Packwood Weekend

For those of you that missed it, we had a fantastic time...I think we should make this an annual event!

Friday Jeane, Judie, Nancy and Jessica drove up to Packwood and opened up the cabin we'd rented. The skies were blue and they could see Mt Rainier. A lot of knitting got done the first day, Judie and Nancy made steak salad for dinner and they served chocolate swirl cheesecake for dessert.

Jeane, Judie, baked goods and Nancy
Cathy, Jessica and Jeane again. Note in the photo that there are at least a dozen wine bottles to the right of the stove.

Cathy and I were up by 9am on Saturday. And in time for the second pot of coffee and a kitchen table filled with things like brownies, rhubarb crumble bars, lemon bread and various other goodies baked by Jessica. Judie was working on a sample sweater for a class she'll be teaching, Nancy was working on her two up on two circs socks in what I call Atomic Fireball, Jeane a silk sweater and Jessica on a very intriging sock pattern. Cathy brought along a baby sweater that she'd started something like 18 years ago. (let's see, her daughter Beth is 17 so that makes sense) She obviously got the award for longest WIP/UFO!! Nancy's Atomic Fireball socks.

After a lunch of assorted sandwiches (deli meats, cheeses,veggies etc) and more of Jessica's baked goods, we walked "downtown" to check out the action in Packwood. We'd lucked out. It was Mountain Fest Weekend (at least that's what all the signs said) and the weekend of the big Packwood Quilt Show!! The quilt show was held in the old school. I think there were maybe 100 quilts. Being that I am not a quilter, I was more fasinated by the school than I was the quilts. Till I came upon this one. Dave, I took this picture for you. The quilt was sewn in 1942 by a blind woman using a treadle sewing machine. I learned to sew on a treadle. And even today I can't sew a quilt as nice as the one she did. The Mountain Festival was held in the old gym/new community center next door. Packwood historical photos lined the walls, there was an espresso vendor, a couple woodworkers, a couple paint on wineglass type people and the highlight of the festival for Jessica and I ... Tami from
Rainbow Valley Alpacas (4270 Hwy 508 Cinebar, WA. 98533, Phone: (360) 985-7467) had a sales table set up. Jessica and I of course were up to our elbows in the bag of alpaca down, fought over the display of wool and wool/silk blend roving (not really ;-) ), fondled all the handspun and hand dyed yarns and then turned right back around for more. We each bought two bags of roving. After the Mountain Festival we wandered around in downtown Packwood and headed to the IGA store for the last little items we needed for happy hour. I'd inventoried the cabin larder and found we were only 2 ingrediants away from Bloody Marys!! So using my MIL's recipe that's what I served. Meanwhile we all kept knitting and spindling (Jessica). While we were fiber arting, I noticed Elkie's relatives were down by the river. Elkie (as I was calling her) was our protector Elk that hung over the cabin's great room. I slept right under her and was hoping we wouldn't have a earthquake that night because I know the Goat Rocks area always has little tremblers going on. 05/11/06 update: I guess Elkie is a boy. I was told unlike Moo-Cows, momma elk don't have horns. My duh.
Jeane entertained us by going out on the balcony and doing what she was calling her elk call. It may have actually been the mating call of the giraffe because it only served to confuse the male elk. None of them came running our way, only giving us WTF looks.

About 7 or 8 pm (we were having a good time so no one was really looking at the clock) we decided to go down to Cruiser's Pizza for dinner. Cruiser's had a advertisement for a shrimp dinner that sounded pretty good. I introduced most of the gang to one of my favorite ales - Drop Top!! I'm still dead tired this morning and may add more later... So for those of you that missed this, we had a great time and hope you can join us next time!! For those of us that went I had a fantastic weekend with all of you and got a decent amount of knitting done to boot. And Cathy, thanks for joining us this weekend and for for driving us up on Saturday. It was wonderful getting to know you better even if we have known each other for two years!