Busy Weekend

We had quite a busy weekend! Saturday found us at one of the local universities for a science fair type activity. There were displays and hands on activities in areas including robotics, weather, math, chemistry, archaelogy, and environmental science. Daughter collected quite a bit of material for her science class at school. She has to do a series of reports and projects this year, and she is well-armed with material now. One of the highlights of the day for her was meeting one of our local meteorologists. She's seen him on TV before, and meeting him in person was quite exciting. She got his autograph and even had her picture made with him! He was such a nice guy and so good with the kids.

After the science fair and lunch, we stopped in at one of the local yarn shops to see their new location. They are still very much in the moving and renovating stage, so we had to maneuver our way around boxes and avoid stepping on the freshly painted polka dots on the floor. I managed to find two skeins of Mountain Colors Bearfoot sock yarn (like I needed more sock yarn!) in Ruby River and Evergreen. The colors are so much nicer in person than I can get them to show up in photographs. I am thinking the Evergreen will be nice for Jeanie Townsend's Cascading Leaves pattern.



Colonial Days was being held in our town this weekend, and we couldn't pass up the chance to attend that! Colonial Days is a nice time for the re-enactors to demonstrate the life and times of the mid 18th century. We saw dancers, backwoods hunters, blacksmiths, a spinner, Native Americans, toy makers, and a variety of other personifications. We had a great time talking to the spinner and even took a turn at helping her comb wool, drop spindle, and knit. Here is a picture of some of the folks attending the event.



The rest of our weekend has been filled with supervising science projects and fibering. The dye pot has been going strong today, and I've been working on a fiber related project for my Knitty secret pal. Of course I can't reveal the almost finished object to you, because I don't want my Pal to guess my identity!

Husband is teaching a spinning class in Savannah later this week, so I need to show you some of the spindles he's prepared for the class to use. He has been making toy wheel spindles for the past year and does a nice job. He usually uses craft paint to decorate them but recently decided to try staining them. Here are some examples of his work in two different size spindles.



The stained spindle is the smaller of the two. It weighs approximately 28 grams with a length of 10.5 inches. The whorl is about 2 inches in diameter. The painted spindle weighs approximately 48 grams and is 11 inches long. It has a whorl about 2.5 inches in diameter. Husband does his spinning with the smaller size spindle and uses the larger to ply.

Here are views of the tops of the spindles: