Easter in Europe

I am just back from a whirlwind tour of Swansea, Wales; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Strasbourg, France via train. In addition we spent two non-consecutive days in London and one in Paris. It was fantastic! We saw so many wonderful and amazing places -the Gower Peninsula in Wales, Cathedrale Notre Dame, Strasbourg with it's Astronomical Clock, The Palais Rohan also in Strasbourg, the Eiffel Tour and the Place De La Concorde in Paris, the canals of Amsterdam and the museum square. I could go on and on. I'd go back to any of them in a heartbeat. The taxi drive from the train to the hotel in Paris was mind blowing. Somewhere I read afterward "...that nothing can prepare you for the scale..." and that pretty much sums it up.

I lost my gloves somewhere on the Champs Elysee's. I took them off to snap this photo and the next one and discovered that they were gone about 2 miles later. I hope that they like their new country.












I wish I had some fantastic fiber related find to share but for most of our vacation shops were closed. There were sheep everywhere in England and France, but yarn shops and/or places to buy fleece are not as visible. From the train I saw a house just on the outskirt of town with a tiny yard -could not have been more than 20 feet square with four sheep and a green house populating the lawn. To me that epitomized the importance of sheep in that part of the world.
Swansea, Wales would have been the place to go to an LYS. For some reason perhaps jet lag, perhaps shopping with husband, I didn't think of it when we went into the town center.
I brought my crocheted tablecloth project to work on and lost the hook somehow between Amsterdam and Strasbourg. We arrived in Strasbourg the Thursday before Good Friday at 11 pm and stayed until Easter Monday (which is also a holiday in Europe) so I had only Saturday to try to locate another hook. Finally found a LYS, Chatte Botte, in Petite France, but I don't speak French and the owner who was knitting some lovely socks didn't speak English. My pantomiming skills completely failed. I probably should have drawn a picture. Looked around the shop but didn't see any needles of any kind except the owners, just lovely yarn, rug hooking supplies, and cross stitch kits.
Found this shop while wandering after Easter dinner in Strasbourg. Looks so inviting that I wish I had had time to go back.






Finally got a photo of my daughter in her Cable wise Cashmere sweater in Paris. It was a good thing she had packed it with the intention of shipping it back home, as it snowed, sleeted and rained, and was in general a record setting cold for March in Europe.
We drank lots of European coffee and hot chocolate to stay warm. Indulged in the local cuisine, bread, wine, beer, and had a very memorable experience.

Blogs and Taxes

I found an awesome listing tonight of wool lovers blogs:
http://yarntomato.com/wool/members.php

I enjoyed reading several of them and will have to go back and look at the rest. It's nice to know that there are lots of you out there knitting and spinning away and that I am not the only "one of those" in existence. There are so many blogs and each of them inspiring. I read those linked to Yetsy and several others when I can.
I haven't had much time for knitting or spinning lately as its tax time. I am hoping that I am almost done organizing the paper trail. I can hear my wheel calling...

Spinning Alpaca

Last night I took a break from muddling through paperwork and
spun some of the alpaca that I got from Northstar. Initially I spun too thin and ended up with laceweight 16 wpi after plying! (pic with ruler) I never spin this thinly on the Baynes. I must have been pretty uptight. It's amazingly consistant-hope I can do it again sometime.
So then I made an effort to loosen up a bit and let the yarn be thicker-12 wpi, plyed. I think it came out great.
I should be able to re-knit the glove thumb tonight or tomorrow-whenever it's dry.









This lilac top is half of my current sewing project. It's a 1870's 2 piece dress for a 12 inch French Fashion doll in changeable silk (it has a gold cast to it). It's almost ready for the trim. Looks funny on my skeinwinder, which was standing in for a dress form.