Remember Me?

Dear Swatchy,

I haven't forgotten you! I hope you didn't think I got lost in the wilds of Africa. I've been living with a wonderful family, and they took me to see the Zambezi River and Victoria Falls in Zambia. I think I'm the first Swatchy to get a ride in a helicopter, too! Wheeeeee! I hope you like these pictures! (and don't worry - they didn't let me get wet at the falls)

Kisses,
SwatchGrrl

Where Are They Now?

We've been working on this project for less than a year, but many Swatchys are already out there! Let's check up on them:

1. Swatchy lives in Winnipeg with Noricum, and may go to Toronto and New Brunswick in the coming months.
2. Swatchy C lives in Virginia with Eliza, and will be off to Scotland this summer.
3. Swatchy Hugz lives in Pennsylvania with Celeste. I suspect Hugz may be visiting Cape Cod at some point this summer.
4. Swatchy McSwatchypants lives in New Jersey with Knittah's parents. He is just back from a second trip tp Costa Rica.
5. After conquering Rhinebeck and New York City, SwatchGrrl moved to Africa.
6. Swatchy Bean went to Las Vegas and then moved to California.
7. Swatchy McPhee met the Yarn Harlot!

In the Swatchy Queue are Swatchy Mama, iSwatchy, and Cycle Swatchy. I need to get knitting!

Off to Africa

SwatchGrrl is off to Africa! She will be living with our friend Njuru in Lilongwe, Malawi. Njuru is from Kenya, but he and his family are in Lilongwe, where Njuru works on a public health program. I hope that we'll see pictures and hear stories about this far off place, so different from home!

Knittah is Floored

I am floored/weak in the knees/faint/overcome with the vapors/verklempt.

I don't think I can adequately describe how exciting and fabulous it is to see all these pictures of SwatchGrrl and sheep and fiber and knit bloggers. Seeing and reading all of Noricum's Rhinebeck posts makes me so happy! It is not the same as being at the festival, but it is pretty darn close!

Fairs and festivals (craft fairs, quilt shows, etc) have always been one of my favorite things to do. I remember going to my first arts and crafts fair when I was growing up in Buffalo, NY. I don't remember the name of it (Mom? Help me out?), but I remember the euphoria I felt at seeing booth after booth of lovely (and not-so-lovely) handmade things. I always feel so inspired after a show, and I just want to go home and make stuff!

In my mind, Rhinebeck is the holy grail of yarn shows. Well, so is Maryland Sheep and Wool. But anyway, just the prospect of barn after barn of yarn and fiber and sheep and knitters . . . happy sigh. I always assumed that going to such a show was out of reach for me now because of CFIDS. Travel and crowds and trying to navigate a wheelchair on bumpy ground? This is a recipe for a severe symptom flare, guaranteed to keep me in bed for a week or more.

Thanks to Noricum, Rhinebeck is no longer a pipe dream. I truly feel like part of me made it to Rhinebeck. SwatchGrrl, my wool-and-acrylic alterego, made an excellent stand-in. I was there not just in spirit, but in fiber. All of the folks who posed with SwatchGrrl (and I will be visiting each of your blogs): thank you for being so friendly! I feel like we met, in a way.

One of the many curses of the severity of my CFIDS is isolation. I only leave my house once or twice a week. I rarely meet new people. I talk to the same friends on the phone, see someone in my family every few weeks, and rely on my husband to be my social representative at functions I cannot attend (my cousin's high school graduation, for example). If not for the internet, I would be connected to the world only through television. Yuck. Knitting websites, blogs and podcasts have been my virtual stitching group. I've relied upon them to learn new techniques, find great yarn, and skim the surface of the knitting community.

All that has changed. Swatchy and SwatchGrrl (and the Swatchys to come) take my place in the world. I did go to Rhinebeck. I did pet sheep and fondle fiber and meet cool people and drool over everything knitting-related. Noricum, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for proposing this whole thing in the first place, for carrying SwatchGrrl and taking such wonderful pictures. We have never met in person, but your service and kindness to me makes you one of my very dear friends.

From Rhinebeck

Swatchgrrl and a Purse

Dear Knittah,

Why, oh why, didn't you give me an allowance? I really wanted to buy this lovely purse, but I didn't have the money. I tried to get Noricum to buy it for me, but she said it was too expensive. Expensive? Sheesh! This purse is a *value* at $475... look at all that felting, quilting, and beadwork! It looks just like a miniature reef! If you want expensive, I'd recommend taking a look at that $32 spindle Noricum bought herself.

Oh well, at least I had a lovely day, and got to meet lots of nice bloggers. They braided my hair, and complemented me on my lovely heart. I really like knit bloggers, they're so nice. (Well, except when they won't buy me new purses!)

Love,
Swatchgrrl

PS: Noricum says to tell you that blogger seems to be working now, and she's finished posting her Rhinebeck report. I bet she left out the purse, didn't she? She also said to tell you she'll be posting more at her own blog, if you're interested.

Fiber... and Bloggers!

Here's Swatchgrrl enjoying one of the fiber booths:


However, this time in the barn, we discovered bloggers!

Margene and Cara:


Anne (I didn't ask about the spelling, sorry), Sandy and Cara:


Vicki:


Mel and Norma:


Jenny:


Nishanna:


Ah, what a lovely day! I wish you were able to come.


(One of the bloggers Ann braided Swatchgrrl's hair, but now I can't remember who.)

Sheep and Goats and More, Oh My!

Swatchgrrl got along famously with the ruminants. Here's a selection of photos (I'll put a few more on my personal blog too):









The bunnies seemed less interested:


Next post: Back in the fiber barns!

Rhinebeck

Whoa... did anyone get the name of that festival that hit me? Before I start blogging, I want to say in my defence that I was under the influence of fiber... I'd like to apologize in advance for any bad/missing photos, forgotten names, and so forth.

First I met Ina (Jersey Knitter) and another blogger, but my head wasn't screwed on right... I didn't get a photo of either with Swatchgrrl, and I forgot the name of the second! Sheesh. Plus I forgot that Ina made the amazing candle tree out of incredibly fine yarn. I was kicking myself several hours later when my brain woke up a bit.

I think we came in a back entrance or something, because the first barn I ended up in was apparently out of the way. I met Amy of Knitty.com, but she was alone, so I couldn't mark my square. (Again, no photo!) There was another blogger who's name and photo I didn't get at the time, but luckily I bumped into him again later.

J kept wandering off to see other things, then coming back to check on me. After a couple of hours, when I had made my way through about three quarters of the barn, he said "you know, there's more barns of yarn like this one." "More?" "Lots more. Let me give you a tour."

He took me briefly into the building labelled "crafts", and explained that it was mostly food, plus some people spinning. "Is that fudge I smell? Do you want fudge?" We left that building with $5 of chocolate fudge. Mmmmm!

"First of all," he said, "if you need to use the ladies room, follow the yellow lines on the pavement." Although I later proved spectacularly bad at following the yellow lines ("Where are you going? The washrooms are this way... follow the line!"), I did get to use the washroom. Both then, and several times later.

"Now I'll show you the marsupials," he said. Marsupials? Aren't those kangaroos, and other things with pouches? Doesn't he realize sheep aren't marsupials? Sure enough, there were marsupials:

There were some non-marsupials there too:

But by now I was able to tell this wasn't all the animals... especially since they were such an odd collection.

Then we headed off to the next wool barn. We passed a man making brooms (neat!) on the way:

This next barn was two levels, and J had to pull me away. "Yarn!" I said. "There are more," he said. "More"? "Yes, more. Many more."

At this point we ran into Togbean:

She's fun! And friendly! And all together and collected, and stuff. She even had stickers to mark herself on other blogger's bingo cards! Some of it wore off onto me, and I managed to get my first photo of Swatchgrrl with a blogger. :)

After this, J frog-stepped me past something like *three* *ROWS* of fiber barns! *whimper!* At the far end I introduced Swatchgrrl to a friendly llama:

And then we hurried over to barn 39 to meet Stitchy:


Okay... to prevent this post from becoming too monsterous, I'm going to break it up into several.

Rhinebeck

Must sleep... will blog tomorrow.

Knittah on MOMA

I'll be honest, I have bever been a fan of modern art. I just don't really "get it". But seeing SwatchGrrl at MOMA? That's just fantastic. I especially like Noricum's favorite wilderness painting. And SwatchGrrl's visit to MOMA is the perfect example of why I need to send my knitting where I can't go.

First, let's talk about the line. 20 minutes in line? I would be on the verge of passing out if I tried to stand that long. I usually rely on a wheelchair when I do go to places like that. I don't know if it is a touch of orthostatic intolerance, or just weakness, but a 20 minute line would do me in. Second, the crowd looked huge! At least to me. And this is the other thing that is very difficult for me now. I am easily overwhelmed by sensory overload, so just being around a lot of people is difficult. Going to the mall or the movies (or the worst place: the airport) plain wears me out. If I get too overwhelmed, I feel faint and dizzy,even nauseous. The energy required to filter and process lots of sensory input quickly depletes my reserve.

I still love museums. In my healthy life, I revelled in them. Give me a museum, and I would be entertained for hours. My funniest museum story is being at the Louvre in Paris when I was 16. I was an exchange student for a month that summer. One day I was sitting on a bench in the museum, reloading my camera, and a very American couple (we're talking plaid pants here) sat down next to me and started talking. I pretended not to understand them. It wouldn't surprise me if I had some English language tag on my backpack that gave me away, but I enjoyed pretending to be French.

I do still go to museums, but rarely. The last time was in February of this year when my husband took me to the National Museum of the American Indian. I used my wheelchair, and it was exhausting. But it was worth it.

MOMA

Dear Nori,

Today Noricum and J took me to MOMA, the museum of modern art in New York. (The museum is free Friday nights from 4-8, so it's not like they spent a fortune on me.) However, free or not, it was quite interesting.

The line to get in was pretty long:

Noricum had some crochet socks to keep her busy, but J and I just had to twiddle our thumbs. Luckily the line moved pretty fast (19 minutes to get in), so it wasn't too bad.

There was lots of neat art in MOMA... I'd use up all our flickr space if I tried to upload photos of everything, so here's a small selection. (Oh, and sorry about somewhat blurry photos: we weren't allowed to use a flash, and Noricum has a fairly basic digital camera.)

Noricum was partial to the wilderness paintings such as this one:

The Van Gogh's were amazing, but you've seen a million photos of them already I'm sure.

This one is for Knittah's friend who likes colour:


Noricum and I both thought this one might make a nice Swatchy design:







I wasn't sure how this one stood up!

Noricum started babbling on about "tensegrity theory"... do you understand her when she gets like this?

Hmmm... looks like I've got lots of places to visit!


String!

String is like yarn, and I understand yarn! ;)

This is not a library.

In fact, it appears to be a negative of a library.

We picked up some groceries on the way home, and J cooked us a lovely meal of pasta with asparagus (leftover from lunch), flounder, and artichokes. Oh! And we had crackers with marinated mushrooms as an appetizer. Very nice! Did you get to enjoy any of J's meals?

Well, it's getting late now. Gotta go!

Swatchgrrl

Swatchgrrl in Manhattan

Swatchgrrl has made it safely to Manhattan! Here I'm introducing her to my sweetie, J.

Had Swatchgrrl been around last night, I would have shown her Rockefeller Center. Instead, I showed her the photos I took. Perhaps I'll take her for a visit one day.





(At the bottom of this photo there's a large, polished stainless steel sculpture that's reflecting the building behind me, which is also the same building in the first photo.)


This is a backlit bas-relief we saw on Fifth Avenue.

Although she did miss Rockefeller Center, Swatchgrrl will have lots of fun with me this weekend!