Fiber Fool

Mary Ann kindly hosted the Aries Baby Bash yesterday. Lucky for me she lives just a few blocks away so I donned my iPod and walked over (stupid me - had to hitch home because of too many gifts). She went all out. She accepted little help from anyone and had the most incredible feast and fun activities for us all. She kicked it off with an egg hunt! It was one day after Easter after all…

Each of us had ten eggs to find that were coded with stickers. This meant we all got the same sorts of things in our eggs. No one got more chocolate than anyone else, thus avoiding any vicious fights over eggs. She knows us all too well, LOL! It was fun being a kid again and hunting those eggs. Plus, it was a great excuse to roam her gorgeous yard and garden. Granted, it is early spring and it wasn’t at its peak of beauty, but there were a few blooms that made an appearance for the festivities.

The great spread of wonderful breads, deviled eggs, spanikopita, salad and fruit salad wasn’t all we had to eat either. She baked TWO BIRTHDAY CAKES! A carrot cake which I was told was to die for. Even a self-proclaimed chocoholic opted for seconds on that rather than trying the chocolate chiffon with berries cake. I’m not a fan of carrot cake (I know, the horror - I’m leary of nuts in baked goods) but the chocolate chiffon with berries was phenomenal! That said, I haven’t had a cake made by Mary Ann that wasn’t. I’m not a coconut person either and I loved her German chocolate cake she made for birthdays a few months back.

Today was the monthly birthday gathering for the Monday afternoon (and sometimes Wednesday) knitting group I go to. April seems to be a very popular month for babies. I have several relatives with birthdays within a week of mine. In college and high school I had several friends who fell into that range as well. And, this knitting group is no different! There were four of us (three of us in attendance). So, I had to pull together something to gift my fellow Aries babies.

I decided on felted notebook covers. The one I made for the holiday exchange was a huge hit and the cause of some fights. Since I did not know if any of these women journal or use sketchbooks I thought a smaller, purse-friendly version would be more universal of a gift. So, I got a 3-pack of the small kraft moleskine journals and made covers for those. They too seemed to be a hit.

The photo at the top of the post used one of my new birthday toys - a +4 close-up filter :-) Thanks Mom and Dad!

For more fun felting blog posts, check out this week’s Fiber Friday at Alpaca Farm Girl’s Blog!

Well, you knew despite the fact that Amber’s visit was photocentric that yarn would have to play in it somewhere, right? (You did notice that some of the portraits featured my FLS, right?) While she was here I got a mysterious package from Yarn Grove and I’ve never ordered from there before. I opened it and up and the lovely and generous, FluffyKnitterDeb, had sent me an early birthday present in the form of TWO skeins of Malabrigo sock yarn.

You see, in watching all the March Mystery socks take shape I became aware of how dated my sock yarn stash had grown. I had none of the new “hot” sock yarns in my stash and seeing this pattern in those sock yarns had incited a bit of jealousy. Debi had told me I would really like the Malabrigo and I said perhaps I’d see if my mom would get me some for my birthday. Hence the arrival of some Malabrigo sock yarn. Also, Nancy from just south of my sent me some Flat Feet from Conjoined Creations as well (sorry, no photos of that just yet). Now my sock yarn stash is a bit more hip.

At Christmas time I helped my mom pick some close-up filters for my sister. If you are unaware of what they are, they are like magnifying glasses for your lens. They allow you to get a closer look and shorter depth of field with your lens than that lens is rated for. It is a cheaper way to get better macro photography than buying a special macro lens. It is also lighter and makes it a great thing for expedition photography. The photo above and all of the following were taken using Amber’s close-up filters. There seemed nothing more natural in the house to use them on than yarn and teenie, tiny flowers :-)

I do believe yet another item has made it onto my photography wishlist. I know you are all shocked and amazed, LOL!

I do not think I mentioned here on the blog the cool Christmas gift my mom got my sister and I. It involved excuses to visit with each other, learn, and play with our cameras — she got us Nikon School classes. The first of two we took here in Denver this past Saturday. In October we’ll take the second one in Minneapolis! How cool is that? As of this morning my sister is headed back to Minnesota after an exhausting, but exhilarating week here in Colorado. Her first visit since my wedding nearly 7 years ago!

Last Friday we went to the Denver Zoo and took photos, on Saturday we took the all day class. On Sunday she took some portraits of Drew and I together as we had no quality ones and she is a very experienced portrait photographer. Monday we ran a few errands I couldn’t put off and then went shopping. Tuesday we went to Rocky Mountain National Park for more photography. Wednesday we had to recover and had a mostly PJ day with *many* chick flicks. And our final full day we browsed Jax’s photography section, visited the Poudre River Arts Center Gallery and the Center for Fine Art Photography followed by some playing around with her close-up filters and using my remote for the first time. Then we ended the day with some night photography up by Horsetooth Reservoir. It has been one mighty packed week!

The photocentric nature of the week’s activities means I’ll have many photographic blog posts this coming week! Yay! Pictures! That’ll beat this all text post that I’m too lazy to look up links for (hey, it’s late after taking night photos and Amber has a shuttle to catch in the morning) :-)

Last Friday I ventured up to Wellington in search of more needles (do you ever get to the point where you have all the needles you might need?) and some of the gals I knit with on Mondays were going to be there knitting so got my needles and stayed a while. I did more number crunching than actual knitting, but it is nice to get out of the house and into public once in a while :-)

While I was there we had a visitor to Nanytutu’s - a llama! I’m afraid I don’t really know the whole story, but I think there were 3 or 4 the woman picked up from a rescue. She’s a friend of Nancy’s and brought him by to say hi. That’s Nancy in the photo with him. He’s a younger one, I think this spring will be his first shearing if I heard the new owner right.

One might think it extremely odd to have an llama show up out of the blue for a visit, but for Nanytutu’s that isn’t terribly odd. Not too long ago a woman lost a bet about being able to train a chicken and had to knit a cape for the chicken. She didn’t even know how to knit! So, Nancy taught her and helped her design a cape for him and he even wore it in a city parade, LOL!

Last week we also celebrated January birthdays at Sheila’s house once again. This time we took felt and turned it into pins. I didn’t get to photograph all of them, but there was a stunning variety produced by the talented gals who got together that day. I have to say mine paled in comparison to everyone else, but I hadn’t planned on taking part either. I was kind of concentrating on trying to wrap up another pattern.