New York City?!

Late last week, I read that Steph Gorin of LOOP (I mentioned her in my last blog post) was having a spin in on Sunday. Sunday?! Hmm. I wondered...

After much last minute planning, I was able to book a round trip Megabus ticket from Baltimore to New York, arranged to stay with my cousin Hillary who lives in Hell's Kitchen, AND planned to hitch a ride with a lovely gal named Jenny who was also going to Steph's for the spin in! I feel pretty fortunate to 1) live in a time where internet makes pretty much anything possible and 2) to know and be meeting such great people.

The ride up to New York was great. I sat next to this dude named Seth who was preparing for a music performance in Hartford. We chatted about life, ate chocolate, and he gave me some suggestions for nice, free things to do in New York. I didn't get to the museums he suggested or to this, but I will definitely be looking into those for my next visit.

Hilary and I had a nice evening together. We went to Empanada Mama for dinner. Mmm. Did a bit of shopping. Then we went to Rice to Riches where we delighted in some flavored rice pudding. Brilliant! We walked off our gluttony through Little Italy and Chinatown before heading home to watch Monster in Law (starring Jennifer Lopez and that very attractive dude from Never Been Kissed) and calling it a night.

Oh, is that what I've been missing?

Pina Colada rice pudding with buttery graham topping and french vanilla rice pudding with dried cherries.

Sunday, I walked about a mile with my spinning wheel and belongings in tow. My biceps were pretty spent after walking about a mile the day before from the bus stop to my cousins place, but I made it!


After purchasing a sausage biscuit from McDonald's (guilty pleasure) I hopped on the Metro North train from Grand Central Station to Tarrytown where I met Jenny and her red Honda Fit. The views of the Hudson were great, but unfortunately the windows on the train were pretty grimey. This one came out alright...


Jenny and I stopped at Rockland Bakery on our way to Steph's studio. Oh. My. Breadiness! It was insane. We could smell the gluteny goodness as we pulled into the parking lot. Jenny tried to prepare me for the experience, but woah! You walk in, and there's a crap-ton of pastery treats (cookies, cakes, cannolies) in the front room, but then there's the back room...where they make all the breads. Donning plastic gloves on our right hands and paper bags in our left, we ventured into the wild bread yonder and found this...

Weeeeeee!


Jenny filling her bag with HOT bagels.


I'll have one of each, please.

After purchasing some bagels ($0.45 ea) and a dozen dozen cupcakes ($0.70 ea) we were on our merry way to Loop.

I brought a couple of batts that I had bought from Steph at MD Sheep & Wool. They were totally blingged out with angelina and in the 6 hours that we were there, I was able to spin a total of 5.7 ounce/200 yards of fabulous sparkliness! I believe it will become a mobius cowl...we shall see.

Bling bling!

Hooray!

The highlight of the afternoon, aside from the great company, the spinning, the cupcakes, the bagels, the bling fiber...there was a woman who came to the spin in who was visiting from Kenya. She has pet lions (I'm not even kidding) and brought in some lion mane to card! AHH! Steph picked out some other fibers to blend the mane with as it was pretty wiry stuff. The finished product was quite lovely.

Adding the lion mane to the carding machine. (Ticks?!)


Weighing the final product.

Those scraggly pieces are the lion mane.


The ingredients.

Very neat. I'm pretty sure I want to be Steph... Her studio is so cool! And she gets to play with fiber all day. Although, I do not envy her lack of sleep!

Jenny and I left around 6:30, after purchasing some more fiber for the road! She dropped me at the red line, which I took to Penn Station and was on the Megabus by 9:30pm. The guy sitting next to me on the bus wasn't nearly as cool as Seth. He had one of those phone thingies in his ear and would occasionally mumble aloud, though it appeared that he was sleeping. Maybe he was. Either way, I was happy to arrive in Baltimore around 12:45am and rolled into my driveway around 1:30 where I promptly drug myself up to my room and fell into my bed.

What a great weekend!