Inspirations and Updates

First off, I would like to thank The Student Knitter for the pretty niddy-noddy she made and I won in her recent giveaway. I've skeined up the spinning from my first bag of roving!

Thanks to this wonderful tool, I now know that I have about 290 yards of yarn - any suggestions for patterns I could make from this?

I haven't shown the Helix socks in a while. I was so thrilled when I got to the heels in mid-July, thinking I'd be able to work the legs during the quilt show. No, the heels took longer than expected, and then when I started working the second heel, I realized that I had not understood the instructions on the first heel and had screwed them up. All through the second heel, I kept telling myself it wasn't that big a deal. When I got the second heel done, and it was SO much better than the first heel, I knew what I needed to do. So, I slid the second heel over to the inactive side of the needles and spent the quilt show unpicking the entire first heel. Mid-Sunday afternoon, I was finally at the point where I could restart it. People kept asking during the show, "What are you making? That looks really interesting." Well, actually, I'm unmaking.... Then, we had lots of sun on our vacation (I am NOT complaining!!) and my prescription sunglasses are only good for distance viewing, so I really couldn't knit in the car. So, with all of that, here's the current picture:

On the road, we listened to an audio version of Robert Merry's A Country of Vast Design, about the presidency of James K. Polk. It was an utterly fascinating window into American politics in the first half of the 19th century. So many people seemed to spring out of the pages and into real life. John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay all come alive in this book; however, the most vivid character is James Buchanan, the clever conniving political hack who served as Polk's secretary of state and went on to become one of the two worst presidents in our nation's history. If you have a chance to listen to or read this book, do so.

Also, I wanted to show a couple of pictures I thought I would be able to use for future quilts. The first is a detail from buildings I saw at both Fort Michilimackinac and Fort Wilkins.

I loved the way those triangles fit together.

The other picture is from a staircase leading to a lighthouse tower at Whitefish Point. We weren't allowed to go into the tower, but I was able to take this picture.

Wouldn't that be an INTERESTING quilt - I'm thinking complementary colors - orange and blue, magenta and forest green..... mmmmm!!!!

Quilt Show and Upper Peninsula

Just a quick note that the quilt show was two days of concentrated concern about who was where doing what - the life of a volunteer co-ordinator; on the other hand, I had a co-coordinator, and she brought along her husband. The three of us made a great team - spelling each other for breaks, filling in where needed, chatting with each other and anyone else who came along. It was a lot of fun. There were SO many wonderful quilts in the show that it was hard to pick ONE for "Viewer's Choice." I picked this one because every time I walked past it, I felt really happy.

I helped with the teardown of the show, and I was one of the people who hauled stuff to the guild's storage unit after that. I was SO tired by the time I staggered home Sunday evening!

We left on our trip the morning after the show. Our first stop was the dentist so that Hubby Dearest could keep his appointment. (We had figured this was easier than rescheduling.) While we were there, I realized I had forgotten to pack a camera; if we had gone back for it, we would have added at least 45 minutes to our trip. So, we had to rely on cameras built into the phones. Such is modern technology!! Once we got on the road, Hubby asked, "Where did you pack the maps and atlas?" Hmm.... I'd spent the previous week thinking quilt show thoughts, not trip thoughts..... I had printed off maps of areas right around places we wanted to see - do I get points for that? This was where I pointed out that gas stations sell maps, and that would be our back-up plan. It worked very well.

We stopped at Fort Michilimackinac before we got on The Bridge. If you are asking "which bridge" at this point, then you are not from Michigan. Centuries from now, when the auto industry is a distant memory, the people of the state of Michigan will continue to carry in our marrow pride in our single greatest accomplishment - the Mackinac Bridge. The Bridge spans five miles of the turbulent strait where Lakes Huron and Michigan meet. It connects the upper and lower peninsulas of our state together with a ribbon of iron and concrete. It is a marvel to behold, and when we finished touring the fort, I stood out on a promontory and heard the final words from the movie "A Very Long Engagement" echoing in my head, "le regarde et le regarde et le regarde" (waaaay too many years since my one semester of French, so I'm guessing at the spelling there) - "she gazed upon [it] and gazed upon [it] and gazed upon [it]" - what a wonderful moment! Then, of course, we had to drive over it, and my terror of bridges kicked in.

We went to Sault Ste. Marie where we watched ships being raised and lowered. (Lake Superior is about 20 feet higher than Lake Huron, and the locks are easier to navigate than the rapids in the middle of the St. Mary River.) Here is a picture I took of a boat in transit.

It was really interesting and fun to see the process - especially the ore carriers that were over a thousand feet long - you could see them rising up or sinking down. We ended up sitting on a park bench with sodas and books watching boats come and go. (Mr. and Mrs. Excitement, we are.)

We went to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum and then to Houghton in the Keweenaw Peninsula. We spent a couple of days there happily looking at Lake Superior:

and going down into old copper mines that have been opened for tourists:

and learning cool facts:

(A "stope" is an inclined area within the mine from which rock was extracted - think of a hillside and put it underground.)

We also indulged my fiber fever, but that will be a post for another day. I will leave you with this sign that was on a store near our motel. It amused me mainly because I didn't see the "1/2" at first, so my mind was reeling at the possibilities.