My creation
Originally uploaded by purlingswine

Last week we celebrated our first year as shop owners! It seems impossible that it has been a full year already, but there you have it. And it has been a great year indeed. Much more work than either of us anticipated, but also many more laughs too.

This picture is of a bucket that is kept on our winding station. We use it to gather up the little bits that get snipped when prepping a skein to be wound – it is holding the entire year’s worth! After I took this picture, I loaded handfuls into empty suet feeders to give the birds some nesting materials.

IMAG0743
Originally uploaded by purlingswine

check out the fantastic poncho that D#2 whipped up over her winter break! I’m kvelling over here!

true confessions: the yarn is not from the shop. gasp! HOWEVER it was bought two years ago in Rhinebeck, long before any shop was on the horizon! It is Brook’s Farm Riata and the pattern is a DROPS design.

another true confession: I am a the fiber version of Mamma Rose. I just hacked into her Ravelry account to upload the project information.

That is JOHNFALCONE carrying my Norm Hall Wheel to the car!

I can hardly believe it!! And so many things had to fall in place to even make it happen. Cara joked that it took a village to buy me this wheel, and that is the complete truth!

• First of all, Norm Hall had to make it. 
• Then the first person he sold it to in 2005 had to put it back out there. 
•  Then I had to be walking through barn 35 with Kathleen on Sunday morning for her to stop and say I should ask if any of the wheels were for sale. (which by Sunday they never ever are – for that matter by 10:00 am on Saturday they usually are all spoken for). 
• Then Cara had to have a check on her to actually pay for the wheel, since I didn't have that much cash and Norm hall doesn't do plastic. Thankfully Cara extended me a line of credit and handed me a signed blank check! 
• Then Kathleen had to have her van at the festival since that wheel did not fit in my car. 
• Then Lisa let me borrow her van so I could go and get the wheel from Kathleen's house since I didn't want to wait until Monday to have it in my clutches! 
• And of course JOHNFALCONE had to be Mr. Wonderful and say go for it!

You will not believe who stopped by the shop on Saturday …  California Connie!  Connie and I go way back, but I didn't realize how way until I did a search for her name on my purlingswine/wordpress site.  2005!  I suspect that if I could find my original Typepad site it would be even further.  Five + years and five years full of big changes!  It was so great to meet Connie in person – it is a funny experience to catch up with a friend you've never met and one that sounds exactly like your cousin Barbara!

The Blog, The Blog and how it's changed my life.  We all have said it over and over, yet it never ceases to amaze – blogging has enriched my world!