Well here we are again. It’s that time of year again, the Wintergrass festival. This year is one of great changes. The festival has had 16 years in Tacoma, and this year, its 17th year, it packed up and moved up north to Bellevue, for a variety of reasons. This was very traumatic to those of us who have been loyal fans for years. It’s always been convenient for us since we lived twenty minutes from the previous venue. As I’d already purchased tickets when they announced the move, we decided to go for it. Of course this means a three-night hotel stay, and figuring out pet arrangements, and a house-sitter. I went into this figuring nothing could be as good as the old Wintergrass. Bluegrass, at the upscale Hyatt, in upscale Bellevue? Hmmph. I was prepared to be disappointed.

Boy, was I wrong. This is a fabulous venue. All of the concert venues are in the hotel complex itself, instead of being scattered all over downtown Tacoma. There are literally dozens of good restaurants and shops within a few blocks, if you choose to leave the hotel. The staff at the Hyatt have just taken this on as a mission, and could not be more welcoming. The public spaces for vendors and the multitudes of jammers are much more spacious.

The festival runs Thursday night, Friday night, and all day Saturday and Sunday. We had tickets to the Seattle Symphony on Thursday night, so we missed the first evening. Last night was terrific. My favorite group from yesterday was the Infamous Stringdusters, but a close second was the Steep Canyon Rangers. My only complaint so far is that there are too many fine artists here, and it is impossible to see them all. Oh, and one of us forgot to put the camera cord in the bag, so there will be no Wintergrass photos posted to the blog for now.

I also brought numerous knitting projects with me on the trip. You can’t have too many knitting projects when you’re away from home for a few days. So far all I’ve worked on is a spindle project. I’ve gotten most of the way through a half a pound of natural-colored Blue Faced Leicester over the past few months, and I brought the spindle and fiber to the Ballroom with me last night. If I thought knitting was an oddity here, you should see the looks I get while spinning in between music sets. I’m certain that I’m the only one with a spindle here, but I’m hoping to start a trend. I’ll have John get photos so I can post them later, when we get that camera cord. We’re off to find breakfast, then to stalk some banjo men.

There are a lot of wonderful benefits to blogging that I’ve discovered in the last almost six years. The most incredible, and unexpected bonus is all the lovely people I’ve gotten to know over the last few years. Some sadly remain only “imaginary friends”, as my husband calls all of you. I’ve been lucky enough to meet some of you in real life as well. Today was one of those days. I got to meet Jennifer, AKA the Major Knitter today. I don’t remember when I first discovered her blog, but we’ve become two of those imaginary friends over the years. She’s a great knitter, and a good writer. She and her husband were in town on business for a few days, so we arranged for a play date for the two of us today. The weather cooperated beautifully, and we had a stellar sunny, clear, and warm day together.

We hit a couple of yarn stores, went to the Seattle Art Museum for a couple of hours, had lunch, and gossiped. And compared knitting projects:

If you’ll all remember, we’re both doing the Faery Ring sweater. The Major is a bit ahead of me. We noodled a bit over the sleeve issue. The pattern is written in two size ranges, and the one we’re using isn’t finished, so we have to make up the sleeve instructions. After a little inspection of the pattern photos, I think we have a plan. Hopefully this won’t involve too much ripping and swearing.

Here’s another photo. We saw this funny tree outside a house on the way to lunch.

The birdhouses were just a hoot. You can tell what a beautiful day it was here! Thanks for a great day, Jennifer!

Oops. I forgot to post for almost a month. I blame it on stupid Facebook games. Somehow I got sucked into both Farmville and Mafia Wars, and not much exciting has happened around here since. This weekend I plowed up the crops and I’m giving up the farm and the family (the Mafia family, not the real one) for Lent.

In honor of all the regained knitting time, I started a new project. Actually, this falls in the category of “Finish It Or Frog It“. I bought some lovely yarn a couple of years ago from Shelly of Butternut Woolens. It’s a 50% silk, 50% merino DK blend, in a gorgeous ice blue. Right after I got it, I cast on and started a ribbed scarf, got about 6 inches done, and just wasn’t loving the pattern-yarn combo. So it has been stuck in a bag for a couple of years. This morning I dragged it out, ripped it out, and started something new.

Here’s the old:

Here’s the new:

The pattern is Baktus, and I’m doing a modification that has rows of yarnover holes every 8 rows, on a garter background. It’s as simple as it gets, but will be a much better match for this lovely yarn. I will end up with a small triangular shawl out of this. The beauty of this pattern is that you can use any yarn. You start from one narrow end of the shawl or scarf, knit until you have used half your yarn, then decrease away to the other tip. It will be perfect for those handspun skeins. I read about this pattern over on Knitorious, go check out what Vicki is doing with sock yarn.

There are more New Beginnings, and one or two Finishings, but I’ll save them for another post!