VIPs

Since this blog promotes itself as having a wine component for the cork dorks in the crowd - I thought I'd fill you in on last weekend's gala Niagara Wine Auction event. DH and I were invited by my boss to attend the 2 days of festivities, noshing, sloshing and rubbing elbows with some celebrity types. Since the auction was to benefit Sick Kids hospital in Toronto - the colour du jour was pink.

On Friday I was thisclose (ok about 10 feet away-that's not me in the picture) to Jason Priestly who (in addition to being a former teen heart throb) is one of the hosts of the TV show Hollywood and Vines. He was rarely without a TV camera shoved in his face so it has hard to get a good look at him.

In keeping with the colour theme, I wore this little number I scored on ebay for a song a few years ago. We walked the red carpet and as I was waiting in line I felt a finger dip down the top of the back of my dress. The woman behind me whispered in my ear "You're going to hate me but your tag was sticking out." I turned and grinned and said "Not at all - thanks!" Then it hit me - Erica Ehm had just tucked my dress tag back into my dress! She was one of the founding VJs on Much Music when it launched in the eighties. Here's a shot of her along with a guy named JD Roberts. You may recognize him from CNN and other US news networks. He goes by John Roberts now but we Canadians remember when he was all cool and stuff. Erica Ehm is absolutely beautiful up close and looks totally natural. Of course my husband was ticked off because I told him he couldn't wear his baseball hat with his suit. I guess when you're a celebrity you can get away with that stuff.

The event was hosted by Jan Arden who did a great job and musical guests were the Pointer Sisters and the Temptations. Hearing the parents of kids who'd been patients at the hospital for Sick Children was both heart breaking and uplifting.

As far as the wine goes - my memorable picks were the Pillitteri 2002 Cab Merlot during dinner and the Marynissen Sauvignon Blanc at the afternoon wine garden. Peller Ice Cuvee Rose is a gorgeous sparkling wine with a kiss of Cab Franc and ice wine. And...it's pink. The buzz in the industry is that the 2007 vintages are spectacular.

All of this talk of pink has me pondering my pink projects:

This is one I stashed last year that's been calling me lately. It uses about 20 gradient shades of rose fading into each other. It's by Strickwear.

I have to get to the back side of this skirt made from pink Koigu PPM from the cover of spring Vogue two years ago.

At the Spring Knitter's Frolic young Sarah was working Julie's booth and had knit up the Blue Sky Alpaca Skinny Cardigan in brown and pink. She is young, beautiful and had her jeans tucked into a pair of knitted UGG boots in brown with this cardigan. It looked so great that I bought some brown to add to my pink from stash and decided I could make it in predominently pink with brown striping.

Now that Cinderella is back to mopping the floors instead of hob-nobbing with celebs there will hopefully be more quality knitting time. I found this picture of the Sundance Kid when I was looking through some old CDs. This shot is about 10 years old, the model is a muscular, hairy 17 year old now and the Fair Isle sweater is packed away for future grand kids but I love the attitude he's projecting. I guess when it comes to locating VIPs - there's really no place like home.