Oft-Timers, 2008

How on earth do you explain Knitting Camp to someone who has never been there?
There are knitters

Knitters

and more knitters. You have to watch these 3 - they're troublemakers! :-)

AliceMay just *looks* innocent...

In the evening, there were spinners, too
How many knitters does it take to dress Franklin?
apparently, at least 4...

Clothing was tried on and modeled

Cookie, Kristi and Michael tried on EZ's hats. Michael had just finished that sweater ...but the ensemble wasn't complete without the shoes:

Yes, those are individual toes.

Speaking of playing dress-up, Franklin struck a pose (or three) with Maureen's shawl

There was the mandatory fish fry at Sceeter & Otis'
and lots of laughing
The rest of my pictures are on my flickr page, but here are a few of the show and tell items

Holly's beautiful shawl
Joy's gorgeous sweater

Joyce modeled her beaded poncho that she transformed into a sweater

and Becky's cabled sweater was absolutely stunning

For the Knitted Memories contest, the entries were astounding. Franklin won with his EZ miniatures, set in a museum-style specimen case (complete with pins)

Pauline placed high with "The Busy Knitter"

and one of my favorites - Ruth knitted a Joey Ramone doll, and dressed him in a mini EZ sweater

The goodbyes came too soon (don't they always?)

The rule states that if you see Emily Ocker, you have to hug her

(okay, so that's just my rule, but I think it's a good one)

Jinny Lee is a goof, and I just love her to death!

That's Sam, 2nd from the left. I didn't get any good pictures (I got a lot of dark ones) of his sweaters, but his colorwork is just amazing
A great time was had by all, and boy, did I learn a lot!!

Now to start saving my pennies for next year...

Quick Post

Greetings from Knitting Camp! I'll have more time when I get home, but meanwhile, here are some pictures. None of them are marked yet...

Chicago

2008 Oft-Timers Camp

Chicago-Bound

In just a few hours, I'll be on a bus to Chicago! I'm heading to Sabrina's until Thursday, and then it's off to Knitting Camp! I've never visited Sabrina - heck, I haven't been to Chicago (outside of O'Hare) since I was in high school!

I'm taking the laptop, so *hopefully* I can show you where I've been. :-)

Random Pictures from Vacation

These are a few of my favorites :-)

12th Century Saxon Church and 1st Century Roman Lighthouse

(taken from the top of Dover Castle)Canterbury Cathedral

(taken from our hotel room window!)The Great Hall at Kenilworth Castle
Kevin standing in the middle of a 2-lane road in Ruthin, Wales

Secret Pal 12!!

I got my first secret pal package yesterday! After working a marching band car wash for 4 hours, my slightly-sunburned self got home and was nearly followed down the driveway by the mailman. He brought me this:(yes, that's a package of dark chocolate in the ziploc bag!)

There was a pretty card2 skeins of one of my favorite yarns, in a gorgeous color
2 skeins of Reynolds' Soft Sea Wool.
I wasn't familiar with this yarn at all....but wow, is this soft and squooshy!! This will make a really nice pair of gloves!!!

My secret pal raided my Amazon Wish List and sent me this book!!
I definitely have a great secret pal! She is spoiling me rotten!! She has been in frequent contact with me - she even followed my trip overseas!! Thank you, Secret Pal!!!!

London!!

Since I took over 600 pictures on my trip to the UK, I'm going to post just a few. We spent our first 3 days in London, and here's a quick synopsis (for the rest of the London pictures and their descriptions, please click here)

We landed at Heathrow at 8:30, took the train to London, and then took the tube to the Kings Cross Station. Our hotel (the Montana Excel)was about 200 yards from the station, which made it a great place for touring London!

After we got settled in our room, we took off walking...and we ended up at the British Museum:

The Elgin Marbles The Sutton Hoo Helmet
The next day, we took the tube (Mind the Gap!!) to the Tower Hill Station.

Tower Bridge

and we visited the Tower of London

Traitor's Gate

one of the Tower Ravens

We did a lot of wandering around - we would often cut down an alley, just to see what was there. We saw some pretty interesting things that way, such as the ruins of Winchester Palace:

(I took the picture because it intrigued me, and Dad did the research from home to find out what it was!)

We visited St. Paul's Cathedral, even though I'm not a fan of Christopher Wren (the man destroyed a lot of medieval architecture in his day)

I sat on the steps, because that's what everybody does. :-)

We saw Big Ben

(Jackie, it was 2:04 when I took this picture - and I didn't even have a watch!) :-)

We took the train to Windsor:

arrow slits at Windsor Castle

and visited St. George's Chapel

I was really disappointed, though - just as I was getting to the choir (where Henry VIII is buried in the floor), they closed it to the public for a funeral.

We walked to Buckingham Palace

and then we visited the Jewel Tower

stone boss in the ceiling of the Jewel Tower

(yes, we saw the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London. Since the "real" crown jewels were melted down during the Commonwealth, nothing at the Tower was older than the mid-17th century. The ones at the Tower were okay, I guess)

We visited Westminster Abbey

and I got to touch the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer (and I got a peek at the tomb of Edward the Confessor - the one who started the whole mess that led to the Battle of Hastings!!)

I took a lot of pictures of stone bosses, gargoyles, and grotesques

(these are about 40 feet up on the back of the abbey) before we left London, I took a picture from out hotel window. This was taken at 4:30 am (yes, that's 4:30 in the morning!!) It didn't get fully dark until almost 11:00 at night, either...

I'll try to get more pictures up from the rest of our trip later this weekend!

The Zig Zag Socks

Felici, "Mixed Berries" colorway and....the catalog picture! :-)

I've been knitting madly since I got home from vacation - I have to have the Sampler Afghan from Cables Untangled done and mailed by the time I leave for Knitting Camp on the 22nd...and I'm only halfway done. Back to my knitting!!