Friday, May 8, 2009

Phew, It's Friday!

Where has this week gone? And next week is looking busier than this week was! Time flies when you are having fun.

Here is the photo of my haul from the Maryland Sheep and Wool Fesitival.

The teal/pink yarn on top of the Fiber Trends pattern is yarn for a yarn swap in which I am participating. I belong to a "Teachers that Knit" group on Ravelry and I agreed to participate in a swap with other teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week (which was this past week, I assume all of your cards got lost in the mail!). I got some info that this knitter supplied and I bought this yarn and pattern for her. Today I went to Parkleigh Pharmacy and picked up a few small, fun gifts to go in the swap package. I will pack it up tonight and send it off tomorrow. I have not yet received my package from the person who got my name.

Back to the haul, the brown/gray/beige balls of roving are from Jacob Sheep, who naturally have fleece that has these 3 colors in it. I got to see the sheep that provided me with this fiber.

The 2 wooden implements at the bottom left of the photo are used with my spinning wheel. One is a hook, used to thread the yarn from the bobbin through the orifice where I hold the fiber. The other tool is used to count how may wraps per inch I get on a handspun yarn. 

The black apron is a thank you gift for volunteering at the festival. So, as you can see, not an outlandish amount of purchases, especially considering how many other yarns and fibers I loved!!

Yesterday our school hosted a Hop-A-Thon to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association, as a Day of Caring activity. We have a 5th grade student who has MD and we also had his older brother for 6 years, and he, too, has MD, so some staff organized this event and it was a huge, heart-warming event. All 900 students and 100 staff members paraded out to the bus loop at 2 PM and danced to the Bunny Hop! Our students raised over $4,500, which is amazing! It was my responsibility to provide some music as the children paraded outside, and then play the Bunny Hop song once they were ready to go. Having an iPod made this an easy job.

I volunteered at the hospital last night and it was the usual slow, steady business. I get to do some knitting while there and that makes the time go quickly, when there are no customers.

We've had phone calls with both Tucker and Corey. Jim and Corey are going to visit Tucker at the end of May, so there was conversation about those plans. I was feeling bad about having to miss that trip, but then I realized that I will be spending 6 days with Tucker on the Salmon River in July! No complaints here!

Earlier this week I ordered some furniture for the porch. For a variety of good reasons, I ordered a sofa and 2 chairs on-line from Home Depot, even though there is a Home Depot store about a mile from our house. 
Here are 2 tiny photos of our furniture.

I think the Mexican blanket that Tucker sent us should look great on the back of the sofa.

We don't have a lot planned for this weekend, but hope to get some work done around the house. Jim is running in a race tomorrow morning and I hope to get a bike ride in then.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there, but especially to my mother and mother-in-law. I am one lucky person to have them both in my life.

Hope all is well.