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Local

Bliss

By Sheetar 21 November 2009 21 November 2009

I had a Saturday off with no obligations and planned to stop by the SAFONA Fiber Festival. It was being held about a 45 minute drive from home through some Amish farmland and pretty historic parts of Pennsylvania. The whole drive out had me making a mental checklist of all the places I wanted to see on the way home – wineries, shops, etc. Met some wonderful people and made purchases from Rock Creek Yarn, Wolle’s Yarn Creations, and Black Diamond Alpacas. All are wonderful vendors and I had a blast taking time to chat with each of them and oogle their display items. Practiced my knitter’s handshake a few times (grab knitted item, squeeze, ask wearer if he/she made it). After having my fill of fiber, I turned the car around for the adventure back home.

First stop was the Goodville Fabric Outlet which is basically a HUGE warehouse filled to the top with fabric. All kinds of fabric. Cheap fabric! It was really overwhelming and while I wasn’t looking for anything specific, it was really neat to stop there and find the deals for future reference.

Then I came across the Poole Forge which had been turned into a beautiful park with a classic red covered bridge, winding stream, and lovely old stone buildings. I stopped for a while with the camera, smiled at an Amish man passing by with his buggy, and took in what had become a gorgeous afternoon.

Next stop was Olde Peddler Wools. Great shop with a good variety of classic, workhorse yarns – the stuff that is cost efficient and quality fiber. It’s a shame that they’re not closer to home!

The next detour was the Kog Hill Winery. When I walked in, the gal behind the counter who was running wine tastings was KNITTING! She had just learned and was working on a garter stitch scarf. We chatted about knitting as she fed me wine samples, and it was one of many random-acts-of-randomness that really made the day. Bought some wine, wished her luck with the knitting, and headed back out.

Wineries? Pennsylvania has a lot of them, and it’s almost hard to drive more than 10 miles without running across at least one and the next detour brought me to another winery. Most of them produce decent wine – stuff that’s delightful to drink, but nothing really world-class incredible. The J Maki Winery is not that kind of winery. Their wines BLEW ME AWAY, specifically the Gewurztraminer which is a really unique interpretation of that grape. The reds were dry – just how I like them – and the ice wine, particularly the Cabernet Franc ice wine, was phenomenal. Really quite the gem of a vineyard, and I will definitely visit again to pick up some more wine.

My final stop before home was the Glasslight Studio. I took a detour for a historic sign that didn’t pan out the way I thought it would and ended up passing this place on the way. After being greeted by a large, black Bouvier mutt (who later nudged my arm for more head-scritches and buttrubs), one of the glass artists talked to me for at least a half hour about the glass blowing classes they offer. He let me look in on the class that was in progress and took my email address for future classes.

I know this post has gotten long, but honestly, the whole day was filled with such wonderful people and I really needed this kind of a day after a sort of rotten week. Now, a photo!

Local, Photography

A week in pictures

By Sheetar 19 April 2009 6 July 2011

The sister-in-law, Brenda, was up visiting this past week. We went a bunch of places and I took A LOT of photos with the new camera. The wide lens and the full-frame DSLR has been making me very very happy. Click any photo to see a larger size, linked to flickr.
Row 1: Crystal Cave
Row 2: Philadelphia Zoo
Row 3: Fort Mifflin
Row 4: Winterthur

Knitting Classes, Local

Today Was Absurd.

By Sheetar 28 March 2009 28 March 2009

Today was ABSURDLY INCREDIBLE, that is.

Got up at 7am and was out of the house by 8:30 to make the 10am-1pm class at Loop with Franklin. Franklin brought his Introduction to Lace class to Philadelphia and when I got the Loop newsletter about it, I signed up right away. This was, no joke, the first real knitting class I have ever taken. Franklin, in his calm and witty way, took us through the history of knitted lace and lace knitting (two different things!) which I found particularly fascinating, being somewhat of a history geek. There was talk of technique, a demonstration of Nupps, all while we worked through a pattern that Franklin designed. I got a whole repeat done and even got a decent start on the applied border at one end. There aren’t really words in my exhausted brain right now to express how much I loved this class, but I can tell you that I liked it. I liked it a lot.

After the class was over, I had to book out of Loop and cross all applicable appendages that one can cross while driving and hope that I got home in time to make it to my next item on the agenda. Naturally, Philadelphia traffic failed me as there was bridge construction and then a HUGE OIL SPILL over a bridge I need to take to get home. Naturally, by the time I realized that I should turn around, I was stuck between two walls of Jersey dividers with no way to go anywhere but insane with the stopped-dead traffic. It finally cleared out and managed to get home with five whole minutes to get the dogs out, watered, fed, and back out the door.

Then, it was on to the Fonthill Castle in Doylestown, PA. It had been on the list of places-to-go ever since we moved here and a friend and I finally made the trip. No joke, I could spend a whole day there and just not be tired of the place. The six story concrete castle was built by Henry C. Mercer (and a dozen local farm boys) in 1916. He used tiles from his tile works to decorate nearly every square inch of the inside. On top of the tile, he used scavenged and recycled materials, picking up old dressers and reusing drawers inside concrete dressers. Broken mirrors were scavenged for their frames and hung lovingly with beautiful engravings and prints. He even used scrap metal fences and various other metal material for reinforcing his concrete pillars and walls. He was a true believer in the arts and crafts movement, and I’d even go so far as to call his house a ‘green’ house with all the recycling and reusing that he did. It’s kinda interesting that people now are reclaiming glass for countertops when he was doing similar things back in the early 1900s. It’s a completely overwhelming experience and definitely one I’d enjoy repeating. We even managed to get on the behind-the-scenes tour later in the evening which took us all the way up to the top of the highest tower and to the crypt/basement, all of the places that are not normally seen on the regular tours. Sadly, no photography is allowed inside the museum (it was making me all itchy, not being able to capture all that incredible beauty) but I have a few photos from outside.

As the perfect end to the day, when I got home, there were two wiggly dogs to greet me. They graciously let me give them belly rubs and a big long group hug. Perfect end to a really spectacular day. Now I believe it’s time to haul my tired self into bed and fall into a blissfull sleep and dream of beautiful lace and concrete castles. 🙂