Vacation & Knitting

First of all, thank you, Rena for taking such great care of Max and Sam. They love you and always do great when you are on watch.

We had a great week of vacation and I didn't want to leave our little vacation paradise! Can you blame me? Isn't this the cutest cabin?

(Click on the photos to enlarge if you'd like)
We love this place! Both the employees and the campers at the Petoskey KOA are so friendly. The Saint says we should work there when we retire. He thinks all they do is ride around the park in their egg-shaped golf carts all day. lol I'm sure there's more to it than that but he won't be swayed.

What a fabulous week we had. Camping, boating, shopping, eating good food, drinking some great wine...and did I mention knitting?! I have proof.

I also managed to finish 2 dish cloths last week...love that time by the campfire! I was working on the Small Arrow Cloth designed by S.M. Kahn on the way up north and had a devil of a time with row #6 and #8 for some reason. I got to the point of swearing before I got past those rows, each one taking 2 or 3 tries to get right, and you have to repeat them 5 times! Ah, well, I got it done. I'll definitely be doing a few more of these babies! I love how it looks so dainty-like. If you haven't visited her blog you should check out Smariek Knits she has some fantastic patterns for dish cloths. The photo looks bit weird since the cloth was draped over The Saint's leg instead of laying on a flat surface...poor photographic choice I think. It was the wine! Sorry

Monday morning we headed over to the Leelenau Peninsula for a visit to Fish Town and a tour of a couple of the wineries on the peninsula. Fish Town was fun, lots of shopping, lunch at the Bluebird Restaurant and The Saint had a nice long conversation with one of the charter boat captains, at one point even asking me "don't you have some more shopping you could do?". I am documenting that here as it will probably never happen again (insert laughter here).

Then we were off to visit Black Star Farms and Shady Lane Cellars two very nice wineries. The Shady Lane Semi-Dry Reisling is Rena's favorite so guess what she got for dog-sitting... :-)
After loading up the truck at both locations we headed back east through Traverse City and Charlevoix to the cabin and a super camp dinner of shrimp/sausage and pepper kabobs w/roasted corn on the cob. mmmmmmm


Tuesday morning we journeyed up to Alanson and had breakfast at the Dutch Oven Cafe followed by a trip into Dutch Oven Yarn, yes, this would be my purpose for driving that far for breakfast. The Saint enjoyed his scrambled eggs and the jelly-filled donut that he snuck in while I was petting the yarn, lol.

I picked up 3 skeins of turquoise Cascade 220 Heathers yarn #9455, Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in Peach color #004 for the Royal Peach Freeze Top shown here in the 4th picture down in the first column that I found in The Crocheter's Guide to Yarn Cocktails and a skein of OnLine Supersocke 100 in the Tropic color. I'm sorry I can't remember the name of the very nice lady that wound my yarn and was so helpful but thank you nice lady!

This is what I have done so far on the Royal Peach Freeze...
not sure why I'm on this sudden crochet jag but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.











Wednesday was spent shopping downtown Petoskey and having lunch at the City Park Grill.

The weather was perfect everyday but Thursday and the rainy day gave us an opportunity to check out Stonehedge Farm and Fiber Mill. Lots of fiber, lots of animals and lots of YARN.
Deb, the proprietor, was away while we were there, an unexpected trip to Canada for a spinning machine we were told, but her family very ably gave us a tour and happily rang up my selections from the yarn shop. Here they are...


2 skeins of the softest, most beautiful 100% Alpaca in a very dark brown, 4 skeins of Almost Handspun in fingering weight for some nice warm socks and 3 skeins of Shepherd's Wool in Lakeshore color. I had a terrible time deciding what I couldn't live without, fortunately The Saint was distracted by a knitting loom demonstration he was being given, thinking he could probably navigate that technique he was interested...love them for keeping him occupied for a few minutes. hee









So I think I'd better get something done around here before I have to go back to work tomorrow. Yuk!!

Hope everyone had as great a week as we had. You all deserve it!

Toodles!