LA RenFest Renaissance Festival; Nov 25, 2011

Wow, I went to my first ever Renaissance Festival this past Friday, November 25, 2011.  It was a blast!  I loved seeing all the actors, jugglers, people in costume and all the other sights and sounds of the festival event.  If there's one in your area, I highly recommend it.  From what I understand, these are basically travelling actors who live in tents, campers, etc, who don't make a lot of money doing this, but they do it because they love it.  If you can tip them for the acting shows, it helps them out a lot.

I took as many pictures as my Blackberry would allow, then the battery died.  My son had his camera and he and I both took pictures with it after my phone died.

On the way to the Festival......


In the ticket line...


The lords and ladies approach the front gates...


Waiting for the king and queen to open the Festival...



Learning the proper way to bow and curtsy when the king and queen arrive to open the Festival...


The tickets...


The kind and queen have arrived ... "Huzzah!"


The ticket-checker ...


Inside the gate ...



The Queen's Stage: The Fire Juggler! I like this guy!




I was picked in the crowd to come up on the stage by the Fire Juggler.  My first thought was to bolt!!

I am up on The Queen's Stage with the Fire Juggler!  I like this guy - he was a lot of fun!

There were 2 other volunteers from the crowd on the stage too.  He gave the 3 of us volunteers flaming torches.  While the Fire Juggler was balancing on the big yellow ball, one volunteer tossed the 1st flaming to the Juggler's outstretched hand.  The 2nd volunteer tossed her flaming torch to the Juggler's other outstretched hand.

Then he looks at me and signals me to toss the last flaming torch - but he had no free hands!

Soooo, I got to toss a flaming torch to him while he was still balancing on the ball, and he had no free hands.  He catches my torch and goes right into juggling the torches, just as I made my toss.

It made me a little nervous, but was pretty cool!    :)  :)

 

Typical scenes at the Festival... 

This lady on the left was spinning different wools.  She admitted that he didn't know how to knit, although knitting fit the period of that time.  But she does crochet! 

The Dungeon Museum, Exhibit of Torture and Horror.  And as the guy in the pic says, "you can never have too much depravity in one day!"

My poor hubby!  What did you do ... insult the queen?! 

The lake.  The festival goes all the way around it.  There's also a rope-pulled ferry going across the lake.

This guy wanted me to juggle with him so badly!   :)

Robin Hood and Maid Marion... 

This ride was a little interesting. There are riders in the car and two men basically winding up the "maypole" assembly as high as they can reach.   The result is that the car starts spinning and getting lower to the ground and winds up again the other direction...

Saw this guy on the way out....

It was fun!   I do want to catch another Renaissance Fair sometime.

I have more pictures than I am posting, because quite frankly, there are too many pics to post.  :)

Pineapple Neckwarmer (update), Nov 27, 2011

Hi everyone,

Well, I worked up another Pineapple Neckwarmer using the Microspun yarn (2.5 oz skein) from Lion Brand. I used a size H hook with the Microspun.

This yarn is soooo soft, but it does split easily.  To get the length to 19 inches (as specified in the pattern before making the first keyhole row), I had to do 32 rows.  Just be sure to measure and try it on as in this the picture below, to get an idea of how the length is supposed to be.

One of my sons peeked in the picture.  That's Patrick!  :)  :)

And, I have started a 3rd neckwarmer using a size G hook and 2 strands of size 10 thread held together.  I'm using Southmaid thread.  I really like the "drapy" feel of cotton thread and I think that this one will come out nicely too.   :)

Here are pics:

Link to the Pineapple Neckwarmer pattern:

http://crochetgottaloveit.blogspot.com/2011/11/pineapple-neckwarmer-english-translated.html

Louisiana Tech Bulldogs: The new WAC Champions!

Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes!  We have some new Western Athletic champions!  Drove up in the rain, watched football in the rain and drove back in the rain.

Needless to say, I'm glad we got the rain since we needed it so badly.  But it sure made it harder to watch the game.  Eyeglasses kept getting spotted up and when I had my hood on, they fogged up so badly I couldn't see.  And I was fast running out of dry tissues to wipe them off with!

The radar was this at gametime:

About 5 minutes after we arrived under the pavillion, the "bottom fell out of the sky."

The band was hunkered down under the stadium along with the fans that were there.  The rains seemed to keep a lot of them away.

It was hard to keep the phone dry but I snapped off a few pics:

My husband used to coach Matthew Broha in 3rd and 4th Grade football and helped coach him in 5th and 6th Grade football.  Now, he's got one of the best defensive sack records in not only the WAC, but the nation as well.  Go Matt!

And here's the ticket - I wrote the final score on it:

On The Road Again, to LA Tech vs. New Mexico St @ Aillet Stadium, 3pm game in Ruston, LA, Nov 26, 2011 -1a.jpg

Started out as a rainy day heading north.  Around Natches, MS, we actually didn't have any rain and saw blue skies for a few minutes, but about a half hour later ....  lots more rain!  But that's okay ... we needed it badly!

While hubby drove on the last part of the trip, I was able to work up another Pineapple neckwarmer in a different yarn and start another one.  Pics and info coming later in a separate post!    :)