The Annual Festival of the Anniversary of My Birth

 This past week, I was in Chesterfield, VA, visiting my mother and sister.  It's an 8 hour drive, so to break it up, I stopped at a wonderful place, Black Dog Salvage, in Roanoke, VA.  Have you seen the show Salvage Dawgs on DIY network?  http://www.diynetwork.com/salvage-dawgs/show/index.html 
Well, I am a big fan.  I even followed their trucks through my neighborhood--some call that stalking--when they were salvaging stuff from an old house on Washington Pike, here in Knoxville.
  I brought Bella, because they have their own dog, Sally, and the place is pet-friendly.  Two of the main guys in the show, Tay and Ted, talked to me and Tay took Bella's and my picture.  It was so fun!  The store is fun, too, full of great stuff salvaged from old houses and buildings.
  The day after I got to Chesterfield was my birthday, but I didn't quite get the princess treatment.  Mom had just had her second cataract surgery, so she was the royalty in the morning.  We went antiquing after lunch, then came back to Mom's to make the celebratory dinner. Yes, I made my own cake, because I'm just too critical to let anyone else do it.  Alas, my mother's baking tools are primitive, and I faced some challenges.  I will remember to bring my tool box in November for the 80th anniversary of someone else's birth.
 


So, the cake was a little...rough.  Yummy, though, and Liz grilled steaks.  We had fresh tomatoes and cucumbers to go with it, and I made way too much dip for chips.

 The next morning, Bella and I had coffee outdoors at day  break.  Bella kept a keen eye out for the Gang of Five, a bold band of deer that roam my sister's neighborhood looking for delicious gardens.  Bella completely missed the one that was only feet behind me, but no one got up the driveway!

And what would a visit to Mom's be without a yarn excursion?  We hit two stores in one hour on Cary Street in Richmond.  The first one was not that nice, with not that nice people working in it, but the second one is always our favorite, The Yarn Lounge, http://theyarnlounge.com/.  I love that place!  So much selection, such nice folks working there, and always a few people just sitting and knitting.  I bought the fuchsia yarn at the not-so-nice place, but only because I fell in love with it!  The green, which didn't photograph well and is actually a beautiful shade of sage, I bought at the Yarn Lounge.  I also found a bead store and started the cover project on the latest issue of Knitting Traditions, one of my favorite magazines.  If you go to the Interweave website, you can buy the digital edition now and download it.  I downloaded it to my phone and used the page on my phone the whole time I was knitting it in Richmond.  The link is:  http://www.interweavestore.com/knitting-traditions-fall-2013  It's so beautiful.
  What else is missing?  Oh, yeah!  A trip to the plant nursery!  We went to one Mom said she'd always wanted to go to, Cross Creek Nursery in Chester.

 It's a huge nursery, but we trekked the whole thing in the rain, looking for the perfect flowers to go in a garden I was planning for Mom's new yard.  She spotted Canna Lilies. We got three.  The next day, I didn't feel up to planting, so Saturday, my last day there, I had to work hard.  I dug out all the crab and wire grass, and millions of some kind of bulb, repositioned the cement borders, went to Home Depot for more flowers and got it all done before dinner.  It was a hot day.  Notice the beer.  But I didn't open it until the garden was completely done.  Boy, did that go down nicely!

But now I'm back in Knoxville, and I made it to Norris yesterday.  I finished the second half of the first eggplant blooming leaf, as well as five repeats of the center design.  Being back at Bertha was a bit challenging on the hip and ankle muscles, and I feel it today!  I'm still madly in love with Lee's Surrender, and can't wait to see what the blue looks like next!
  Time to jump in the shower and wash work away, then maybe see if I can't coerce Johann D to stop breaking threads.  If I can't, I guess I'll have to wind that warp onto bobbins for weft.  180 ends, doubled, 9 yards each... ugh!  That's a lot of winding!  Hope your weaving adventures go more smoothly!  Happy Weaving!
Maggie