AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH....

After a weekend at Albert Head, I feel rejuvenated and ready to take on the world ... or at least the tasks at hand!

This is what my weekend looked like... first we drove down to Clover Point to see if the wind was bad.... it wasn't, and we saw this pretty little classic boat heading out:


Then on the way out to our favorite anchorage, we passed a tenant from our marina who was out for a 'day sail' with friends:

We 'tucked in' behind the point like we always do, and enjoyed the 'cast of characters' who joined us at various times:





We had two lovely days and nights, and we never even got off the boat (in the inflatable) to go to the beach, or off exploring or anything!

Yesterday morning we knew the wind would be coming up so we up-anchored and came back in to the harbour -- but we weren't ready to come home to our marina yet, so we tied up at the downtown dock for the day instead, and had this view for awhile:


On the way in, we passed one of those yacht transport freighters, at Ogden Point:

And we were variously entertained...

This couple was up the mast of their sailboat...

This little girl was literally swinging on the boom...

And, just so you know, much knitting took place ...

This blanket WILL be ready to give as a wedding present this coming Friday for sure!

Got home around supper time last night, and today will be a busy one -- Michael has his second cataract surgery this morning, and River 'graduates' from elementary school this afternoon!

IT'S KELP.... IT'S A ROCK... IT'S A ....

...gray whale!



And it has apparently been hanging around the Victoria harbour for several days now, coming in as far as Fisherman's Wharf!

I finally made it down to Clover Point night before last for the first time since the FibreFest, and there it was, about 100' off, in the kelp bed. We hear, every year, of one or two grays spotted around here, but that's the first time I've seen one.

We are hoping to get out to Albert Head this weekend -- we've been too tired to get ready to go rest!

FIBREFEST HIGHLIGHTS: A PICTORIAL

SURVIVED ANOTHER FIBREFEST!

And it was wonderful, again!

The Friday night dinner and fashion show was a bit smaller than it's been (we sold only 60 tickets -- last year it was at least 75) but the food was somewhat better, and the fashion show was amazing, as always. I have much better pictures coming, but here's Ursa from Gaia's Colours, who sponsored the evening ...

And a bit of the crowd...

The day at Saxe Point started out cold and a bit windy, but by about 2 pm the sun was out, the wind had died and it was glorious ... and I haven't got a single picture to show you! Other people do, though, so I'll post some as soon as I have them. I realized this morning that I don't even have a single photo of Cat Bordhi, so I sure hope someone took some and will share them with me!

Much more to come about FibreFest 2010 .... I did pretty much nothing yesterday, and hope to do about the same today. Oh... but I did manage, some time in the past two weeks, to finally finish my 50th pair of socks! Between that and surviving the FibreFest and the fact that it's my 6th blogiversary in 12 days, I intend to celebrate by launching a contest of some kind soon, so stay tuned!

VICTORIA FIBREFEST!!

Even though we had World Wide Knit in Public Day and Spin Around the Spindle last week, I still think of the 'real' Victoria FibreFest as the event that starts tonight with our dinner and fashion show. Of course, I still have 217 details to take care of today, but I'm getting excited now, too -- I've seen some of the pieces that will be in tonight's show, and they're stunning!

Meanwhile, I mentioned a few entries ago that we started a prayer shawl for Linda, a member of our little spinning circle who was in a serious car accident a few weeks ago. Wendy and Rosalie went to see her yesterday and gave her the finished shawl...

I think she liked it. :-) Linda has a long way to go to heal, though, so that smile is in spite of being in a lot of pain.

If you're local (or not too far away), I hope to see you this weekend at the Victoria FibreFest!

CONGRATULATIONS, GEORGIANNA

A week or two ago, I got an email that *wasn't* FibreFest-related from an old friend who lives in Whitehorse, Yukon. It simply said, "Care to come to my convocation?"

I've never attended anyone's convocation before, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was completely lovely!

Waiting for her name to be called...

Congratulating the Class of 2010:


Congratulations, Georgianna, I'm SO proud of you!

IN FULL SWING

The Victoria FibreFest got off to a great start with a beautiful day on Saturday for World Wide Knit in Public Day. I thought it was rather clever of me to open the show with the Snowbirds .... ;-)


... and end it with about 300 naked bicyclists ...

... and we had some great knitting in between!


Esther tried her pinwheel sweater on Terry Fox -- I think he liked it, but was a bit too warm.

My van, with the Lucy Neatby 'throne' for a ball of yarn attracted a bit of attention...

But not quite as much as this woman's hand-knit sweater...


The scene depicted is a 'Specialty Shop' complete with a sign that says 'Fashion Show Today' on it! On the back there is a dressing room, with a door that opens to reveal ...

... a woman getting dressed, of course! (And I thought *I* was clever!)

Saturday was for knitting, and yesterday we honoured spinning with a 'Walk Around the Spindles' ...

and then we 'Spin Around the Spindle' at the museum entrance. This gathering is only in its second year, and we had fewer people this year, but it was fun!


Wendy brought Barbie Dollie along ...

... the story of which I'll tell you another time, but would you like to see her a little closer? She's wearing the prayer shawl we're all working on for Linda.

And we did demos for lots of interested folks wandering by:


Stephanie even brought her charka along:

It was a perfect weekend!