Well it's been a couple weeks and it's time to share more ice festivals and my knitting souvenirs. My man likes to remind me that these weekends are
not a couples retreat. I know this. He's a very dedicated man, yet I don't think he realizes that I love to travel and check out new places just as much as he does. It's just an awesome bonus that I get to visit all these splendid yarn shops =).
Now last weekend,
Ligonier was our stop. My man's birthday just happened to be one of those days, which I think is very fitting.
I drove up Saturday morning (it's usually a short drive, but if you remember 2 weekends ago, the weather was having a lot of fun). I found him carving a cake! I'm not going to go into detail how many times people asked both of us what this cake meant... It was an ice carving folks, enjoy the ice carvings!
My handsome then went to the center of
The Diamond to carve a rooster this year! It was very cute.
Hard at work he was. I think he worked on it for 2 hours. Had some help in the end to finish it off. Look how nice it turned out!
I think he did a fabulous job =).
The other carving that I absolutely thought was adorable were the turtles. Here is James working on them.
They had a lot of detail and I think more than he originally anticipated. They turned out lovely though.
I like to get awesome pictures of the ice getting torched. I think I did a good job with the fire being captured, haha.
Now I didn't get there in time to capture Rob and Thomas I believe, who worked on the throne, but look how fitting it is for all of us! Haha ;-)
Ligonier is the closest festival to the ice house, so it makes it super easy for family to come down. Handsome's mother and sister came down for the 1st day and enjoyed themselves until they got frozen, haha. EVERYONE was frozen by the end of the day. It's a long day up there.
Thomas here just looks so ex-tactic to be torching the hearts. =) BIG SMILES!!
I just love when I capture all of the motions. Look how covered in snow he gets! Hehe, I love it.
Old man turned out great. Lots of help all around. They are all a great team. Ryan was trying to act like his superior and it worked for the papers! But we all know better ;-).
Joe and Chris worked hard on the Lighthouse. It turned out quite lovely.
This last carving of the day was a lot of team work and just look at the dedication! Hehe, I love my man.
It's a pheasant. Now let's break from all the ice and talk about knitting. Up in Ligonier they have an adorable little yarn shop called
Bo-Peep Fine Yarns. Truly, if you are a knitter and you love a good yarn shop where you can sit by the fire, this shop has
2 fires! I actually went to the shop twice in one day. I meant to go up Sunday too, but it took even longer to get up there Sunday because of the roads not really being cleared. I watched the speed carving competition. But again, this is about knitting! This shop has a great variety and they were very helpful. We're now friends on Ravelry and I was so inspired by
this shawl.
The yarn they used was
Silky Wool and I so wanted to get it, but I found
Tosh Sock and I can never pass up on more of that addictive stash substance, haha. I'll come back to this shawl and Silky Wool though, no worries.
Luna felt left out so she is posing with the yarn, colorway MALA and some
Addi Turbo needles I picked up. The yarn has so many earthy tones in it that I would love to have some sort of sock pattern filled with leaves or something to capture the earthy tones with an earthy inspired pattern. The search begins.
Well last Saturday was Handsome's birthday and we went OUT! This restaurant in
Lawrenceville called
CURE. It was
delicious! We started off with a large appetizer of cured meat (get it, cure? ;-) I'm so corny).
Look how excited he is (and how handsome, I just love his smile. Him in general ;))! Haha, we were all excited. The sad thing is we all couldn't sit together, and I didn't get a big group picture, but here were the guys and then the girls at our table.
An adorable group and it was really nice to catch up with friends we don't get to see that often. Our tables were pretty great at sharing food as well. Me and Hope tried the Skate, and if you have never heard or tried it, TRY IT! It is a fish that taste like scallops. SO GOOD! My man and one of his besties, Ribs, had a duck dish and thoroughly enjoyed it. Bob had the squid pasta and it looked divine. Then Taylor had something that had an egg on her dish, it was good as well. And if we were not stuffed enough we all got dessert to share as well! We managed to finish it somehow, haha. It was a great night for sure. =)
The next day was more ice carvings though! I got there really just in time. They all started carving and I cheered my man on hard, but had to take in all of the sculptures and really see how the competition was doing. My man did a Unicorn. Ernie did a classic Snowflake. Joe did the popular Mockingjay (from the Hunger Games). And Rob did some Deer with heart inspiration I believe. Now I really did take lots of laps.
Started off with watching my man. They had only 30 minutes to do the carving.
Ernie was carving away at that snowflake! It went so fast but it turned out just lovely.
Rob's section was
rather crowded, haha. He gets a lot of family that comes up for the speed carving competition. It turned out lovely, but I'm sad I didn't get any of him actually carving! Haha
Joe did a fantastic job. And I really thought he'd get a lot of votes for popularity.
And here is the finished Unicorn by my man. It was actually the first time he carved a Unicorn! A lot of the crowd was impressed. He's been carving for 14 years. Well I bet you are all wondering who won right?
Drum roll please!!!!
My man did!!! WITH 92 VOTES!!! Yeah, it was a landslide =)
Now I want to continue but there is a lot of things that happened in Chambersburg so I must continue that another time. Hopefully tomorrow night, but not sure if I'll be able too. I'll try.
Until next time, <3 Carly.
Though I will leave you with our after ice festival dinner. This picture just captures us beautifully =)
