July 4th... 1997

Happy 4th of July! I hope that you had a day as wonderful as ours. We did lots of pre-camp errands in the morning before going to a BBQ in the afternoon. Perfect! Our day today was actually not unlike the way we spent our 4th of July 10 years ago. Then, as now, we were celebrating more than just the country's birthday. Today we were celebrating a friend's birthday and welcoming another friend home. Ten years ago the 4th was our farewell to Long Island.

Looking back it's hard to recall exactly how I spent June of 1997 beyond remembering that I was very, very busy. We packed up our apartment - well, actually the movers did that. I just supervised. I arranged with my school to complete the work for my MLS at another university. One of the oddest things was quitting my job and realizing that, in a neat twist, I'd been there exactly 7 years and 2 days - just long enough to get fully vested in all of the profit sharing etc. That was certainly lucky!

We finalized the purchase of my shiny red car and arranged to install an alarm in it. Hah! In NY car alarms were ubiquitous but in Virginia - not so much. That thing turned out to more of an annoyance than anything else, especially when it rained. It was super sensitive and storms would set it off. My neighbors loved us when the siren would blare in the middle of the night which it did regularly.

During that month I said a lot of good byes too. We had a lot of family and friends in New York and it seemed that every minute was spent saying good bye to somebody. The culmination of our farewell tour was a barbeque at my in-laws house (where we stayed for a week or so). Everyone was there and it was great. The next morning hubbo, the drama queen and I drove off in cars loaded with the few things that were not in storage. As we drove south I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of adventure. It was so unexpected and exciting to be moving so far from home. Washington, DC was not totally unfamiliar but still pretty new to us. We'd been there before on vacations and always enjoyed it. We just couldn't wait to start this new chapter in our lives.

Unbalanced

Not the yarn - me! I am unbalanced lately. When I'm in a spinning mode I forget my knitting and vice versa. Lately the spinning has been winning. Yesterday, as I wrote my post, the realization hit me that my daughters go to camp really soon and the knitty goodness that I hope to send with them is no where near ready. That said, Charlotte and I will need to spend a little quality time apart.

This yarn is for my Spun Stitches project - Hanami. It's best described as a family of yarns. Each one relates to the next but is very individual and, I think, would stand well on it's own. The color you see is pretty close but what's missing is the sheen and the softness. I love this yarn something fierce but it's not finished yet. This is about 600 yards of yarn and I need at least 880 so I still have a bit of spinning to do.

I mentioned my new skeinwinder in passing the other day. Here is a picture of it next to my wheel. It's a Fricke 2 yard floor standing skein winder and it was my gift from my dear husband on our recent anniversary (13 years!). It is making me so happy because winding the yarn off onto the niddy noddy and then having to try to figure out the yarndage was the one part of spinning that I really wasn't enjoying. With my new toy it's so much easier and faster.

I did a little online research before I chose the Fricke and I'm very pleased with it. There is one small gripe though. Some of the pegs that the yarn wraps around are not quite smooth so I'll need to take a little sandpaper to it. It wouldn't be good for the yarn if it gets caught on the pegs.

Folklife Festival 2007

What a weekend! Two weeks from now I'll be delivering my girls to Summer Camp but right now, I'm savoring every minute with them so this weekend was all about family time. Saturday we finished choosing the tile for our dual renovation projects. Then we went to see the Fantastic four movie. I thought it was just ok - not really my thing - but the rest of the family loved it.

Today we went to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. This year the areas of focus were the Roots of Virginia, the Mekong River and Northern Ireland. It was so much fun. This was our second time attending the festival and, as in pervious years, there was way too much to see in just one day. Sadly, DQ was a bit under the weather so hubbo took her home early but Stinkerbelle and I stayed nearly till the very end. Here is a sample of what we saw.

1. Weaving, 2. Paper cutting, 3. Masks, 4. Sugar Candy Art, 5. Porcelain Flowers, 6. Stages of Silk, 7. Fish Trap Baskets, 8. Silk Wheel, 9. Carved Log Canoe, 10. Indigo Dyeing, 11. Wood Carving, 12. Cool Quilting, 13. Addition Sculpting

There was just so much amazing stuff to see. We saw amazing wood carvings and a statue being created by a man using a very small spatula to add plaster little by little to a metal frame. I was in awe of the porcelain flowers I saw created in front of my eyes and there were incredibly fragile sugar candy designs. One of my favorite things were the fish traps. These beautiful baskets were gorgeous while also serving a practical purpose.

The Roots of Virginia area was especially fun for DQ because she got to show off some of what they've studied in school. They had exhibits showing the agricultural heritage and the contributions to our culture from the slaves. To illustrate the african influence they brought over many artisans from Senegal. They played music, made pottery and baskets, and so much more. The skill on display was amazing.

Not only did we see cool stuff - some of us got a chance to try a few new things too. Stinko got to try throwing a pot on the wheel. She got such a kick out of it and, better yet, she got to take the tiny pot she made home! She was so into the clay that also spent a little time hand building a clay bed. It all made it home in one piece - amazing!

She also got to try her hand briefly at stone carving which was being demonstrated as part of an exhibit about building preservation. She was less excited by this than by the pottery but it was great that she had a chance to experience it.

There were tons of other things that we saw and many of them were displayed in a very hands-on manner which kept Stinky thoroughly engaged. Many of the artists were kind enough to offer her little samples too so we came home with a few treasures.

This is one of the great, family friendly events offered in the Washington DC area and it's free. If you ever get the chance to attend - grab it!