Lovely Mundane Monday

You know life is too hectic when the idea of a mundane day is lovely.

Last time I blogged, I was getting ready for a girls weekend to Silver Dollar City and Branson. That was a hectic week. I had to get all my necessary chores done before I left the guys for the weekend and I had to pack all my knitting for the road trip.
We left on Thurs morning, Sept the 29th and came home on Sat, Oct 1st.
Here is a pic of my buddies that I went to SDC with. There is Millie, Nana (Millie's MIL), Amy and Margie. We had a great time.

While at SDC, I realized that I would have to go home and weave my brains out for my State Fair entry.
Yes, I entered a couple of things into the fair this year. I had registered one knit item and one woven item. I had the knitted item done and ready, but when I registered the woven shawl, I did not even have the loom warped. I did it to light a fire under my procrastinating hind-side! It worked.
I had taken a class, a couple of years ago, on how to weave a name draft. I had wanted to do some for our missionaries. I thought it would be a wonderful way to do a pray shawl for our missionaries. I took the name of the tribe that they were ministering to and used the letters to draw out a draft. If you want to know more, let me know and I will go into more detail so that you can do this, too.
Here are some pics of it.

I am very pleased with it. I threaded the loom with a double strand of 2/18 black wool in each dent of a 12 dent reed and then I wove the tabby with 2 strands of the black wool and the overshot with 2 strands of some lovely finger weight rayon/silk blend in a nice natural color. This was a cone of yarn that I bought at Churchill Weavers before it closed down. I adore weaving overshot. It is probably my favorite weaving to do.
I finished that Monday the 3rd and took it to the fair on Wed. the 5th of Oct. On Thurs the 6th, Michael and I went back up to SDC. This trip was an opportunity for me to go and play with Donna. I took my wheel and my outfits and had a lovely 2 days of spinning and visiting with everyone.
Here is me with my wheel, talking to a couple of young ladies.

Here is some lovely silk lace weight that Donna gave me to play with in the future.

Here is Donna explaining weaving to a cute little guy.

Here is one of Donna's friends, and a new friend for me, who was demonstrating spinning, too. Her name is Wilma. We had a lovely time spinning together on Thursday and Friday. The weather was perfect. 
SDC had a bird show and these were some pics that I got of the eagle. He was quite a majestic bird.

On Sat, Michael and I did the Springfield MO thing. He took me to one of my yarn stores, Simply Fibers. I bought some more of the roving that I had bought on my last trip there in June. I bought the solid roving to spin and ply with the variegated that I already had. Then we went to his yarn store, Grizzly Tools.

I discovered 2 new yarn stores on this trip. One was in Springfield, A New Yarn. It was nicely laid out and had a great selection of lovely yarns. I bought 2 skeins of Berroco Vintage in a nice dark heathered grey for a houndstooth project. I lovely this yarn. It is one of my favorite acrylic wool blend yarns. I have used the worsted weight and the chunky and love them both.
Then we went to a yarn store that Donna told me about. It is located in Rogersville MO. It is called One City Market. They were having a knitting event for knitting prosthesis' for breast cancer patients. I talked with the owner about coming next year to the event and doing a book signing on that day. My new book will be out by then.
It was a lovely trip, all in all, a very relaxing time.
While at SDC, I decided that I really needed to go home and start right in on my Christmas gift making. So, on Tues and Thurs of last week, I spent most of the day at Sandy's, quilting one of my gift quilts on her quilting machine. Now, I have to finish Ben's top and go out there again.
I have two lap quilts to do, too, but I will quilt those on my sewing machine. They are smaller and more manageable on a home sewing machine. The other two are full sized and too large for me to do that way.
To say the least, all that time away, on the road, gave me lots of knitting time. I finished about 3 shawls. Last week, I had 5 shawls that needed to be blocked. Here are some pics of them.

Lyra's Song in Malabrigo Sock yarn.

Lyra's Song in Jawoll Magic sock yarn.

Lyra's Song, lace weight version, in some lace weight bamboo.
Glorious Hints of Autumn in Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn.

And last but not least, my wedding shawl, called From This Day Forth.

It is made in Knit Picks Shimmer Lace weight.

Now you know why I am enjoying this lovely, mundane Monday.

BTW, I will be at the State Fair tomorrow and Friday. I will be demonstrating spinning in the Arts and Crafts Building. Stop by and say Hi! I will, also, be checking to see if any of my entries got a ribbon. I will let you know how it goes. Until then, have a lovely mundane Monday.