Eastburn Adventures

by tkeastburn | October 19, 2011

Ooh, Shiny!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted any real knitting content that didn’t involve traveling, but I wanted to share this. Part of my friend Stacy‘s trip to New York for Rhinebeck was also to have a trunk show at The Yarn Company in New York City.

I had recently finished Evelyn Clark’s Swallowtail Shawl using Stacy’s Tempted Yarns Glam Grrl yarn in the drama colorway, so I took it along with me to Rhinebeck in case Stacy could use it for the show, and she did (along with other fabulous knits from Karen and Laura, among others)!

It’s just kind of exciting to see my work on display (it’s the dark blue shawl in the middle of the photo), but I’m even more excited for Stacy – she deserves all the success and attention she’s getting. If you haven’t tried Tempted Yarns, you’re missing out.

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by tkeastburn | October 19, 2011

Rhinebeck 2011 Recap

It’s been two whirlwind weekends in a row, and I’m glad to be home for a while. Over Columbus Day weekend, I was at my annual Knit Together, Springfield Retreat, but you can read all about that here. Back to work for a couple of days, and then it was time to catch a flight to Hartford, Connecticut and drive to Rhinebeck for the New York Sheep & Wool Festival. This was my third time to the event and it was a blast as always.

I met up with my friend Lynn at the airport and we drove to Kingston where we met the rest of our group: Karen, Stacy (and her daughter, Emily), Druanna, and Rose-Marie. After dinner and hanging in the hotel lobby knitting, it was time to get ready for the festival.

We were up early on Saturday to drive to the fairgrounds.

We saw yarn:

And sheep:

Lots of people:

Cool knit displays:

Celebrity knitters:

And gorgeous scenery:

It was very exciting.

Karen and I, and our friends Kathy and Jan, took a spinning class from the amazing Abby Franquemont.

Before we left on Sunday, we had to get a group photo.

(L to R: Lynn, Karen, Druanna (in front), Rose-Marie, Stacy, and me)

Lynn and I then took the gang to the train station and we drove to Massachusetts to visit WEBS on Monday before flying home. It was a small miracle that we both got everything packed into the suitcases we brought.

Rhinebeck is by far my favorite fiber event. I’m already looking forward to next October!

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by tkeastburn | September 28, 2011

Fiber Daze

So last weekend after getting back from Orlando, I worked for two days and then after work on Thursday picked up Adrienne at the airport. After a quick dinner at the Price Cutter Bistro (which is really yummy), we headed to Neosho, Missouri for our weekend at the inaugural Fiber Daze.

I took a Portuguese Knitting class from my friend Linda, and it was awesome. I also took an acid dyeing class from Dianne at Morning Moon Alpacas, and definitely want to try my hand at dyeing more yarn. I was fortunate to teach a beginning knitting class, and also my toe-up socks class. Adrienne taught socks cuff-down – we have a friendly rivalry with our preferred techniques.

I was fighting a cold all weekend, so I didn’t take any pictures except with Adrienne’s camera. There was a fun fashion show Friday night and we had so much fun hanging with our dear friends from the Southwest Missouri Fiber Folks Guild. Saturday night we headed back to Springfield and Adrienne fell in love with our monster dog, Jed. Jed fell in love with the bare yarn I bought from Dianne.

The weekend was over too soon and after brunch at Hemingway’s where Christa joined us, we did a quick driving tour of Springfield and then it was back to Chicagoland for A. I can’t wait until March when we get to go to the Missouri Fiber Retreat again.

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by tkeastburn | September 21, 2011

Disney Sidetrack

I have a conference every year in September, and this year it was in Orlando. It’s been 7 years since Robert and I have been to Disney World, so we flew down a day early to see the Mouse.

We bought one-day hopper passes (discounted for conference attendees), and parked at Epcot before taking the monorail to start our day at the Magic Kingdom. This was one of the parking lots – crazy!

And we were the only people on the lower level of the ferry to the Magic Kingdom.

I love Small World, and there was a sheep!

The line was too long for Pooh. Bummer.

The obligatory castle shot.

Back at Epcot, Spaceship Earth.

Robert stood in line for fish and chips in the World Showcase’s England.

We really rode all the rides we wanted to, including Soarin’, which I will never do again! It was cool, but really scary for me.

The next day we made a quick trip over to Daytona Beach. We just can’t get that close to an ocean and not stick our toes in the sand. The water was really rough, though, so we couldn’t get in and swim.

It was a good little diversion (and, oh yeah, the conference was really good, too.)

Stitches Midwest

It seems I barely had the chance to recover from all the fun that was Sock Summit before Ginger, Christa, and I hit the road driving to Chicagoland for Stitches Midwest. I’d been two years before, but this was their first time at the event, and Christa’s first ever big yarny event.

We left after work on Thursday and spent the night in Springfield, IL. I was so excited that Smokey Bones, a BBQ restaurant we used to have, had onion rings back on the menu. They had the best onion rings around, and for some crazy reason took them off the menu. Big mistake. Robert and I used to drive out of our way when traveling to eat at any of their restaurants nearby, and when the onion rings left, so did we. So the girls and I had a late night dinner and the pulled pork was ok, but the onion ring recipe had changed. I was so disappointed. So now there’s no reason to go back to Smokey Bones.

Anyway, the next morning we drove on into Chicago and picked up Karen from Midway, and then met Adrienne at her office to park the car. A had to work the rest of the day, so the rest of us took a stroll up Michigan Avenue, and had lunch at the new Chick-fil-A (which is one of the few stores that has their new cookies available). We went back to A’s office where Christa had to get her husband to answer the phone, scan and e-mail her ticket to her so she could reprint it. Oops.

We then headed to A’s home where we had a yummy dinner of shrimp and pasta and showered her with surprise hostess gifts we’d been planning forever.

Since Ginger had just had a birthday, and Karen’s and Christa’s were coming up, we had a few gifts for them as well.

We also had cupcakes, which is becoming a knitterly tradition.

The next morning we were up early to hit the road to Schaumburg. We saw a sample of Tabitha’s Arwen Keyhole Scarf hanging in the Fiber Optic Booth.

We made many, many visits to Miss Babs’ booth.

I met THE Lily Chin.

We met up with new friends from the YOSS group, Dana/klamik and Michelle/Meezercat (who let me go off unsupervised for one more trip back to Miss Babs, LOL).