Lots to report!

Well, I have no pictures for this blog entry but so many things have happened since I last posted I figured I better not wait any longer or I would forget all of it. The most important thing is my friend Kristy is back! Not only in blogland but actually in person. She came to Girls Night Out on Wednesday for the first time in a long time and brought with her an important project. She is going to blog about it in more detail but unfortunately her internet is screwing up at the moment so here are the highlights.

She needs 300 hats by Sept 20!! Yep, that is 300, you saw correctly. She is going to the Ukraine to work at an orphanage for special needs kids who have absolutely nothing of their own. When she first took on the hat challenge, she needed about 160 hats from size infant to big enough to fit a 15 yr old. Since then, she found out that another orphanage is closing and will be consolidated in to the one she is visiting so there will be about 300 kids in all. Can you help? I have already given her two and am working on a third. Hats don't take long and it is for a great cause. Her blog is OK What Next Check it out and help if you can, okay?

Yesterday, Kristy and I went to the Maker Faire in San Mateo for the express purpose of seeing the Yarn Harlot She, as usual, did an amazing job of amusing several hundred knitters while also giving us scientific data on how knitting is good for you, not only emotionally but mentally building your brain. How cool is that! We were lucky enough to be seated in the first row and were then the first ones in line for her book signing. I took along the Marvellous Mitt to meet the travelling sock. Kristy has the picture, I will have to get it from her so I can post it on here soon. Afterwards, we wandered about the faire and saw some weird and wonderful things. Wonderful would be the demonstration on chocolate making from Scharffen Berger Chocolate followed by free samples. Weird .... well there were too many things to list. Let's start with a mention of people in little ... I don't know what they were but it was a parade of little cupcakes in a variety of flavors including one with giant size prozacs all over the top. There was a huge version of the old Mousetrap game, a robotic giraffe, some of the most off the wall attire you have ever seen and we didn't even get in to most of the buildings to see what else was there. However we did find an independent yarn dyer, Kelly from Ceallach Dyes, who uses solar power to set her dyes. We also found Allison from Imagiknits, the folks from Noe Knits and a couple of other places that had lovely yarn and roving to pet and fondle. I refrained from buying all but some Malabrigo that I bought and gave to Kristy for her hat project.

Last weekend was a totally non-knitting weekend but I had a ball! I went down to Ram Tap in Madera where I volunteered at my first ever CDE. A CDE is a combined driving event (with horses, not cars) that is based on three day eventing which you may have run across if you watch the Summer Olympics. On the first day they do dressage, meaning they have to perform a prescribed set of moves that is judged on accuracy, obedience of the horses, quality of gaits,etc. On Saturday, which is the first day I got there, they do marathon. They had a 14 minute trot section which covered several kilometres, followed by a walk section and a 10 minute halt which included a vet check to make sure the horses weren't overstressed. Then it was on to the hazards section. That was the most fun of all for the spectators. They had to go up hill and down dale, through lettered gates in prescribed patterns, splash through water hazards, weave through poles with balloons flying through them and make sure they didn't go off course during the process. I was lucky enough to pull a job as a score runner which meant I got to see all the hazards and goings on. On the final day, since they can't jump like in regular 3 day events, they do a cones course, which means driving through an obstacle course of cones with balls set on top of them. If the balls got knocked down they received penalty points. The width of the path between the cones varied for each entry depending on how wide the wheelbase of their cart was. My job on that day was cone setter. It was pretty amazing to watch the drivers maneuver their teams through the cones as there was only about 10 cms clearance on each side of the carriage. I got to see such a wide variety of horses that weekend, from tiny minis to a four in hand of Welsh ponies, to Friesians, Arabs, Morgans, and some breeds I had never even heard of. All in all, I had a great time and I am sure I will volunteer again.