WatchME: Epi 3- Bandwagon Lite

WannaME: Gearing up for Stitches East.....

Good Morning YOUs,
 What a beautiful, crisp, sunny October Saturday. I say this as I lounge in bed, with absolutely no plans to venture out there. Today will be filled with laundry, knitting, blogging, and prepping for Stitiches East 2010. I think WannaME and TouristyME may be just a tad bit over-excited about Stitches. This will be my first time attending and I can't wait. It will also be the first time in years that I will be traveling all by myself. No MOH. No MiniME. Just ME. Calgon has finally responded to my pleas and will be here in 2 weeks to take me away on a mini-vacation to be filled with yarny, fibery, goodness. Ahhhhhhhh.

 Luckily, Stitches is taking place in Hartford,CT. Have I mentioned that I am FROM CT?!?  And that all of my family is in various parts of CT?!? So yeah I get to go visit my Mommy and Sis, and cousins etc. This also means that I don't have to worry about lodging. Although Mom  & Sis live about 45 mins to an hr away, I have tons of cousins who still live right in HTFD. So if I don't feel like driving I can crash somewhere.
 
So how exactly does one prep for an event like this? Well if you are crazy like ME, that means making lists and lists and lists. Lists of where to go. Lists of what to bring. Lists of what to make. Lists of lists to make. lol. See, crazy right? No,I'm just trying to keep WannaME in check. Cause I know as soon as I get there one of two things is gonna happen. I'm either gonna want to buy like everything I see. Or I am going to get soooo overwhelmed at the amount and variety of stuff and then not know what to buy or not want to buy anything. So I am researching and researching some more.

I've been all over OCS trying to find patterns that I'm really interested in making. Reading forums, looking at O.P.P. (Other People's Projects) seeing what yarns are getting good reviews. I've stalked the Stitches website for months waiting for the vendor list to be posted. Then I'm on the vendor sites, checking out pricing and yardage. Seeing if I can just order from them online.

 Dude, I'm so hyped about this trip. By the time it gets here I am gonna be missioned out. I'm going into that convention center with a plan, man. Armed with a budget and a shopping list. And I will stick to it! WannaME will not lose her frickin mind like she did at MDS&W, where I may or may not have spent double what I brought with me to spend. No sirree Bob. Not this time!  I'm gonna put my plan out there for you all to see. And when I get back I'll compare what I got to what I said I would get. I'm issuing the challenge to WannaME...control yourself. Will she be able to?.......Stay tuned.

TouristyME: Maryland Sheep & Wool Fesitival 2010

Once again OnlineCrackSpot has ME into something I would have never known about it. Now I'm sure my non crafty friends are thinking the same thing I was...Seriously a sheep and wool festival?!? You're gonna walk around a farm looking at sheep all day? Yeah there will be a couple of vendors selling food and handspun/ handdyed yarns. But, Really?!?

 I waffled back and forth all week on whether I should go, especially with the chance of a rainy week. Then 2 things happened to make me change my mind. First the forecast changed from showers all week to a super sunny 87 degrees. Second, a couple of my fav podcasters (see InterestME: Podcasts for links) were organizing a meet & greet. Now I don't know if you read my last posts (which you should by the way;) ) but I have been listening to podcasts pretty much nonstop lately. So there was really no good reason to miss a chance to let my inner FanGirl miss an opportunity to meet KIPing it Real's Jackie and The Knitmore Girls themselves, Jasmin & Gigi.
 So I lurked the boards on Rav and found that a LYS Rosie's Yarn Cellar was running a bus down to Maryland. TouristyME was gonna venture out on her own on another touristy adventure. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.

 This little farm turned out to be a hugemongus amount of acreage. And that couple of vendors...try over 250! Oh the food! Oh the yarn!  Oh the heat! Did I mention the 87 degrees & super sunniness? Poor TouristyME was so busy trying to shuffle water bottles, maps, note-taking, and sweat wiping, that I didn't get to take as many pictures as I would have liked. But I did get to meet Jackie, Jasmin and Gigi.

I even managed to control my Fangirl-ness long enough to give Jasmin my hastily thrown together card, asking her to pleasepleaseplease check out this here little blog. I told her about my entry on them inspiring me to blog and maybe one day trying to podcast. Get this Jasmin said if I do it, to send her a promo and she'd play it on their show. How cool is that?

 Both WannaME and CraftyME were in heaven. There were so many different types and colors of yarn that I didn't really know where to begin. But trust, WannaME found a way to lose her mind and tried to put us in the poor house. I went with vendors whose names I've heard mentioned before, such as Tess' Designer Yarns, Miss Babs and Creatively Dyed Yarn.  Look at all the pretty:

I'm happy to report that I was able to calm WannaME down a bit. I just knew early in the day that I was gonna leave MDSW with a drop spindle & some roving and call myself a new spinner.

Yeah after sitting in on a mass spinning demo.... 

...eh not so much. Maybe next year.
   All in all, it was a wonderful Touristy experience. I met some awesome people, learned some new stuff, and ate some great food. It was just the perfect starter course for the fiber festival world.  Next stop Stitches East 2010, in my hometown of Hartford CT! I'm saving up now.....

TouristyME…Phila MoA.

So I am such a tourist.  No matter where I go I'm like "wow look at that" or "oooo that is so cool". But the thing is, I never really go anywhere. I'm such a homebody. Mostly it's not by choice. Limited funds and limited childcare options tend to leave me house bound. WannaME is generally left to whine," I wanna go outside. I wanna go somewhere, I wanna do something.'" Blah blah blah.

Right about the same time that I realized that I should be blogging, I also realized that I should be doing things too. I had to make the decision that regardless of what was going on in my life, that I needed to live the life that I've been given.  Somewhere I came across a saying that I would adopt as yet another motto. "DON'T LET WHAT YOU CANNOT DO INTERFERE WITH WHAT YOU CAN DO"  Yes, MiniME requires alot and because of this there is a lot that I can't do. But this doesn't mean that I always have to do nothing. So I'm giving myself permission to take at least one weekend day a month to go do SOMETHING. ANYTHING… Even if I have to do it alone. Heck sometimes I want to do it alone, just so I can prove I can. 

Now I've lived in Philly for going on 10 years now. We relocated here from Connecticut so that MiniME could be treated @ CHOP( Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) since they were the ones who diagnosed her BT. In the 10yrs that I've lived here,  WannaME has longingly looked at all the touristy locals with deep sighs.  My other half and friends grew up here. These places represent boring school field trips to them. So I've never had anyone to go with me.  Well, no longer! I'm out! I'm gonna take advantage of all that my city offers. That and take advantage of being a Bank of America customer. They offer a program called Museums on Us, free admissions the first weekend of every month.

My first excursion was to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was one of the first spring-like Saturday afternoons and I had an amazing time. Now TouristyME fancies herself to be a photographer. So I had to give myself a photo-journalism mission. As I don't know thing to first about art, I decided to just photograph textures and things that caught my eye.

Oh yeah, although I am TouristyME I was only being a pseudo-tourist. No running up the Rocky stairs or posing like the statue. 

As this post is already super long, I won't go into detail. Let's just say I really enjoyed it and look forward to having and sharing  more touristy excursions. 

Click click, ME