Tuesday, August 18, 2009

My Square Needles make my Stitches Round!

And here we go again. Summer is almost over, or is it? Rumors tell that September is the beginning of a new summer for us. Oh, phhleeez, no. I want a cool weather.

I just visited CGOA blog, and started thinking of the weekend in Buffalo. I went with my friends,
Sherri, Maggie and Gisele on the 7th of this month.

We left early on Friday morning and stopped at Walmart, spent some money there and then we had lunch at this amazing bread place. Would you believe (you would, eh?) that I forgot the name.
Must love google, they remembered the name Panerabread. I had the most amazing cheese-broccoli soup I had ever tasted in my life. Well, I have not had that combo, only plain broccoli, but it was the best.

Off to find the hotel. We had the greatest room in the world. Two rooms, and I had my own private sofa bed, which allowed me to sleep quite nicely.


The others, poor things, had to sleep in the actual bedroom, haha, I had my private little space.







As soon as we had settled in, we headed to the Market. The first booth made me stop with the beautiful display of a shawl, Figure 8 Fantasy Shawl. It's in the book Special Little Knits
(guess what, I have that book at home, nicely in my bookshelf, oh, geeez and I almost bought it at the show)

I wanted to buy the book very badly, just for the shawl pattern, but I could not buy the first thing I saw, I had to see at least a few more items in the market, before I could open my money pouch, the one with all the US dollars that I had been saving and guarding a few weeks before.

I am not sure at what point we decided to go for dinner, but it was later in the afternoon. The hotel had a restaurant, and we checked the menu and the prices and ran away as fast as we could. We settled for the hotel lobby restaurant and had no complaints about the food or the prices. The service, though, was unbelievable slow that night. Unlike the morning services, but it was mostly buffet in the morning.

Later in the evening we had coffee and tea evening with CGOA Chapter group. There were lots
of cookies, and we were told that all the cookies had to be eaten before we left the meeting.
It was an interesting night. Every attending Chapter had a spokesperson who was telling what their chapter was doing.

I left the meeting for a little bit to go and look for my freeform friends in the hotel, but everyone that I had seen before, had gone either to bed or somewhere else. My friend Vashti was asking others if they had seen this person or that person, but no luck. So Vashti, thank you again for your kind efforts, you are truly a wonderful person. Not to forget the great silk vest you were wearing. It was so beautiful.












On Saturday we went back to our shopping adventure and spent more money than anticipated. At least I did. Way too much, but here is my loot, the picture does not show the items too clearly.

There are several items that are my favourites, but the most favourable item that I bought is a set of dbl pointed square needles. Wooohoo, I love them. I must order more sizes, since I only bought one set of those and one circular needle in larger size. I noticed, when I was testing my needles with the sock yarn I had bought, that the stitches still came out round. I had been cheated. I expected square stitches. hahah.

Of course I bought sock yarn, which I don't need, but what the heck. There are lots of cold feet in my family. Specially up north somewhere.One of the exciting events at the Market place was to have Crochet Dude to sign his booklet for us. We also got our picture in Buffalo news. We are so famous now, hah.









The four of us, Sherri, Maggie and Gisele and me, of course, took a sight seeing walk around the hotel and found it strangely quiet. There were no other people walking but people who looked like tourists, ahem, like us, with cameras and maps and lost looks.









We went to a nice restaurant to have lunch, late lunch, which later approved to be a bit too late.


















After "lunch" we headed to our hotel and started getting ready for the evening event. It was Dinner and Fashion show. We were doing our hair, putting on some make-up, even me, surprise, surprise, and wore our fine art work. Sherri had an elegant Nefertiti shawl, Maggie wore her great crocheted skirt, Gisele had her beautiful "spider web" shawl, and I had my black freeform vest on me.












At dinner, I didn't feel hungry, although the food was excellent. There was chicken, and beef on the plate. Plus some veggies, of course and I think there was a potato, also. I just could not eat
everything. I still had my lunch traveling in my insides, so unfortunately I just ate a little bit, and drank a lot of coffee.

The fashion show was amazing. So many great designs and creations. I didn't take any pictures, because my little camera would have objected with the light in the room. It was terrible, the only way you could see the show properly was to go right beside the stage, which was not possible for me, because I was too full to move. Tsk Tsk.

Margaret Hubert
was wearing beautiful freeform top that she had made (of course), and the top was truly incredibly attractive.












Barbara had a swirl purse with her, that I wanted to make, but did not have time to attend her
class on Sunday morning.








After the fashion show we chatted with many friends and then headed back to the hotel.
We decided to have a drink before going back to the room, and then it was time to have a little shut eye.

On Sunday morning I dashed to the Market place as soon as it opened, and bought some Tulip crochet hooks and the rest of the small balls of yellow crochet thread.

The ride home was full of excitement. We had rain, we sort of got little bit lost in Niagara Falls, NY, but finally got to our beloved country, Canada. We headed immediately to the Flying Saucer restaurant and had a feast with French fries covered with yummy meat sauce. We also had Chicken quesadilla and Gisele had a hot turkey sandwich. After the meal we just headed home, and all went well.

Thanks girls, for the great trip!