How I Spent My Summer “Vacation”

I had a great summer, how ’bout you? I did quite a bit of traveling, visiting upstate New York, San Francisco, Toronto and New Orleans with Miss Laura. We started in Sterling, NY with the annual Sterling Renaissance Faire where we played dress up and feasted on delicious harvests of fruits and vegetables, fish and fowl. We virtually lived outdoors the entire time! I thought I’d never get clean!

Then off we flew to beautiful San Francisco. Wow! It was my first trip to SF and I’m completely captivated! The city herself is unforgettable and deserves every song and poem written about her, but the surrounding territory is just breathtaking! First stop was the Cotati Accordion Festival which was utterly charming. While in Cotati, I finally had the opportunity to meet the super talented designer behind Boneyard Beanies, Heather Graef. We’ve been friends online for 7 or 8 years, but never had a chance to meet face to face. I’m so glad we did! Heather is doing some extraordinary things in Sausalito, sewing, bag making, crochet, graphic design, even dolls and paper doll collections!

On the advice of friends, we spent the second day driving across some of the most stunning landscape I’ve ever seen to the coast and the legendary Highway 1. Stinson Beach, home to Joan Baez and repository for the ashes of Janis Joplin, was part of this day as was a nail-biting drive up to the top of Mount Tamelpais (incredible!) We capped it off by finding a great little restaurant just off the beach. I love the California aesthetic.

Monday was a wine-dipped day by the pool at the Coppola Winery. (Oh how we suffer!)

Once in San Fran, we did all the normal first-timer stuff like Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf. A highlight was a sunset cruise of the bay and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Though it was freezing cold and windy, it was a seriously lovely evening activity.

We packed up the car (and I mean PACKED the car! There was not a single square inch of space to spare!) and road tripped to Toronto, enjoying Cape Vincent and the Frontenac Islands via the ferry system. We boarded 4 ferries in four days!

It was Laura’s first time in the Big Smoke and she found it very beautiful. She describes it as a “city build of sea glass”. Now, I’m pretty proud of Toronto, but I never thought of it that way. Isn’t it great to see your home town in a whole new way? I had a ton of work to do getting swatches out on deadline, but we did spend some time in Kensington Market, one of my favorite of Toronto’s neighborhoods and a day touring the clean, quaint beauty of Toronto Islands.

I have been knitting like a house on fire and soon I shall be able to share some of those projects with you! In the meantime, I’m off to make my annual “Big List” which is the back bone of my plan for the year. More on that soon!