The Artist Within – A Homegrown Shop in a Homegrown Town

During my time in southern Colorado, my momma and I made sure to visit the Local Yarn Store (which also happens to be the cutest little locally grown store around).  The Artist Within is a yarn store, jewelry boutique, button and bead outlet and hosts a number of other locally produced goods. 

Carol, the owner, is one of the nicest, sweetest, most fun people to talk to!  She is passionate about her wares and her yarns (and all the other goods) are all locally sourced and produced in the USA.  She carries yarns that I’ve never seen – some from local spinners and dyers, and some from other small mills around the country.

As picky as I am, I usually leave yarn stores empty handed.  This time, that was impossible.  I couldn’t decide between the beautiful yellow of this wool and the crazy soft purpley-grey of this alpaca/merino blend (the product of a local color master).

The yellow isn’t the only beautiful color from Shepherd’s Wool, my momma had visited the store previously and shown off the wonderful red/black and on our return trip, she came home with the grey too.

The purpley-grey color I came home with is a locally sourced, colored and spun Alpaca/Merino Blend from Fiber Tales, a local Durango yarn producer. 

If you’re in the area, I really, highly, recommend visiting this little shop and saying hello!

Spending Some Time Up North

Late last week (or early in the weekend, depending how you look at it) I packed up the dogs and headed up to visit some family.

Saturday morning my Dad and I went for a training run (11 miles!) in the canyons nearby.  You may recall I signed up for the Leadville Heavy Half Marathon on June 29th.  Both my Dad and I are running it and I am so happy that we can do it together! 

After the run and an appropriate breakfast (Girlscout cookies and beer, anyone?), I drove even farther north and have been spending the past few days in Pagosa Springs visiting my mom and her dogs.  Having 5 canines who don’t always get along is almost difficult, but we’ve got plenty of knitting to keep us preoccupied!

What have you been up to?  Did you do anything fun this weekend?

It’s Been Busy Around Here!

In no particular order:

• I ran a 5k with my Sister in Law on Sunday and she/we rocked it!
• We hosted a BBQ to celebrate my Dad’s birthday Sunday afternoon
• I got pretty flowers
• We picked up a new foster dog named Chadwick since First Foster Duncan found his forever home!
• I taught part 1 of my latest color work class at Yarn & Coffee
• I finished that sweater I was working on (and it’ll get it’s own post later this week)

Whew, it’s been a busy one and I’m going to spend today trying to catch up.  What have you been up to lately?

What I Learned In Austin

The other weekend I traveled to Austin, TX again to hang out at Circuit of the Americas and watch the Moto GP race.  While in Austin I learned a few things.

• If you don’t have cowboy boots on when you leave the airport, you better have some on by the time you reach the city.  There are plenty of shops to remedy this situation on the way.
• BBQ is a food group.
• You have to question the sanity of people who participate in a sport that combines high speed, two-wheeled vehicles and knee-pads.
• Your truck isn’t big enough.
• Neither is your hair.
• You can’t undo a cowboy boot tan.
• They make bikes my size.
• There is this week-long event in San Antonio called “Fiesta” in the spring.
• The River Walk in San Antonio during “Fiesta” is unreachable.
• It’s going to take a while to even out all of the tan lines I received and putting on sun screen every 5 minutes doesn’t help when you’re this pale.

Hiking La Luz

This past Saturday my guy and some friends and I hiked up the Sandias on an iconic trail named La Luz.  We didn’t exactly start at the trailhead and we didn’t exactly land at the Tram, so we added a few miles to the hike which ended up being about 12.5 miles by the time we rode the Tram down.

This was my first time doing this hike, and there is a race held on the trail every year too!

We gained over 3,000 ft in elevation over 12.5 miles and trekked over many a switchback, plenty of rock slides, snow, ice and even staircases in the more steep areas.

Views of Albuquerque were abundant and the city is much prettier from the sky.

Have you ever hiked this trail before?  Have you been out in nature recently?  Don’t forget to wear proper shoes, as this warning sign reminded us at the top of the trail:

A Snow Trip!

This past weekend my guy, myself and some friends drove up to Southern Colorado to spend the day playing at Wolf Creek.  The drive up on Saturday saw some interesting weather – we don’t see fog in the southwest ever often and it was a pretty thing to drive though and I think the juxtaposition with the quintessential red rocks in the area was really pretty.

The drive to the mountain on Sunday saw more interesting, low-laying clouds like this one over a pretty blue barn set in a picturesque meadow just south of Pagosa Springs.

I knit on the drive, of course, working on my Candy Skein design which I’ll talk a bit more about tomorrow! (Yes, I sit cross-legged in the car most of the time)

What did you do this weekend?

A Weekend Cruise

This past Saturday my guy and I took his little toy car (Honda S2000) out for a cruise through the mountains to the Pajarito Skiesta – an end-of-the-season brew fest of sorts.  We wanted to make a fun day out of it so we took the top down and ventured down the scenic route, stopping at a few places along the way that we’d never visited before.

Our first stop was at the Ponderosa Valley Vineyard, we’d seen a billboard for it, didn’t know there were any vineyards in the area and after determining it wasn’t too far off the path, we stopped in for some tastings and chit chat. 

The vineyard had all sorts of ribbons on the walls and though this raised my hopes before tasting, I wasn’t disappointed by the selection!  We brought home a red and a white after sampling a few of their local creations.

We then traveled a tad off the beaten path to the Gilman Tunnels where we stopped to take some pictures and admire the scenery. 

I didn’t find the plethora of graffiti unpleasant – the bright colors I thought brought a urban friendliness to the rock.

The rest of the day was spent with family, friends, tasty beer and food.  Did you do anything fun this weekend?

 

Busy Week

This week I’ve spent visiting my parents and although it’s been relaxing, it’s also been pretty busy!

I helped my mom start her own Sunny Grey Skies Shawl:

And she’s using some gorgeous, soft, wonderful angora yarn from Bijou Basin that we picked up at Yarn and Coffee.

We’ve eaten delicious foods, shopped, talked, sipped, walked and caught up.

I’ve put out the call for more test knitters for a new design

I registered for the Leadville Heavy Half Marathon this June (right after TNNA, crazy? probably), so you can expect a bit of running content in the coming months I imagine…

And I got my hair cut for the first time in a few years (not super short, just trimmed really).

The weekend is shaping up to be a busy one as well, but fun I’m sure!  What have you been up to?  Do you have fun weekend plans too?

 

A Sunday Cruise

I know it’s not Sunday, but the WIPs that I have right now I can’t show you (except for this picture….sorta).

This past Sunday my guy and I went with some other folks for a cruise through the El Malpais Conservation Area to a little town called Pie Town.  There were about 20 cars in our troupe, so stopping for gas or at the Good Pie Cafe generated a fair amount of interest from passersby (most of the cars had also been enhanced in some way, so I’m sure that worked towards the same end).

After grabbing some Green Chile Apple Pie, we were paid a visit by The Stool Bus (hilarious, for sure). 

La Ventana, a natural arch, was a neat thing to see, especially in New Mexico!  It was kind of like an arch-cave, super cool.

Of course I took some knitting (you don’t expect me to sit in the car and do *nothing* do you?), most of the roads were pretty bumpy and this was really the only clear photo I got.

This is my second Braided Slouch that I mentioned last week.  It’s since been completed and should show up here on Friday if I can get decent pictures of it.

Where was the last place you ventured out to?

In A New Place

The Happenings of Moving to a New City:

• Leave the house on an errand run thinking “Ok, I’m gonna go explore and learn my new place!” but only getting exactly what you need from the store then rushing home because you don’t know where you are.
• Take the dog for a walk around the block, making the walk short by taking all of the lefts because you don’t want to get lost.
• Run errands to places you know how to get to but miss turns and take it as an opportunity to learn the neighborhood, because, Hey, you live here now and might as well learn the neighborhoods.
• Spend at least twice as long (possibly three or four times) in the grocery store as normal trying to find your basic staples because you aren’t familiar with this one.
• Take time to look at all of the architecture around and spend more time looking up than you normally spend because right now, it’s novel.

Have you moved recently?  I find that, even though I travel quite a bit, moving still pulls out different actions and mental processes in me than just visiting a place does.