This week is a gift!

Someone ordered up a near-perfect week for me after a couple of fortnights from hell. So many things happened to make me happy -- I really don't know where to begin, so chronologically seems like the right way. Well, we can start here, with Jess -- I met her last summer and we instantly bonded.

Last Saturday was the second Frog Pond Fiber Frolic, hosted by the one and only Chocolate Princess. Picture yourself in a room full of friends with wheels and fiber, and hours of un-interrupted spinning. Then, imagine that people start giving you things. Wonderful things you never even asked for, like an expandable hand-made fiber/yarn/etc. bag from Vicki, or massive amounts of free fiber from Liz, or a wonderful cake from E and Jess! These women are the most wonderful spirits in Michiana (and beyond!!!) They all welcomed me into their group, submerged me in the fiber world and I resurfaced as a spinner, really truly spinning wool into yarn! And they never asked for anything in return, just wanted me to be happy. I love them and am going to be so sad when I leave for the east coast in May. Man, am I digressing from the fiber-post at hand, but I can't say enough about these ladies.

So back to the frolic re-cap...Charlotte was there with bags full of Shetland Icelandic cross fiber from her own flock for sale, and I bought a pound of white wool. I was also lucky enough to win Charlotte's door prize of home-grown honey, home-made bath scrub and more fiber! Janet, the spinning wheel guru, solved a tension problem on my wheel with a literal turn of her wrist. My drive band kept on spinning without driving the wheel -- and that's its job, to drive the wheel! I was so frustrated. Janet told me to turn a knob that I had previously thought was just for decoration...and this magic knob raised the flyer and spindle and adjusted the tension and relieved my main wheel problem. By the way, Janet knows a LOT about wheels, and she has a lot of them too, and she's selling some...so if you want to buy a wheel, let me know and I can give you Janet's info. She's the procurer of Charlotte's walking wheel, which I previously posted about.

Beyond the Frolic, the weather has been gorgeous! So much so that Dave & I had to get out of town on Sunday and drive up to Saugatuck, where we wandered the streets wearing nothing but a skirt and a honeymoon cami -- well, that was me, Dave was otherwise attired. The day was so beautiful!

Monday afternoon I headed to NYC for work, and this time I got to go to see my girls at NYC SnB! I stayed with the gracious hostess Claudine, and we did a lot of knitting (and frogging -- well, I did the frogging, Claudine did the convincing...I think I really did need to rip back that sock that had a few too many decreases after the heel flap...although I had the opposite conviction at the time). #1 needles are really really small...I had to buy impersonal metal dpn's because I kept snapping my hand-loving wooden set with my brute strength while knitting. These socks are coming out really nicely now, though, and should fit Dave's feet. Thanks to the guru for the yarn and to Claudine for putting my stitches back on the needle (and for letting me cuddle with Murray).