TN Fiber Festival

This festival was my THIRD in May. I was so tired after getting home from Winnipeg that I was concerned about making it to the festival in one piece. It was so worth the effort!

This festival, in Dixon, Tennessee, is a small one. It's about three years old, and it grows every year. I had a great time teaching there last year, and as Beth, the organizer is so competent! She and her husband Steve own Three Creeks Farm. They saw a need for a fiber festival in our area, and gosh, they're doing their best to fill the need!

This year, I'd signed up to teach two classes and to do an after dinner presentation about Fiber Gathering. To our surprise, neither of the classes had enough students in them to go--so I just came down for the presentation, spent the night, and came back home the next day. Even though I was sorry the classes had to be cancelled, it was much easier for me and more relaxing this time to enjoy the festival, give my talk, and skip the 6 hours of teaching.

Dixon is about 100 miles from my house in Kentucky. On a regular day, it's maybe an hour and 45 minute drive. On Memorial Day weekend? I thoroughly enjoyed the back roads to avoid the highway traffic, and it took about 2 and a half hours. It was a pastoral trip...gorgeous scenery and a good audiobook made it go by in a flash.

There were very interesting class options and some amazing vendors at this new festival, including Coloratura Yarns. Bjorn, the amazing indie dyer who creates these masterpieces of color, is from Germany and was first a weaver, taught by a weaver from Bauhaus weaving school. His skill is impressive. It took all my self-control not to invest heavily in their yarns. I got one skein of sock yarn. I get the feeling I might be buying more later. You know, after I move, I'm going to need some warm clothes, right?!

When it came time for me to give my talk, I was amazed to see the room was completely full. There were about 40 people there, and we had a grand time. I got to sign lots of books and give several friends big hugs. Definitely a fun trip.

On Saturday morning, I returned early to visit with the sheep at the festival. There was a shearer scheduled for Saturday, plus several farmers were hoping to sell lambs. I went crazy with the sheep photos. The bottom image is a Shetland lamb, the top one is an Icelandic ram, I think? (the Shetland and Icelandic rams shared a stall, so it's one or the other.) Look at those horns!

I was home on Saturday in time for lunch with the professor. I'd hoped for a relaxing few days together...but relaxing doesn't seem to be in our vocabulary lately! We discovered, also on Saturday, that the professor would have to head back to Winnipeg right away to continue the house hunting..it's really a seller's market up there. The house we're most interested in is now being shown, and he has volunteered to continue working on this. We need a house, and now's the time frame for finding one! I'm so tired out from travel that it was all I could do to print out his boarding pass and feed him lunch before he rushed out the door today. He's off to Minneapolis, where he'll stay with a good friend of ours. Then he'll continue north by car.

The dogs and I are enjoying a quiet day at home, doing laundry, but I've also got my work cut out for me this week. The proofs for Knit Green: 20 Projects and Ideas for Sustainability --BOOK NUMBER TWO-- have arrived!! I'll be spending the next week or so concentrating hard on making the very last edits on this. I'm excited about this topic, and I'm hoping the knitting world will be too! The book will be out by the end of September, I hear. Just in time for me to start talking about it...in Winnipeg. :)

I hope you're having a more restful weekend than we've had!

Finding home

After a crazy trip home, including a marathon sprint through the O'Hare airport in Chicago to make our connection, we're back in Kentucky. Due to a problem with our first flight out of Winnipeg, we got to go through customs and security twice! (oh joys...) Our luggage arrived home significantly after we did. It didn't matter to us at all--we decided that it was far easier to fall into bed after nearly 12 hours of travelling than to stay up unpacking dirty laundry.

In our minds, by the way, this trip home qualified as an adventure because both we and our belongings got home safely. If we'd been stuck overnight someplace, or lost something? That's a travelling disaster, or if not a tragedy, definitely not usually an adventure. I try not to complain about adventures...travelling is always easier with good humor--like anything else, there are unexpected challenges. The customs story will likely be funny after I've rested up and had a couple of good meals and a glass of wine or two. :)

I've wrested the camera back from the professor. In between the real estate photos, I found some interesting things to share.

One night, we went out for sushi at a chain in Winnipeg called "Sushi Train." If you sit at the sushi bar, you get your orders delivered on the flat bed behind this cool train that goes around the restaurant! We're absolutely certain our three year old nephew, a huge fan of trains and sushi, needs to eat here when his family visits us. We can't wait!

After going through over 25 houses, I can guarantee we saw a fair cross section of the historic houses of downtown Winnipeg. We even put in a bid for an enormous and beautiful home...but since it's a seller's market in Winnipeg, our offer was seen as too low and "upsetting" and we said ...oh well. We couldn't afford to pay more, and it was truly bigger than we need. We did manage to take a lot of photos of the house, and here's one that I will likely think on for a long time. The staircases? I'm a sucker for a beautiful staircase--I'm just sayin'.

Alot of upscale houses in Winnipeg on our river front property. Having a river view is a big deal, apparently. Now, Winnipeg is located where two rivers meet, so there's a lot of river to see. Also, if you remember the recent spring floods in North Dakota?...that river, the Red River, flows north. Yes, north...and Winnipeg has Duff's Ditch. This enormous public works program diverts lots of water and keeps the city from flooding during the spring snow melt. Even so, people invest enormous amounts of time and money to cope with river bank erosion to protect their river front property. Here's what the backyard looked like at one house we visited... and apparently, most of the time? The backyard is several yards longer than it was when we visited. Note the tree on the left, still standing but now in the flood plain of the river.

We decided maybe riverfront property wasn't necessary for us.

While looking all over for a place to live, we drove past a house that was on the market last year. I nearly jumped out of my seatbelt--it was for sale again! This house, built in 1912, struck me as as so beautiful that I was ready to buy it a year ago when we tried to decide about this job, but before the Canadian gov't approved the move. The real estate agent tried and tried to get us inside again this year so we could see it one more time. No luck. It is on the market, but apparently not available to be shown to potential buyers. (go figure.) We're still working on that...the professor may be going back to Winnipeg soon to see it again. Here's a shot of the outside.

Inside? Craftsman details, all hard wood, built in bookshelves, a second story study with fireplace, 3 floors with well restored bathrooms, complete with a clawfoot tub...and a corner lot big enough to put in a two car garage and with enough room for dogs to play. (Winnipeg yards are very small.)

I meant to tell you jokes here, and be amusing. Honestly, I'm so tired as to be incapable of spelling in my first language (English) so I'm afraid funny will wait til another time. For now, imagine the professor and me plowing people down as we raced from Concourse C to Terminal 3 in under 20 minutes. Before going on this trip, I'd been afraid I wasn't getting enough exercise. After reviewing these statistics:

25 houses---with 2 or 3 stories...approximately 60 sets of stairs. Every house had a basement. Revise that to 85 sets of stairs, up and down. One day of walking to government offices to do paperwork downtown--about 1.5 miles. One hotel room on the 2nd floor (occasional sets of stairs) and a lightning fast chase through O'Hare airport? Likely enough exercise for this trip. I'm spending a lot of time on the couch with the dogs today.

Oh, and tomorrow? I drive off about two hours to the Tennessee Fiber Festival to teach and do a book talk. It's been nice being home. :)

Good stuff? We're safely home, got lots of bureaucratic details done...and have a line on a house.

Bad stuff? We're theoretically moving in July, and we are still working on the house thing...good things come to those who wait?