London, Paris, Madrid…

Peoria, Amherst, Savannah…

OK, so I don’t get to leave the United States too often, but I do get to travel a lot.  And even though the trips I’ve taken this month, or am about to take aren’t really to exotic lands, I’m really having a blast, learning all kinds of stuff, just hanging out in the good old USA.

I flew to Peoria via O’Hare on what was the most timely uneventful flight I’ve had in years.  It was so uneventful it stuck out like a sore thumb, which is a pretty good assessment of what flying is like anymore.  I even got to sit in these retro chairs in the United Club Lounge in Chicago, curled up and knitting away.  I want one…

As much as Peoria gets teased, (don’t worry I’m from NJ, we get teased a lot..) I found it to be great fun, and I adore my mid-Western ladies.  We had a wonderful three days of as much as I could teach them about Garment Construction, and at the end, they presented me with this gorgeous book of Poems and Quilts (17 in all)  called The Seldom-Ever-Shady Glades by Sue Van Wassenhove, who was not only a member of the Handweavers of Peoria, but in the garment construction class as well. All the participants signed the book. The participants didn’t actually make a garment, this class is full of techniques and opportunities to try them, but I think they learned a lot and surprisingly I learned a lot too.

I learned that there is a really cool APP for my new smartphone, called Our Groceries.  My husband and I both have it, and the lists are synced on both our phones.  Now if I need something from the grocery store, Target, Home Depot, Staples, etc, it goes on the digital list, and whoever is at whichever store, buys the stuff on the list and crosses it off when purchased.  It was great walking around with my phone crossing stuff off while I did my grocery shopping. (I’m easily entertained)

I learned that there is a really cool Pandora Radio Station, Pink Martini Radio, a warm latin beat, or moody french chansons, or just the most amazing mix of the kind of stuff I like to listen to. Pink Martini is a musical group, and my hostess Cheryl has seen them perform many time in concert.  If you don’t know about Pandora, it is a free, make your own radio station on the internet.  I have different stations depending on my mood.  I keep this one playing when I’m in the kitchen.

I learned that one of the best restaurants I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating at, is located right in Peoria.  One of the class participants took me to dinner there, and just reading the menu put about 6 pounds on my hips.  The food was fantastic.  We had a seared tuna appetizer and I had a truffled artichoke and crab salad for my dinner. Salt in Peoria Heights.  Excellent.

The trip home from Peoria was a nightmare.  I didn’t get in until after midnight Tuesday morning.  The delays from storms that day were horrible, I just sat and knit, and hoped I’d eventually get home.  This is more like I’m getting use to, miserable flights, and endless waiting in airports with no United Club lounge.  And it didn’t help that my Knit Picks cable for my circular needles broke while I was sitting in the back of an Embraer Jet, in the dark, loosing a couple hundred stitches.  (Which turned out to be the problem, one of my knitter friends told me I tried to stuff too many stitches on the circular needle I was using.)

Friday I drove to Amherst Massachusetts to spend the weekend with my daughter and my step sister who recently moved to that area from NJ.  Can I say we had a blast?  The initial reason for the trip, was the UMass Amherst livestock classic, where the Beltie Cow Group would be selling the frozen beef from one of their slaughtered cows, this one was named Milo.  I brought home two large coolers of meat. All grass fed.  Ran into one of the members of the Pioneer Valley Weaving Guild, who also teaches at UMass.  She was buying meat as well.  The world is delightfully populated with handweavers in all occupations and locations.  We are a cult…

My sister Genie, Bri and I all ate out at some terrific restaurants, and Bri had her first popover at Judie’s in Amherst.  It was as big as her head.  J’adore.  We visited Yankee Candle, we toured Historic Deerfield, I saw Brianna’s new apartment in Sunderland where she will live next year, and of course I accompanied Bri to the livestock classic at Hadley Farm, where I watched her sprint across two fields and a parking lot to retrieve a large cow that broke through the fence and escaped.  There is a quiet but confident calm about her when she is around animals.  They seem to trust her.  It was so amazing to watch her in her element.  She also started volunteering at an Urban Wildlife Shelter for small critters like racoons, possums, squirrels, and foxes.  She squealed in delight as she told me about feeding baby squirrels.  She needed a rabies vaccine in order to work there, and how fortuitous, since she already had been potentially exposed to rabies, and received the series of shots a couple years ago.  Much to my surprise, she had all the paperwork with her at college.  She never ceases to amaze me.

Saturday afternoon we headed on over to WEBS.  They are having their anniversary sale, and the place was mobbed.  It was the place to be on Saturday afternoon.  I wandered around looking at all the cool yarn, and tools, and spinning fibers, and I have to admit, I glazed over.  I have so much already in the studio.  The only thing I could think of to buy was two balls of Regia Sock Yarn, not even on sale, since I’m working on my last pair of socks.  I can’t believe I went to WEBS and only came home with two balls of sock yarn.  However, I still managed to do damage to my credit card because my daughter was like a fiend turned loose.  She is really into crochet now, and loves cool colorful yarn, and began filling her basket.  We wandered through the warehouse, and she’d pick up yarn, and ask what to make with it.  I get asked that a lot. At least by the weavers and the sewers.  I will say I’m completely biased in my response because just about everything I do, in every fiber technique I try, ends up as clothing.  It is what I do best, and what I love most, and I can’t imagine spending my days crocheting throws and scarves.  I grabbed combinations of yarns and my daughter sort of scratched her head, she hadn’t really thought of combining different yarns together.  She like some of the combinations I came up with  but still was stumped on what to make.  She has a ton of scarves, hats, cowls, shawls, and stacks of warm throws, which are currently on the back seat of the car, since the weather is warming and she no longer needs winter things up at school.

I just smiled and said, “Why don’t you make a sweater”?  She groaned and looked annoyed, and then I went in search of patterns for crochet.  Some of them are pretty ghastly.  But Rowan seemed to have a couple of lovely books of patterns, and of course Brianna started to get all sorts of ideas.  Which automatically caused my credit card to start to smoke.  Buying a couple of skeins of cool yarn for a small cowl or hat is one thing.  Buying 8-10 balls of yarn for a sweater starts to add up.  The good thing about WEBS is they heavily discount your purchases if you buy enough, and they are sooooo helpful.  I suggested she try making one sweater, a poncho sort of thing, see how she liked it, and then she could always come back for more.  She lives near WEBS, so it wasn’t a once in a lifetime thing.

And so, I’ve printed, cut and shipped all the materials for my next adventure, in Savannah, GA, where I’ll teach a pieced vest class, and then next Monday night I’ll head up to Atlanta to give a presentation on color to the Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance.  Two days after I return from Georgia, I’ll be attending a NYC fabric buying trip with Peggy Sagers and a couple of very dear fiber friends from Michigan.  Not that I need any additional fabric.  But still…

Stay tuned…