Back Track

There's a whole bunch of stuff I never blogged about this fall and I wanted to do a little catching up.

First, I went on two great bike rides with friends using the tandem.

The first was the Hub on Wheels. My friend Stefanie rode stoker for that one. Years ago, Stef introduced me to the saying "Guess what? Chicken butt!" So for last Hannuka, I got her and her whole family t-shirts with that on it. For the ride, I borrowed back Stefanie's husband's shirt and we rode as Team Chicken Butt. Here you see us modelling our shirts! We had a great ride. It was well organized and had a well marked route and I'll definitely participate another year.

The next ride was the Cambridge Bow Tie Ride. I rode this one with my friend Phoebe.

It's called the Bow Tie Ride because Cambridge is vaguely bow tie shaped. The ride was a tour of Cambridge and we saw lots of places in town I'd never been. The drawback was that a lot of the route was on the sidewalk and there were a lot of bottlenecks that were kind of hard to manage on the tandem. I did enjoy seeing everyone with their bow ties, though!

I'll probably ride it again. I may ride it on my regular bike but I probably won't be able to resist riding the tandem again. It was so much fun with someone else. We chat, we laugh. Phoebe was even talking about getting cable installed in the back of the bike so she can watch tv while we ride!

The other event that I haven't managed to blog about until now is the Yarn Harlot's visit. As usually, she was funny and gracious and she even held my socks!

It is always great to see her!

I Got One Thing to Say

About the election

Hoorayhoorayhoorayhoorayhoorayhoorayhoorayhooray
hoorayhoorayhoorayhoorayhoorayhooray!!!

Don't Forget to

VOTE

The lines may be long so bring your knitting!

If you already voted, GOOD GOING!

Now all we have to do is bite our nails until we find out who's won.

Rhinebeck Pictures

I really enjoyed Rhinebeck. We had a great bus ride and the scenery was just beautiful. That's the Hudson River.
The fairgrounds is large but you don't feel like you walk forever to get from here to there.
The foliage was gorgeous and I saw lots of people I know. Ken from Dorchester Farms is the only one I managed to take a picture of. If you are interested in anyting Angora, see Ken!
And, of course, what's a sheep and wool festival without sheep. This guy looooved getting his head scratched!

As promised, here is a picture of my new spindle. I love it so much!

Today's project is taking in the legs of some cold weather cycling pants. They started out as ski pants with really flared legs. Now they are bike pants! We'll see if I actually go biking tomorrow. As much as I love to bike, I am a notorious wimp when it comes to the cold.

Rhinebeck was Great!

I had a great time at Rhinebeck. The bus there and back was great knitting time. I finished two, count them, two Christmas presents!
One nice thing about going to a fiber festival in fall is that I actually have some money to spend! In May, when things are slow, it is usually all I can to do scrape together enough cash to buy fleece for the shop and get it processed. To celebrate, I treated myself to a Golding spindle. Now usually, I'm not a spindle person but who doesn't like a Golding!? I got a gorgeous 2" spindle which I will post some pictures of. I don't have time for pictures now since I'm playing hookie from the bookkeeping. Then, of course, I needed something to spin so I got 2 oz. of white cashmere. This is going to be for a secret project and is getting spun very, very thin. I don't know that I've ever had this much fun with a drop spindle!
I also got some Socks That Rock silk and merino sock yarn and a nostepinde to wind yarn with. All so much fun!
Rhinebeck itself was great. I ran into lots of people I know. There were tons of vendors, tons. And the food was great! Sara and I indulged in some maple sugar cotton candy that was to die for! It is a good thing we split one because that was a lot of sugar, but, oh so yummy!
All in all, it was a great day. Thank you Kimberly for organizing the bus! I can't wait to go back next year!!

Headed to Rhinebeck!

I'm very excited! I've never been!

Technical Difficulties

I was off line for almost a week thanks to a faulty modem and lots of dithering around by Earthlink. I'm actually only online now because I got a wireless card for my computer and I'm using my mother's wireless upstairs. I think I'm probably going to ditch Earthlink at this point. They gave me such a run around.
One way or another, regular blogging will resume (as regular as my blogging ever is) shortly. I have not one but two fun bike rides to tell you about. I'm having so much fun with the new tandem! It shouldn't be legal!