MDS&W & Sock Pentathlon Sock #2

In case you are wondering, that's "Maryland Sheep and Wool". I wasn't able to go last year, but this year, I was SOOOOO there.

I took a half day on Friday and took the train down to Baltimore. I've never taken Amtrak before and I have to say I had quite a pleasant experience. And I met a couple of nice people too! Once I got there, I took a taxi and went to MamaE's Party! Sadly, I didn't take ANY picture! I was too excited to meet E and SweetSheep!!! But I did get a photo with them the next day!

Sneaksleep came and meet me up at the party, and after the party, I went back with her to her house for a nap cap and got up for the big day.

And see who we saw!!! :)

Zarzuela!!! She had move to Jersey a couple of years back and I haven't seen her since then! It was so great to see her there!

There were lots of sheep, llamas, alpacas, angora bunnies, and of course, there were food, yarn, and people spinning.

And while I was eating lunch, I noticed quite a bit of buttercup:

After the first day, Sneaksleep and I went to the Ravelry party - it was fun, and a lot less people than I expected. We stayed for a little while before we went and met up with the rest of the New Haven gang for some fondue at Melting Pot.

That was the first time I've been to a Melting Pot and it was so much fun! Although a little on the pricey side, but it was totally worth it, especially the chocolate fondue!

Yum. (that was the s'mores fondue, you should try it if you go!)

Sunday was a lot less intense, even the traffic was a lot less. Sneaksleep and I say goodbye after an hour in the fairground, and I left with Sami, Karen, Brenda and Beth around noon. While I was in the car, I was busy working on the Sock Pentathlon Sock #2 - Berlin Muster. I finished first sock while in the car on the way home, but the sewing needles were in the trunk with my overnight bag, so I couldn't finish the grafting, so what is a girl to do?

Use the buttons I got from the festival and parties! (and you call me crazy, collecting pins and all!) And since I couldn't knit while I'm at work, slowly, I finally finished the pair this morning, although, not without a hitch - again, that stupid little sewing needle. So the engineer in me took over, and fond something to use:

Twisty-tie!!! Yes, you read that right! And a few minutes after, I have these:

Pattern - Berlin Muster by Kristin Benecken
Yarn Used - 0.56 skein of Valley Yarn Franklin
Needles - Harmony size 1
Gauge - 8 sts per inch
Knit - May 01, 08 to May 07, 2008
Modification - I reduced the purl stitch so it's only 56 stitches, although I probably could still go down a bit since the lace is quite stretchy.

The pattern was fairly easy, although everyone had a hard time to get it started due to various reasons. The yarn was wonderful. I love it so much I want to get more of it! I have plenty of it left to do another pair of socks! You can read my full review here.

Well, now both of that are blogged and in the bag, it is time for me to rest my eyes. Good Night.

Let It Snow... Again!

I think this is the third or forth snow storm this year in CT.

Doesn't that look like an old movie or something? But it's just the window screen. The way the snow was crusted onto the car make me think of chicken pot pies... Maybe I was hungry.

We went out to dinner at Jalapeño Heaven in Branford. We found this restaurant a couple of years ago when we first adopted Mick. That faithful night, Mick happened to have a very good meal - my Coach purse and David's Spyder jacket, all in one night (that's about $600 worth of goods!) In order for us to not drive him back to TN where we adopted him from, we had to go out and drive around, and just calm down. Well, we found the restaurant and had a great meal and when we got home, all the sins were ALMOST forgotten. So this is what we had tonight:

My brother's Chimichanga


My order of Tamale and Enchilada


David's enchiladas

Don't they look yummy? I also had a glass of sangria with dinner. YUM.

So I finally finished the stitch practicing square - I have the stitches memorized and it is such a great stitch that I think I'm going to make a scarf out of it!

Yeah I know... Need better light. Oh well. Until then, back to making the Schaefer scarf swatch!

Nashville, Tennessee - Day 5

Today started at 9am. I got up and went to the Collegiate Leadership Coaching Committee training. It was a short training and it was over before I know it. I had a lot of time before my next session, so I met up with Suzette to go to the Grand Ole Opry House. And while we were parking, we ran into Jonna, Jonna's mom, Jonna's son, Sherisse and Andrea.

However, the auditorium itself was unavailable due to a local school field trip, so we went to the museum instead. It was very interesting as I've never know some of these country singers before, and the rich history behind it. I actually really want to watch the movie "Walk the Line" now.

After the museum, we stopped at this place to have lunch in the Opry Mill:

Aquarium, An Underwater Dinning Adventure

We really felt like we were sitting under water! There is a huge "tank" (more like the whole wall) with sharks and sting rays and other fish. It was really fun and Jonna's son really liked it. The food was great as well. I had fish tacos and it has this sauce that was super delicious. I think I'm gonna try making fish tacos at home at some point. Sherisse had given us a tip on making fish tacos and it just sounds so easy!

We barely made it back to our 1:30 seminar. After the seminar, I came back to the hotel room to unwind a bit, and then met up with Kim for dinner. Because it was Friday night, the line was super long, but since we both didn't have anything line up for the night, we waited. The food was only so-so, nothing spectacular.

On our way back, we met up with Kristine and few other fellow Region F members and went to Cayote Ugly. Yes, five girls went there, and no, it wasn't fun at all. We must have stayed for total of 10 mins, and we left and went to Cadillac Ranch. On the second floor, they had a mechanical bull and Kim gave it a shot:

We stayed on the second floor for quite awhile and had a lot of fun watching people trying out the bull riding. As we were going downstairs to check out the dance floor, we bumped into more Region F members.

The RPI girls - L to R: Mary, Ashley, Meaghan and me

It was a fun night overall. Although, I do have to say I can't believe this conference is almost over. Time flies when we have fun!

Nashville, Tennessee - Day 2

Today was 'me' day. I didn't get up until 8:30, which is 9:30 EST. I had two goals - eat good food and go to yarn stores.

If I had not emphasize enough that Ravelry is awesome, here is where I show you its awesome-ness in two ways:

1. I went to the Nashville Knitters group to find out where the LYSs are and there was a whole thread about it. There are 6 locally, but only 2 of them are within reasonable distance to where I'm staying - Angel Hair Yarn and Haus of Yarn.

2. And by continue reading its forum, I came upon thread made by a knitter, Kasiaiscarly, who resides in Virginia and is coming to the conference in Nashville!!! Small world, huh? So I think we will meet up at some point during the conference to knit.

I did my research and put in the addresses in my trusty GPS for the yarn stores, but first thing first - a girl is gotta eat some good breakfast before all the yarn fumes! So I went on Foodnetwork and searched $40 A Day for Nashville, TN - there it is! Bongo Java was Rachel Ray's favorite pick for breakfast. So I put the address in and off I went. I got there in about 15 mins and it was raining. The parking situation is pretty bad since it's all street parking and this coffee shop is right across the street from Belmont College! Lucky for me, I found one and walked half of the block in the rain to get there.

The place is pretty big but it was PACKED! I ordered Willy Tilly (Vanilla Latte with caramel) to drink and Juanita Burrita for breakfast and because it was so packed, I shared a table with a lady who has her daugher with her. She was very friendly and started chatting with me - I guess it is like this in the southern states everywehre. Then my food came and I couldn't believe how big it was and was wondering how I was gonan eat it!!!

There was so much food I couldn't finish it all! So I took the coffee togo and off I went to Angle Hair first. It is double store wide and it has quite a selection on yarn - almost full line of Rowan, Twisted Sister, Habu, Plymouth, Malabrigo, Manos del Uraguay, Artyarn, Koigu, Colinette, just to name a few.

right side of the store


Left side of the store

One of the knitted item I found in the store caught my attention. I couldn't leave it! I ended up asking permission to photograph it:

A beautiful necklace

Isn't it gorgeous? It is from a Colinette pattern book and I ALMOST bought it, but with the price and me only liking that one pattern, I couldn't justify the cost. However, I did came back with these:

Noni Majolica Bag pattern, Summer Cable Cowl by K1C2 pattern and Holiday Cheers by Diakeito pattern, and a skein of Shokay Yak
Not Pictureed: 2 soak trial packs - aquae and scent for celebration

I have never felt the yak yarn before and it is super soft. I decided that it was gonna be Pidge knock off and now all I need is buttons. Also the Noni pattern was full price, but the others were only 50 cents each! What a deal!

The staff at Angel Hair are super friendly and a lot of fun. When I went, there were people sitting around. Also, it turns out the staffs were on Ravelry as well!!!

R to L: Pam the co-owner, me, Ellen, and Charisse

I had so much fun with them I think I was there for 3 hours! Although I think i can easily achieve that in any yarn stores.

After Angel Hair Yarn, I set out to find Haus of Yarn. The location is kind of weird and on the side of a big complex, which is hard to find if you didn't pay attention. It is a lot smaller feel compare to Angel Hair, but it carries a full line of Noro. Some other lines it carries are Malabrigo, Koigu, Cascade, Colinette, Lorna's Lace, Anny Blatt. (This is not the full list)

The staffs were really nice in this store as well. I had a lot of fun just petting Noro. I also found this line Shibui Knits, which I've never heard of before. One of the things I should also mention is that couple of the staffs had contribute to the book One-Skein Wonders and 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders. I wish I brought my copy with me so i can get it autographed! And from this store, I came out with these:

2 skeins of Koigu KPPPM, 3 skeins of Shibui Sock, 2 Pattern books in half off, 2 ceramic buttons for my Pidge Knock off to be Not Pictured: 3 nail files with Yarn images on them.

I was very proud of myself because I had set a budget for today's adventure and I met it. Now, I will not be buying anymore yarn unless I have some FOs!!! (This is where David would say - You don't need anymore yarn anyways! We have NO ROOM!!! He isn't here to say it, but I know he's thinking about it at home.)

By the time I left Haus of Yarn, it was almost 5pm. I met up with some of my friends that came today and we went out to dinner at Jacks - it is a really inexpensive place, you paid for what you want first and you grab a seat where you like. The food was great - I ordered a pull pork sandwich with roasted apples. I don't think I spent more than 7 dollars!

From L around the table: Jen, Ashley, Liz, Michelle, Kristine, Andrea and Jonna with Zack.

Although we are all from CT, we never get to really see each other until the conference! We had a good time and chatted away for quite a bit.

The conference officially starts tomorrow. I have a Jack Daniel Tour all day. I am very excited about it. I think I will bring HRB with me for the trip since it is about an hour away from downtown. I can't wait!

Cleveland, OH

We left pretty early Friday afternoon to catch our flight at Hartford. We actually got stuck for awhile on the highway due to an accident - it was pretty severe since we saw smoke coming towards us and we weren't moving at all. We ended up following everyone and back track via a on ramp and found a different way to go, and lucky for us, we arrived the airport with plenty of time to spare.

When we arrived in Cleveland, we decided to look up CiCi's Pizza for dinner - we kept seeing the commercial on TV, asking people to contact them if interested in franchise, and we wanted to check out what is up with all the buzz. We did see on TV that it is "All you can eat for under $5!" and on the website it advertise that it has all sort of pizza, salad bar, pasta and dessert. We found one not too far away from the airport, and off we went.

The place was MOBBED! There were so many people in there it wasn't even funny! Although the lines do go pretty fast. We paid our part and I went to grab a seat, while David went to get some pizza and salad. I survey the place around, it is quite a family place/kids hang out - it has a mini arcade in the back. The floors are not the cleanest, but I've seen worse. David came back with a nice plate of salad and few small slices of pizza - cheese and meatball ones. When I went up, I got some jalapeños pepperoni, white pizza with mushroom and chicken (almost like cream of mushroom soup), meatball and some garlic bread. They were actually pretty good, but very bread-y. Then I went up again for some taco pizza - it was actually really good! The dessert was pretty awesome too - cinnamon rolls, brownies, and apple crumble pizza. Dessert was definitely my favorite part of the whole meal :). Overall, out of five stars, I give it a 2 and half stars for cleanliness, 5 stars for value, and 3 and 1/2 stars for tastiness.

After we stuffed ourselves, we went to look for our hotel. As I said before, we think we robbed them on the price. $70/night is just wrong, but I wasn't complaining :) The breakfast was great, with an omelette station, fresh fruit, hot oatmeal, muffins, breads, coffee, tea, hot chocolate - you name it, they got it. The reception was pretty awesome too - free drinks! I got two white russian and brought them back to the room and watch the Red Sox vs. Indians game in our room, with the nice Flat Screen HDTV. We even went grocery shopping and got us some chili and bread for dinner.

Atrium outside our windows

Jumping back a little, we decided to go to the Cleveland Zoo. David and I like to go to zoos, museums (mostly science), that type of things when we go to a city. We enjoy doing stuff like that, plus most of the time, it is free for us to go because we are members of Boston Museum of Science and most of the science museums are reciprocal of each other. The zoo was really REALLY big - we were really surprised and it took us ALL DAY to go through every single exhibit!! Just to name a few animals that we've seen - snow leopard, tigers, wolfs, reindeer, flamingo, ostrich, hippo, rhino, elephant, bald eagle, exotic birds, giraffs, etc. You name it, they got it! Unfortunately, I ran out of battery shortly after the snow leopards, so I am waiting for all the pictures to be developed.

Kangaroo!!!

We went to Fine Points for some yarn shopping (you didn't really think that I'm going to a city I've never been to and not going to a yarn store, did ya?). It is a nice shop in a two story used to be house. Lots and lots of yarn everywhere! There were a lot of knitted garments for sale as well, although way too expensive - one shirt was priced at $460!!!! Although I think the entire garment was knitted in one of the exotic Habu Textile fiber, but still!!! All their yarns were priced either higher or about the same at shops around here, and with higher tax rate, I didn't end up getting any yarn!!! But I did came home with these:

Maple Leaves ceramic buttons

They were really pretty and I couldn't resist! At $3.50 each, I thought it wasn't too bad for ceramic buttons. I'm planning using those for Pidge style scarf. 3Fe's cost way too much money so I am gonna create my own version of it. Although, I am afraid that the buttons might be too small for it... We'll see. So overall out of 5 stars, the Fine Points gets a 3 and a half stars from me - lots of varieties/brands, friendly staffs, but way too expensive.

We slept in on Sunday (due to the late Red Sox vs. Indians game), checked out the hotel after a nice breakfast, and set out to find the science museum. What do you know, the Browns vs. Dolphins were to start at the stadium NEXT to the museum! Luckily, we didn't get stuck too much in traffic and we got to park at the fire line right outside of the museum because they were using the parking garage for the game.

It is a small museum compare to the ones we've been to, some of the interactive machines were broken, but we still had fun.

us in various monitors!


Thermal camera - like the CSI!


Tornado effects


David and the bridge

We then went to the Botanical Garden - just in time to catch the butterfly release.

Some of the butterflies coming out of the soft case

While we were there, we found some flowers/plants that we thought might be good for our houses - easy to plant, hard to kill varieties :) And we actually found out the name of the roses we have in our other house!!! The invincible rose bush as I call it - it flowers all four seasons!!!

David under Dortmund - the roses we have in the house

After the garden, David and I went to outback to get some quality dinner (mmm... Victoria filet with horseraddish crust!!!) and I was on my way home.

David is still there for training until Wednesday - actually, he is at the Red Sox vs. Indians game right now...

So Cleveland is now off our map. It is an interesting city, but I guess I wouldn't go visit if it weren't for David going to training there.

Off to sit in front the tube for the game and some knitting... Happy Monday y'all!