A whole day to myself

Can you believe it? I will get a whole day to myself this weekend! It is almost a little scary.

I will be attending the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair in Crystal Lake, IL where I will be shopping and taking workshops. I am looking forward to seeing Sue from Pacafil. I met her last year at the fair. She and her sister make batting from alpaca wool. It feels amazing and is supposed to be quite warm. I got a small sample from them the last time I saw them. This year I planned ahead and emailed them asking them to bring some larger samples (that I would gladly pay for) so that I can take it home and test how it quilts up. Can't wait to get the samples and give them a whirl.

I'm also looking forward to the two workshops I will be taking. The morning workshop is on sock knitting. I got my double points and some yarn this weekend at my local yarn shop (love shopping at the local stores - like to keep them in business. Here's a tip - cash is best at these small shops as they pay a hefty fee for credit cards). Of course the yarn I got is alpaca!

The afternoon workshop is on surface design. I think that we will be doing some painting, dying and other such fun things as the class description says to wear grubby clothes that you don't care get ruined.

Oh and I should mention how the quilt bee went two weeks ago. There were a half dozen or so ladies at my house. I set up tables outside and covered them with plastic. Then we wet our fabric and got to painting! We used setacolor soliel paints applied with either a sponge brush or a spray bottle. One of the ladies brought her mother in law who was visiting from out of town and even she got into painting. Too bad that the day was overcast or we could have had real fun with the solar reactive paints. A week later the ladies were still raving about how much fun they had painting their fat quarters.

Wow, sorry about the stream of consciousness dribble that seems to have gone on and on. I'll update next week when I will (hopefully) have my camera working (we are supposed to get a new charger tonight).