sure.

Have a great weekend!!!

Witch's Brew

Remember that new yarn line we came out with last week called Witch's Brew? Well, check this out!

Our friends took us to this place because they had a friend who was playing here with his band. This is a metaphysical shop connected to a coffee/beer bar. The owner was really nice and we had a great time. The band was GREAT and the sound was just perfect. I hate it when you go out to listen to live music and the music is so loud that you have to scream at each other to talk. This place was perfect. Good acoustics, perfect volume and great band. Plus, the shop was really great! We ended up buying a few things and a few gifts for some people out there that we might happen to know.

The place was decorated so cute - they really had a great theme. The bathroom was totally done in a Wizard of Oz theme. I got a few pictures of it but it really does not do the decorating job justice. Check out the witch that was hiding behind the door so that when you closed the door to the bathroom she scared the beeejezus out of you!

One of the people that we went with had this crazy RV (yes, I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of it) so we had a lot of fun being chauffered around in the party RV for dinner and going out and such. Here's a group shot.

Tammy had a good time playing dress up.

Well, I guess I did too.

I bought this book there - I thought it looked interesting. Has anyone read this book?