Sewicked

As I walked home yesterday I managed to somehow step on a pine needle in such a way that it penetrated the leather on the arch of my instep (not through the sole of the shoe, through the side). That sucker was sharp!

Last night I mostly played computer games, as I watched part of a tv movie & then watched CSI followed by Brit sitcoms and then Justice League Unlimited.

books: I bought Claimed by Shadow yesterday & finished it at lunch today. I exchanged my extra copy of Kitty Takes a Holiday for The Viscount in Her Bedroom.

tatting: I only have one chain left to do of Jane's fantasy flower. Too bad it's an oopsy. I figured out that I have messed up two of the chain joins & I'm just not up to redoing all of that again.

Spurred on by Jane's report of Palmetto fun, I'll try & recount my view of the weekend.

Thursday:
I went to Anitra's after gaming & arrived about 10 pm. We started going through the Workbaskets as her birthday present was to fill in some of the gaps in her collection. We finally headed to bed around midnight. I didn't sleep so well but on the bright side, we were both awake by the time the alarm rang at 5 am. So we did not oversleep.

We got dressed, while Steve (the sweetheart) went to get breakfast for us from Biscuitville (or was it Bojangles?). We doublechecked that we had everything and when Stephanie arrived at 6:55 am we were ready to go. We loaded up her car with the two computer paper boxes of Workbaskets, our clothes & our tatting materials and we were off to South Carolina.

We had brought music but ended up talking most of the way there. I played the Once More With Feeling album/music from the episode of Buffy but that was pretty much it. At the two hour mark & then an hour & a half later we made pit stops; my bladder & everyone got a chance to stretch her legs.

We arrived at White Oak Conference Center just before noon. It's in the middle of farmland and very pretty. We registered, unloaded the car in our room and then off to lunch. As we were headed for registration, I spotted Mimi and she not only recognized me; she remembered my name. From when we met two years ago! Of course, it was all to the funny story/joke that I told her about the 2 Southern belles on the veranda. 'Thaht's verah nahse.'

After lunch, we split up to go to our individual classes. Anitra & Stephanie went to one & I went to another. My first class was Jane's Fantasy Flower, which I may actually finish today. I like the beaded version better. Working with gauges and long picots is definitely a weakness of mine. And my flower shows it.

For the second class, all three of us were in Karey's Flower Wreath class. I finished mine but it's a little sloppy. If I use a smaller thread & don't mess up the flowers, I can do better. As I reached the 3rd flower, I realized that I had managed to put the 1st two flowers on opposite faces of the wreath. Ooops. Karey showed me how to fix it and it works, but I'm not 100% happy with my workmanship. I think Stephanie finished hers late Saturday or early Sunday; and it looks much better than mine.

At some point, I managed to stop by the venders to pick up the thread & the seed beads for Jane's frog on Saturday, as well as two Aero shuttles to load for it. At the banquet, they announced the top donors of butterflies, flowers, etc for them to hand out at the SC state fair. The 3 runners up had 500, 600 or thereabouts, each. The winner had 1002. That's a lot!

At supper, a nice couple sat with us along with um....someone I've met whose name I cannot recall. The older couple had retired and this was part of their vacation. They were leaving Saturday to go visit family in Virginia, I think. She had just started tatting. So we had a 25-year tatter, 19-year tatting, 20-something, 7-year tatter & one who could measure her tatting experience in months, without doing multiplication.

The Banquet is always fun. The one drawback, at this location if you didn't drink tea or coffee, there was only water available. The food was pretty good although we were the next to last table to go up to the buffet. We had salads to munch on and they lasted almost long enough.

Georgia Seitz was the keynote speaker and she's good. She covered a lot of the history of tatting and was amusing by turns. I think I'd like to hear her again, and that specific address.

After supper it was time for games and night owls. What a hoot, if you'll pardon the pun. Riet (who's Dutch) taught a song about an owl, in Dutch. You heard people humming or singing the chorus all weekend. She also had a number of owl patterns, for people to work on.

One of the games was teams of 4 would decorate 4 cards. We kind of drafted one person, she provided a few flowers & that was it. Anitra, Stephanie & I made up the rest of the team. We made two scenes, one day & one night. Each had a line of grass on the bottom, a tree on the left and flowers. The night scene had a moth (ecru butterfly), a crescent moon, a bunny, an owl (from the night owls), stars and a couple pale flowers. The day scene had a sun, more flowers, a couple of Anitra's daffodils, a half butterfly alit on one of the flowers. I drew in the stems for the flowers for the day & the night sky for other.

Stephanie tatted a long brown chain which I used to outline a basket; filled in by 3 brown flowers. Then it was 'filled' by assorted flowers, that's where I used most of the ones donated by our 4th team member. The fourth one I did at the last minute, almost by myself (I had separate classes from the others) from an idea that Anitra suggested. It was a wreath of flowers (ie a simple circle) with a bow at the bottom. Alas, we did not win.

I only tatted two owls before I started fading fast. I used one on the card & gave the other one to Riet. I wonder what she did with them. Probably gave to the Palmetto Guild to hand out at the fair.

I headed to bed to be asleep by 11:o0 or so.

clothes: today's outfit is a black tank under a black, long-sleeved rayon blouse, black jeans & ~slippers, onyx pendant & earrings, braided silver ring with the 2 matching bangle bracelets and braided hair.