Sometimes....

I could just scream with the inability of my camera to take a decent picture. My daughter received her first Letter in Academics and the pictures are blurry due to low lighting. I know how to set the camera. I know how to take a decent picture. But damn thing is pretty useless indoors if your moving or "IF" your moving outdoors! Very frustrating! very. Oh well my rant is now over and I can move on with the explanation of my couple of heaven spent days.

Here I am in all my winter wonder. 2 shirts, nylon jacket, my famous *uni-bomber* hoodie, jeans, chaps, leather boots (Harley, of course) guantlets, neck warmer, head band, I-pod and last but not least my full face helmet. I could barely move.

Questa, NM.

Yep. That's me on the bike.

Now in Taos, NM. Some of my roomies for the couple of days that I'm going to be there. Kerri and Susie.

A look out the back of the house and there is a little casita in back that also rents out. There were 3 ladies staying there.

My other two roomies, Linda and Mary. Spinning their roving into yarn. All 4 were trying to get me to start spinning. BUT! I proved stronger, for the moment, and was able to fight off all attempts. But they've invited me to go to "Spin Fest" with them. So we'll see how long my resolve holds out! I have to admit that it did look interesting but I can't seem to master the drafting!

My class room for the two days of the Intarsia lace class.

My seat.

Some of the other students. There were 9 of us in all.

For the most part we all got along quite well. Georgia, who sat next to me, and I called ourselves the *Special Ed* duo or corner of the class. We never were able to catch up to the other students where speed knitting was concerned. But we had a blast! and it rubbed off on the others. Where does it say that your not supposed to have fun?! Even our teacher seemed to enjoy the good natured ribs we handed back and forth freely, and even, I think, took us under her wing a bit more and even poked fun at us a bit.

There were boxes of yarn and books laid out on a table and needles and guage counters, etc throughout the room available for purchase. We were given a bag (pink one in my chair) to shop the room with for 2 days. We could freely change our minds, over and over and over. It was wonderful.

Our teacher. In black. Galina Khmeleva.

The remaining pictures are taken with my camera phone. I totally forgot my camera at the house and then realized that I really didn't know where it was anyway.

Yaks! These little ones were just precious.

Cashmere goats?

Alpaca's! This baby was so frightened.

There were Llama's there also, but there were so many people around them that they were flattening out their ears and readying to start spitting! I stayed back.

Look at the color of this roving!

and this!

Everywhere you looked there were people leaving with these types of bags, full of roving to be hand spun.

Some of the final products....

Angora rabbits were for sale....

This lady had hers out brushing them and I couldn't resist taking a picture. I discovered that people who own angora rabbits sell the fur for about $8 - $9 an ounce unprocessed, I believe. So these little buggars can pay for themselves.

A small woven rug that was for sale... I've been invited to attend next year with the ladies and I'm looking forward to going. It was a ton of fun and I think perhaps next year I'll stay for the whole thing. Yep, the whole thing. Who knows, by then I might be knitting faster!