It’s been said by others but I have the best better pal for sure. And now that I know who she is, I can tell you guys, too. The person spoiling me was Liz and when I say spoiling, I mean spoiling. As in rotten.

Just check out this last package.

Isn’t it great? Liz picked stuff to represent her state of Texas and she did a fine job. There’s chili and chocolate and homespun from angora goats. Can you say soft? I had to immediately run to my patterns and start searching for something worthy of this gorgeous yarn.

Look! Here’s a close up.

I wish I had feel-o-vision for the blog so you could touch this stuff. It’s truly amazing. And clearly, Liz is doing a much better job of promoting the glories of Texas than that certain someone currently inhabiting the White House. I’m just saying.

And there’s also other chocolate and Mountain Colors Bearfoot in red, of course. Because red is my favorite color and Liz pays attention. Turns out, Liz and I also share similar educational backgrounds, as we both have MLIS degrees. Rock Chick and Shobhanna hit the nail on the head when they matched up Liz and I.

So, my heartfelt thanks to Liz the wonder pal! Dude, it’s been a pleasure.

The Team Boston Closing Ceremonies Party hosted by Cara was a blast! Like so many of these gatherings, there was knitting and laughing and eating and drinking. And, you know what? You’ll just have to take my word for it because I didn’t take a single picture. Nope. Not one.

I thought about the camera during the fashion show. I thought about it some more when Cara dumped her whole bag of Jaywalker socks on the floor for everyone to admire. I thought about it when I was admiring Lucia’s beautiful Trellis. I even thought about it when Maryse and Stitchy and Grumperina and Wendy and Teresa and Dale and I were still hanging around bugging Cara at the end of the night. But the beer and the chocolate took over my brain and that was the end of all thoughts of the camera.

So, I sat around and gabbed and ate. I didn’t knit a single stitch but I had a blast. And so did Dale, who was in tow mostly because I was leary of driving into an unfamiliar part of the city on my own. But Dale’s a sport and he had fun putting faces with names he recognized from comments on this here blog. On the way home he sheepishly (get it? sheepishly? because we’re all about the sheep here at Carole Knits) admitted that he almost nodded off when we were swapping blog stories, but I’m not sure any of us would have noticed even if he had fallen asleep, we were so busy talking!

To make up for my camnesia yesterday, I do have pictures of the finished Olympic socks. Real pictures, that is, not photoshopped images of various athletes wearing my socks.

I wore them for the first time yesterday and the fit is perfect. I’d knit these again in a heart beat.

I’m not a duck hunter but I do love duck decoys – especially antique ones. When I first visited Dale’s house I was completely in love with him this decoy.

We’re not sure but we believe hope it’s a Mason. I love the simplicity of it. I love where the paint has worn away and the wood shows through. It’s just really beautiful to me.

A couple of years ago Dale convinced his brother Randy to sell him this decoy so that he could give it to me as a Christmas present.

As you can see, it’s very similar to the first one, except that it has the gear still attached to the bottom of the duck. Randy made the stand for it so that it can sit on our mantle and at Christmas time I decorate the stand with fresh greens. Again, we believe hope it’s a Mason, but we’re not positive. I like to think it is!

We have other decoys around our home, including this one that Dale carved many years ago.

We also have framed prints of decoys from years when Randy and Barry (another of Dale’s brothers) each won the Massachusetts State Duck Stamp award.

This is the one that Barry painted and, as you can see, he did two artist’s remarques, including one of our dog Dixie, with a bird in her mouth in the lower left corner.

And this is Randy’s (although not his newest one, we don’t have that print yet) and he also did two artist’s remarques, with the geographical outline of Cape Cod in the upper right corner and ducks in flight in the lower left corner.

I think that the folk art character of antique duck decoys suits our home really well. The primitive style and rustic wood really appeals to me. In fact, a few years ago, we visited the Shelburne Museum and Dale had to drag me out of the house where the decoy collection is housed.

Someday, perhaps, I’ll have an Elmer Crowell. In the meantime, though, I’m happy with the ones I have.

Turns out, changing my Olympic Knitting project after that first day was a damned fine idea. The Child’s First Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush was demanding and challenging for me. It was also, however, project I could complete in the alloted time without injuring myself.

I finished the socks with a few days to spare. Time enough for the socks to visit the Olympic Village. While there they spent some time being worn by a few of the athletes competing in the games.

See?

On the luge track.

Doing a belly flop.

At the women’s figure skating short program.

Scoring at the hockey game.

Me with my Olympic Gold medal. This feels great!

I’ve told you about the wheel. I’ve told you about the fiber and roving. I haven’t told you about the people — and that was the most amazing part of all!

Blogless Sharon and I arrived on Friday afternoon, checked in, got our warm chocolate chip cookie, and got settled. There were spinners and knitters everywhere. Scattered throughout the lobby, in every nook and cranny and hallway. We felt a little shy at first but bumped into Laurie and Chris right away and that was the end of being shy. We quickly settled into a spinning circle with Laurie and that was our spot for the weekend.

Dinner Friday night was a quest for margaritas for Cate. We wound up at a place called, not surprisingly, Margaritas! And that’s what we drank. I think we ate, too. And I had a brief moment where I actually hauled out the camera!

Back at the hotel there was spinning and knitting until the wee hours. Our cicle of knitters and spinners included Julia, Cate, Juno, Stephanie, Laurie, Judy, Kate, Jackie, Kellee, Wendy, Elisa, and Chris.

Saturday involved more of the same. There was the previously mentioned shopping. There was lunch at a place downtown with Martha and Sharon and Chris and Cate. There were drinks back at the hotel and the fashion show and a hilarious talk from Stephanie. There was dinner in the bar which also included Lisa. I got to meet PumpkinMama and Cheryl and Monica and That Laurie. I chatted with Maggie and Kristen. Once again we found ourselves spinning the late evening/early morning hours away.

It was over all too quickly and Sunday we packed up to head home. We lingered for a while and hung out with our buds. There was talk of religion and parenting and politics. It was probably the most relaxing time of the weekend and then it was time to go.

All in all, I had a fantastic time. New spinners were born (sorry I’m not a better teacher, Wendy, despite my excellent analogies) and experienced spinners got better. I got compliments all weekend on the various shawls that I wore and that’s pretty damn cool. I made new friends and got closer to old ones. I drank martinis and ate good food and tried to learn all I could from the collective knitters and spinners around me. I’d love to see those of you in other parts of the country follow NETA’s example and create regional gatherings like this in your area. You won’t regret it!

Thanks to everyone for the excited well wishes on my new wheel. For those that have been asking, it’s a Rick Reeves. Not a Schacht-Reeves, but an actual Rick Reeves. I had seen this listed on the NETA Housecleaning pages but assumed it was already sold. Then on Saturday morning, Blogless Sharon came into the gallery and asked me if I had seen the wheel in the hallway. The one that was for sale. I said, nope. And she said, I think you ought to go take a look at this. I think it’s like the one you want. The one you tried out in Pennsylvania last November.

So, I went and looked and fell in love. I spun the stuff that was sitting by the wheel and then I went and got my own stuff to spin and that was that. Sold. Her name is Rosie and we’re going to have a very happy life together. If you want to see how totally excited I looked right after I bought her, take a look at this picture on Jackie’s blog. It captures the moment perfectly!

There was other stuff to buy at SPA, too. There was fiber. And roving. And more fiber. See?

Grafton Fiber. Yummm.

Indigo Moon. Llama Silk and Merino. And some Romney top that spins like a dream.

Spunky Eclectic. How can you not buy roving that’s called “Chocolate Covered Cherries”?

While it may sound like I was all about the shopping at SPA, there was so much more to it than that. Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you about the people at SPA because that’s what made it really, really special.

If this is the note that you found by the coffee pot in the morning?

Yes, indeedy, it says “spend a lot”!

Sigh. I’ll do my best to honor his wishes. After all, I wouldn’t want to let him down.

Good: Getting that stuff in the picture for Valentine’s Day. I think this means that Dale finally “gets it” about the knitting.
Bad: Getting a new sock book while in the middle of the Knitting Olympics.

Good: Receiving my 2000th comment on the blog!
Bad: Having the 2000th commenter be Dale. I can’t exactly send him yarn for a prize now, can I?

Good: Singing at the top of my lungs while Sirius radio plays in the Jeep.
Bad: Sirius Radio cutting out.
Ugly: Hearing my singing voice minus the radio. Yuck!

Good: Finding out that Hannah doesn’t need a root canal!
Bad: Calculating that the rest of the dental work she needs will still cost around $1000.

Good: Getting a new refrigerator with all kinds of fancy stuff.
Bad: Multiple failed deliveries.
Ugly: Customer service from Sears. I won’t bore you with this whole story but it’s been a disaster. My advice? Don’t buy anything from Sears unless you can carry it out yourself.

Good: Heading to SPA this weekend with Blogless Sharon. I’ll be meeting up with old friends and making new ones, too. It doesn’t get any “gooder” than this and that’s a good way to end this post!

This Olympic knitting is a whole new experience, isn’t it?

First, there’s the pressure to finish on time. The deadline looms before me. I hate deadlines. I guess this type of pressure isn’t all that new of an experience, now that I think of it.

But even worse than the pressure is the boredom of working on a single project. Monogamy. I’m all for it in a marriage, but in knitting? Not so much.

Don’t get me wrong – I love this sock and the pattern is just enough of a challenge to force me to pay attention – but I want to knit something else. The Cable Moss Vest or the Everyday Cardi or the Seraphim Shawl. But my inner voice, my type A personality, keeps saying:

Must finish Olympic Socks first.

Meanwhile, the other voices in my head (shut up! you know you have voices in your head, too) are cursing my parents and genetics and DNA for giving me such big honking feet.