July 4th Weekend!

I haven't blogged for awhile, so I decided it was about time! I had a great 4th of July! My dh and I went to Daytona Beach for the Nascar Nationwide Race! We managed to get a pair of great tickets from a hawker for the infield Daytona 500 Club! He didn't know what he had, and we didn't realize how great they were until later. We just wanted to be in the infield near the drivers and cars.

The Daytona 500 Club has a beautiful building in the infield with Victory Lane right in front of it! It opened at 3 pm and we went in to check it out. It was so beautiful and the people inside the door gave us our "credenitals" which consisted of a red wrist band that allowed us to come and go as we pleased. We wore our tickets around our necks in little see through plastic pouches that we received from Sprint. Our tickets had large VL on them which we discoved meant that we could go into Victory Lane at the end of the race. It was very exciting!

After we went inside, we saw a beautiful dinning room and were told that dinner would start serving at 5:30 (free) and then we were told that there was a bar on the 2nd floor if we wanted a drink and some appitizers. We went upstairs and found a beautiful bar, tables all around with tv's with race coverage on them all over the place, and chairs in front of large windows that faced the race track, with a little bar in front of them where you could sit your drink. We got our drinks, dh had beer and I had Coke Zero, and sat and marveled at our good fortune! We decided to go back outside, and the bartender offered us drinks in plastic cups to take with us (all of our drinks and food was FREE)!

Earlier, we had watched the cars go through inspection and saw some of the drivers, such as Dale Jr., Greg Bliss, and Robby Gordon, come through with their cars. We also got Tony Urahe (probably spelled that wrong, but he's Jr's pit crew boss) autograph. When we left the Club, we went to where the drivers were going to be signing autographs! We got 27 of them and Kenny Wallace signed my white baseball cap on the brim.

After the session, we were hot and thirsty, so we headed back to the club, where we found food of all kinds ready for our taking. There was a table of fresh fruit with salad, a table of prime rib with potatoes, one of all types of seafood dishes, another with chicken, and tables full of all kinds of yummy desserts and coffee! The food was wonderful!

By the time we were finished eating, it was almost time for the race to start, so we headed back up to get our front row seats by the start/finish line in the bar area. After the race, we were allowed to take seats in the bleachers in Victory Lane and saw the burnout of the winner from a side we'd never been at before. Then he drove his car into the lane and we were part of the victory celebration. Dh was snapping pictures like crazy all day!

We didn't get to see fireworks, but it was a great day no the less! How was your July 4th?

Test knitting

Something in me decided to volunteer to test knit a pair of fingerless gloves for a new designer at Ravelry. For some unknown reason, she let me be one of her honored test knitters, even though I'm kind of new to knitting. Luckily for me, the pattern was well written and I didn't have a problem reading it.

That doesn't mean that I didn't goof it up! No, of course I goofed it up because I didn't really read the abbreviations correctly. I had my first glove all completed and was ready to post a picture. I was sooooooooo proud of myself for completing it. Then I saw pictures in the thread of other peoples completed gloves and mine looked nothing like theirs! Yipes! Could they all have made the same mistake and I did it right? Not likely I decided. So back I went to the pattern and the yarn to start a new one. When I did that, I discovered that although I had a very cute small cable (almost looked like a snake) on my completed glove, it was supposed to be a 6 stitch cable like the ones pictured! Imagine that! I had done the c6f stitches exactly like the c6b stitches only with the sts on the cable needle to the front instead of the back. When I actually did it the way it was supposed to be, I got a beautiful cable. Who knew? hehe

I do the same thing with my crocheting sometimes. I think I know exactly how the pattern is supposed to go, so I do it my way. Then I discover that I did it all wrong and have to frog it. Boy I hate when I do that!

My second attempt at the test glove turned out just like the ones I saw pictured, except mine is the longer version. They all got new copies of the pattern with the shorter version, which I had decided not to use! I frogged my first glove, even though I could have used it as an original Ibby pattern. I'm happy to say that both gloves are now completed and look great.

Now another poor designer has allowed me to test knit their pattern for gloves! I'm reading the directions more carefully this time. There are no cables in this one to mess up, but I'm sure there's something that I can do wrong! I've got the 4 inches done, and I'm ready to go on to the next part of the pattern. Hopefully it will all go smoothly! But hey, this is me! That would be too easy! lol