Fibre' Floozie

Before we get into the trip, let me introduce you to Fibre’ Floozie. Fibre’ is A Flyin’ Skeins version of Flat Stanley, except she is a puppet created by Cindy Capra and Mariann Phelan. Cindy designed her, she is wearing a halter jumper made with Noro sock yarn, her hair is twisted eyelash, earrings and belt by RBQ Designs. Mariann painted her beautiful face.

Wednesday, 30 March: #1 son, Kevin, sacrificed his nightly snooze and drove us to the airport. Thanks, Kev, we really appreciated it.

Fibre' & Ann in Minneapolis airport

Fibre’ is hanging out with Ann, the one that got us into this whole thing. She went to the wool show last year and suggested that I should go this year, I said “not likely.” She responded, “They are always looking for teachers.” It took me less that a second to ask, “Where do I sign up?” A few emails later and we were committed. Now the really cool thing about all this, I wanted to go to Scotland for our 25th wedding anniversary, didn’t that work out real nice…

Fibre' in MN

Checking out the MN airport

A five hour flight to Minneapolis with a 7 hour layover, I couldn’t talk either Bill or Ann into venturing out to the Mall of America, so we investigated the airport.

Fibre' knitting in MN

Fibre got in a little knitting.

Oh, Look our flight is showing!

She was so excited she kept popping out of her chair to check the flight board.

Fibre' & Friends

She made some friends while browsing in a book store. The others were jealous that she was getting to go to London, Wales and Scotland, especially Paddington, so he asked her to say “hello” to his British cousins when she saw them.

Fibre's First oversea flight

We finally got on the plane and Fibre’ wouldn’t let me buckle into the seat saying she just had to have a picture for her first international flight.

Thursday, 31 March: arrived London, Heathrow.

Ann guided us through to the train from Heathrow to Paddington station. At Paddington I bought the sim chip for the phone and didn’t realize that it had rearranged things on my phone and some things were no longer there. Ah well, so much for plan A and Facebooking the trip….plan B was now in progress. Journal on my phone as I went, put it on FB and the website when I got home.

Paddingtons of Paddington Station

And speaking of Paddington, Fibre met the Paddington’s of London and conveyed the greetings from their American relation.

A short taxi ride from Paddington Station brought us within a block of our lodging. We stayed at the London School of Economics dorms.

Tea Time at British Museum

Unloaded our packs and walked to the British Museum to meet Ann for tea. The distance was further than anyone made it sound and it was almost closing time, so we didn’t get to see any exhibits, I had hoped to get a peak at the Rosetta Stone. We were quite tired by the time we made it back to the room.

The travel log is almost finished. As soon as it is I will post it here and on A Flyin’ Skein Facebook and Ravelry. Thanks for your patience while I get back into the swing of things.

Friday, 1 April: We discovered that Bill’s C-pap machine no longer worked as he was going to bed, which of course, didn’t make for a good nights sleep for him. We decided to forego Paris as we spent our first day getting acquainted with the oyster card system, the tube and finding a C-pap machine for Bill. We were fortunate to find a place that rented the machines.

John Lewis Yarn

We did check out the yarn department of John Lewis on the way back from getting the machine.  No cozy place to sit and knit or browse books and patterns. But a good selection of Debbie Bliss and Louisa Harding yarns and books, no magazines there either.

After a sleepless night, we headed back to the room for Bill to get some sleep. So with that in mind, I took a nap too, oh gee darn…

We met Ann for dinner, fish & chips in a local pub. We could have shared just one fish n’ chips platter, they were huge. The garden peas were as fresh as if they had just picked them.

Saturday, 2 April:

The tube was experiencing difficulties so we decided to do London by bus. The lady at the tube station gave us very vague directions. We got on a bus we thought was going to Islington and ended up at Victoria Station. Oops. We changed buses and headed for Islington.

Loop Knitting

Found Loop, the yarn store in Islington. (www.loopknitting.com) Bought yarn – only one ball, I was being very good.

There was a Saturday market in the streets surrounding Loop so we wandered through the stalls, then found a Vodaphone store and thought the phone problem was fixed but alas not.

We went back to Victoria  Station found a shop that made Cornish pasties. Yum!!!

The  Big Bus Tours office was just across the street from our Cornish lunch. The people in the office were very helpful. We purchased tickets for the following day then headed for the British visitor center but were 20 minutes late.

Then it was nap time. Have I mentioned that we were up usually before 7:30 and out by about 8:30 every morning after having breakfast? Bedtime was accompanied by the sounds from the pub on the opposite corner. So we didn’t get to bed all that early, or if we did we didn’t sleep for a while. They were a happy lot…

We found this really good burger place a couple of blocks from the dorms and shared a burger because it was huge.

Sunday, 3 April:

Met Ann and walked to Euston St. Station. We went to the British Visitor Center and got maps and brochures.

British Library

Victoria Tower - Sovereign's Entrance

Rode the Big Bus Tour all over London.

I was totally taken by the architecture here. Everywhere I looked was another beautiful building.

Houses of Parliament

The Gherkin

London Eye

 

I have hundreds more pictures but too many to put into this blog.

Road Sign

Found a Starbucks down the street from Buckingham Palace (Thanks, Gary & Mary Alice). Had a little lunch and just chilled for a bit before getting back on the bus.

Fibre' at Harrods

If you are ever in London, you must go to Harrods. It is a very fascinating place. If the merchandise doesn’t impress you the decorations in the food courts, yes courts, will. Every food room has a place to sit and partake of the wonders sold there. Everything looks like a work of art, the fish, the fruits and vegetables – not a blemish, coffee & teas, biscuits (cookies) and the chocolate…..

Chocolate 1

Chocolate 2

Chocoalate 3

Girls, you wanted me to bring back chocolate, well, here it is, white, milk, dark, truffles, creams, wafers, …..if you can think it up, it’s in here somewhere.

Chocolate 4

I couldn’t decide what to try so, believe it or not, I didn’t have anything. It was a totally overwhelming experience. All that chocolate in one place…

Chocolate 5

Chocolate 6

Fibre' Spinning in Harrods

We had seen this spinning wheel through the window and Fibre’ insisted on having a picture.

Monday, 4 April: We finished our Big Bus Tour with a trip up the Thames to Greenwich.

Fibre' & Tower Bridge

Fibre’ & The Yarn Lady at Greenwich

Fibre' & GMT Tower

We were in time to watch the ball drop for 1pm GMT.

Fibre' & Flowers in Greenwich

We rode in the front seat, upper deck of city bus back to London. I took movies as we went along, that should be fun to watch later. We got lost trying to find the right bus stop back to our room. When we passed an alley with several tattoo shops in it and a guy standing at the entrance with many tattoos, smoking, I decided that we were getting on a bus, any bus, to anywhere, just not staying there.

A New Year with New Resolutions. I hope you added ‘learn something New‘.

I’ve had the priviledge of teaching quite a few gals (c’mon guys, you can do this too, ask Tony) to knit in the first 2 weeks of this year.

The Fi-brrs group on Thursday night is a fun way to make New friends and hangout with other knitters, crocheters, tatters, felters….. you are welcome to bring hand sewing or beading projects, we’ll make room. So far, we’ve made clogs, socks, started mittens and hats and seen some clogs, mittens and hats finished – yea!!!

If you haven’t been in to see the New remodel, make it a resolution.

Select yarn, books and needles are on sale, 20 – 50% off. Great time to start a New project.

Now is also a great time to get your New Purple Bag from A Flyin’ Skein. You can buy one for $4.95 or get one Free with a $50 purchase. Receive a 10% Purple Bag Discount (PBD) on future purchases when you bring your Purple Bag with you.
(see the picture at the top of the page)

I started to write this back in September when we decorated the store with a coffee theme. But I’m going to finish it now even though we are getting ready to change the theme. There’s still a whole Latte knittin’ going on no matter what the theme or the season.

Check out the class page and see if there is some new thing you would like to learn. Magic Loop socks are coming up shortly. We will make 2 socks at the same time on one long needle from the toe up. Making socks can be addictive – and when you finish one pair you’re usually itching to make another.

We’ve made Magic Loop Handwarmers, Clogs, Gelato Bags, Magic Loop Hats and enticed a few unsuspecting bystanders to become knitters. There has been a whole Latte kniitn’ going on….

The Block of the Month Afghan Group is working on the first block – a cottage with a fence. I had to drag a few techniques out of the cobwebs which is a good thing. I love doing what I call colorwork – working with more than one color of yarn at a time.

I had my first date with my husband Bill. We have two beautiful children, Brenda and Mac, and 4 wonderful grandchildren Deanna, Ashton, Addison & Braeden, and last but not least Ty, our son-in-law. My daughter has finally (after many years of thinking she never would) taken up sewing and even let me teach her to knit. I think the project she started won’t be finished for quite a few years. Deanna, the oldest ganddaughter sits on my lap and knits with me, her hands on mine or mine guiding hers. My son oohs and aaahs appropriately over all my projects.. He even wears the items I knit for him. Such a good boy….

I’m blessed with this family of mine!

This has been a great summer; meeting people from all over the world, teaching new knitting techniques, seeing projects grow to completion.

Had a very fun couple of ladies in from Kiwi-land (New Zealand) and she bought a skein of yarn for her memory quilt. She took our picture and posted it on her blog – http://www.ruakiwi.blogspot.com/ - (we are after the pictures of the glacier). We had a great visit, while in the store she met another New Zealander and of course, we directed her to Softly Silk – http://www.softlysilk.com/to meet Kerry Cline our resident “kiwi”.

This morning a man came in saying that he and his son were debating over the name of the store.  His son thought that it was because skein rhymed with flyin’  (but that is only if you pronounce skein as “sky-in”). We had a great chat. I corrected the pronunciation of skein (rhymes with rain) for him and explained that skein can mean at least 3 things – “ball” of yarn, geese in flight and the egg sack of a fish (at least that’s what a group of fly fishermen told me when they thought I was a bait shop). I also pointed out that the logo is skeins of yarn in flight like a skein of geese.

I looked it  up the word skein. I never found where it is the egg sack of fish but it is also used in mathematical terms, a name of a supervillian of Marvel Comics and a skein dubh is a Scottish knife. Whew, lots of meanings there.

But when I was thinking about a name for the store I first thought about what all the crafts have in common – knitting, crochet, x-stitch, spinning…. and they all use a skein of some sort – and we have geese that fly in skeins, which brings me to the flyin’ part. Just as geese have to be flyin’ to be a skein as we use the yarn or threads it “flys” off the skein and we have lots of people here that have airplanes and fly – it was a conglomeration (word of the day) of thoughts and things. Then the big question was should it be The Flyin’ Skein or A Flyin’ Skein, decisions, decisions. But I realized that it was a play on words of A Cryin’ Shame and decided that it would be A Cryin’ Shame if I didn’t open A Flyin’ Skein.

Now, aren’t you glad that guy came in and asked about the name of the store?!?!?!?!

May’s Fiber Therapy theme was a big hit. A number of people entered their names for the Bath Therapy kits.  And the winners are:

Rebecca Pazdernik, Sherry Borer, Heleana Backus and Jennifer Swander.

Next time you are in the store you can pick up your prize.

Imagine knitting your way to and through Alaska. Getting to visit all the yarn shops along the way.

I had my first knitting cruise in today. They were a lovely group and definitely having a great time and while I am happy for them to be going on the cruise, I am jealous that I could not be going with them……maybe some day.

Hey knitters let’s get a cruise together to Australia/New Zealand in the winter and knit our way ’round there - the sun will be shining down under! In fact they have one scheduled for October 2010. I’ll get the info, let me know if you are interested.

Check out the newest classes – Felted Flower Pincushion, Needle Felting and Gelato Bag.
And pictures in Friends Projects…