Giddy Up Part 1: The Trailers

Hi Folks! Sorry to be away so long. I was off debuting my little trailer at the Sisters on the Fly 2007 Giddy Up. It was quite the adventure! I'll have to split the narrative (and pictures) between several posts.

The Giddy Up officially started at Usery Park near Phoenix, but for me it started when I took off from Reno. I spent the first night in Tonopah. Here is the lovely sunrise over Tonopah, NV.


I joined up with a caravan of fine folks (and their trailers) in Rock Springs, AZ. This was the "Northwest Caravan" that had traveled down from Washington, Idaho and Utah, collecting folks along the way.


We traveled together into Usery Park and were greeted by AZ Sisters with cold Coronas and (my favorite part) someone to back our trailers into place for us.


There were a total of 100 vintage trailers at the event. Plus a few more sisters in tents.



Most of the trailers were painted with custom graphics and decorated beyond amazing. The most common theme was cowgirl, but with lots of variations. Everyone was fabulously friendly and happy to show off their trailers. Here are some shots:

Cat Gallery

Although I usually stick to the stated parameters of this blog, home (er..trailer) improvement, gardening and fiber crafts, I have had a specific request to include more pictures of the cats. What mother can resist such a request? So here is a gallery for your entertainment. Click on any picture to see a larger copy. Clara is the brown tabby and Zach is the black and white.

3/28 NOTE: For mysterious technical reasons, these photos are no longer available.

Ready to Fill 'er Up

I have finally completed all the trailer projects necessary for her debut. Although weather did not permit an outside paint job, I am very happy with how the inside came out. Here are some pictures from different angles.

Today's final projects were to install the dishcloth hook in the kitchen area and add straps to ease lifting the seats to access the under-seat storage.

The wall pockets help to solve storage limitations, though I will have to limit the weight I put in them.

Snowy day projects

We had even more snow. My poor Philadelphus (mock orange) is bent over to the ground under the weight. It is getting warmer so hopefully there will be no more shoveling.

Meanwhile I have been getting my little trailer ready for its debut. All the sewing is done (hooray!) and I completed one last wood-burning/painting project. This time I decorated a bamboo tote box I found at a home-stuff store. It wasn't completely successful burning on the bamboo, so I settled for a much less intricate design. Snakes, like I did on the spinning wheel, but no vines.

Having finished my second lace project, I am hot to launch into another. I had 4 oz of gorgeous roving I bought at the last Black Sheep Gathering.
It reminds me of Monet's water garden paintings. It is a very soft 70% mohair, 30% merino.

I spun it fine with a lace project in mind.
It worked up beautifully, with lots of drape, but McMorraned at only 448 yards. Not enough for what I had in mind. I looked through all my lace books, and lots of patterns online, and decided to adapt the Print O'The Wave pattern from this stole. For ease of reading I moved the lace chart into Word and spaced the edge patterns away from the repeat section. I have only about half the yardage needed for the stole, so I will make a scarf with only 2 or 3 repeats and no grafted edges.