genesis

We taught a friend to knit a few weeks ago and she's definitely liking it, enough so that she hosted her own knit night this week. Activities, of course, were not limited to knitting. There was crocheting, knitting, hand and machine quilting, needle felting, and dollmaking. Highlights of the evening, for me, included seeing our friend's son knitting a few stitches of his own and Leah teaching Amanda how it all works.

Yesterday was the spring meet of the New England Blacksmiths at the Hannaway Blacksmith Shop in Rhode Island. Scott and Jesse were up bright and early so they could hang with the blacksmiths for the day, watch demos, chat 'em up, and hopefully find somebody with a used forge for sale. We've been on the prowl for a forge for a couple of weeks now and felt fairly certain that this would be the winning place. Sho' 'nuf. When you get 80 blacksmiths together for a 3-day party, there's bound to be some extra equipment up for grabs. So the guys arrived home with a small forge, anvil, and tongs. Oh, the glee! To see Jesse's longstanding interest in blacksmithing finally become a hands-on activity is something I think we'll all enjoy.

Scott got a kick out of seeing this woman spinning merrily among the crowd in one of the blacksmithing demo tents. He snapped the pic because he said he was so tempted to sit and babble with her about spinning, but he didn't want to be disruptive during the demos. "Those crazy fiber fanatics, they're everywhere!," he said, in his best faux conspiracy tone.

Congratulations to Cheryl of Seed Stitch, who is the winner of the stitch markers posted in last week's giveaway!

Leah wants me to tell you all that she's working on a new project and she's very excited to unveil it very soon. Nothing like tidying up the yarn stash to inspire new projects!