All Kinds of Fun Stuff

Well.

Yesterday and today were filled with all kinds of strange, fun, and just plain barfy news and events. I'll share them with you, but I thought that some yarny goodness would make things happy all around. Speaking of yarny goodness, I'm also updating the Yarn Review page. For those of you who don't know where to find it, it's at:

yarnreview.blogspot.com

Here's the latest yarn haul:





You'll notice that Gabby has made a reappearance. She finally got over her female issues and wanted to snuggle up to some yarn. She's shown here with Hobbledehoy in "Bluegrass" (which has donegal in it - it makes delightfully tweedy socks), Hobbledehoy in "Rosy", and dye4fun in "Blue Spruce"





But that wasn't enough for her. Yarn hog that she is, she posed in yet another montage. Here she is with Castle Fibers in "Earthy", Castle Fibers in "Spicy", C*EYE*BER Fiber in "Plum", and Rabbitworks Fibre Studio - Toe Jam Sock Yarn in "The Sweet Sheep".





Just like her mother, even that wasn't enough. So I allowed her to pose in one more group. This yarn is by Halftone; the skein on the left is wool/nylon; the skein on the right is wool/silk.

Yesterday, both Hubster and I sat up all day waiting for the UPS man to show up. Not at our house; he was heading to a little rural town clear across the country to my Monkey Sock Swap partner's house with a box of goodies. He finally arrived around 2:00 p.m. our time. Then I called my pal and "opened" her box with her. What fun! Even with the gifts opened, she still didn't know who I was. I finally had to tell her. What's been so much fun over the past several months is that we've become very close and dear friends/sisters; she also became friends with "Pam". So I had to maintain two identities, keeping each one straight depending on whom she was speaking with. How I managed to do that for all that time without telling her my identity was difficult at times, downright hilarious at others, and extremely satisfying at the end. She was delighted with everything, I was delighted that I could share the moment with her, and her socks fit! I now have a friend for life, a most unexpected side benefit of the swap. She's a dear, sweet lady whom I love dearly. :)

I cast on for a new pair of socks last night using "numma numma" from The Loopy Ewe. What a delight to use! It's soft, flows through my fingers, and makes very precise, well-defined stitches. I'm on the home stretch of the socks I'm making for my Sock Savior duties and just needed a break. I'll be working on one or both of them tonight.

We got a phone call today from my mother - you know, the one whose house we were going to for Thanksgiving? Well, it seems that her oven has broken - as in it doesn't work for shit. She's got some dude coming tomorrow to look at it to see if he can fix it, but if not, guess who gets to make dinner? Yep. Moi. Just what I wanted to do - get the house cleaned up, all the boxes put away, my computer taken off the dining room table, the kitchen put together, and having to begin cooking tomorrow night through Thursday morning/early afternoon. Shoot me now.

I said in my last post that I had an announcement to make. So I do. Here it is:

In January, I am opening an online yarn shop.

Yep. I'm really going to do it. I've already got some exceptional indie dyers lined up and am looking for others, as well as people who make knitting notions like stitch markers, bags, needles, etc. My vision is to have a store where indie people who are too small for the large stores can have a place to showcase their work. I'll be putting all the details together during December and should have everything in place by the end of the month. If any of you are interested in selling your work through my store, please e-mail me at:

pamtheknitter@gmail.com

I can tell you that there will be no minimum orders, no need to replicate colorways, and total artistic license for you - I won't be telling you that you have to dye a certain series or specific colorway. I want unique things, one of a kind things, things that make people sit up and go "WOW!" Are you up to the challenge? I know there are a lot of you out there who are looking to get your work known; join me and we'll do just that.

In other fun and weird news, I did it again. I was darning a hole I had burned in my jammie bottoms (yes, with my ciggie when I fell asleep) while I was watching TV. You know what happened next. I sewed my finger to my jammie bottoms and had to extricate myself. In the process of cutting myself loose, I managed to cut a sizable chunk out of my finger, which I didn't feel because it was in the numb zone. I was busy carefully snipping the threads when I noticed that my white, pink, blue, and purple striped jammie bottoms were turning a really pretty crimson red. My first thought was, "Hm... that would make a really pretty yarn color. I wonder if I have any?" Then my pea-sized brain kicked in, and I realized that I was bleeding rather profusely all over myself. My first thought then? "Hm... I'm glad I put my knitting over there so I don't bleed on it." Spoken like a true knitter. But of course, knitting is now a pain in the ass because my bandage keeps getting caught on the yarn. If this keeps up, I'll have the furriest socks known to man. I tried that Liquid Skin shit, but it stung like hell and caught on my knitting because it never dried completely (it doesn't work really well with flowing blood). I'll have to be more careful with those little embroidery scissors or get the children's kind with the blunt tips.

Then came the coffee explosion. I've been pretty bad lately with my coffee drinking, managing to wear most of it (don't even ask how many clothing changes I've gone through in the past several days). But the mother of all coffee explosions happened this morning. I was half-asleep and trying to drink a cuppa when out of the blue, my fingers suddenly opened (they do that sometimes) and the cup went ass over teakettle, spraying everything with coffee on its' descent to the floor. BANG! it went as it crashed to the floor, which fortunately is wood (it cushioned the fall so I didn't lose my favorite mug). However, I now had an entire cuppa on the floor, and it was spreading quickly to a stack of knitting books I have near me.

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! I screamed, as I leapt over the spreading ooze and ran into the kitchen, where I grabbed an entire roll of paper towels and madly ripped off single sheets, throwing them on the puddle which was now the size of Asia. I managed to go through over half the roll before the spread was staunched. Then I had to mop the floor with my Swiffer spray attachment thing. I now have the cleanest floor in town, the spray somehow managed to miss my computer, and I have some extra paper towels. It didn't do much for my coffee consumption, though. All I could think of was that it would have made a killer photograph (kind of like that scene in "Needful Things" when Brian Rusk is throwing apples at Wilma's house and hits the sugar bowl on the kitchen table, sending it into a high-flying arc while the sugar flies out of it in a spiral).

On the happier side of things, Hubster got a new wedding band tonight. It's my Christmas gift to him. He had to have his original band cut off after he gained too much weight to take it off himself. He's been without one for a few years, and I like him to wear one. So he selected a plain yellow gold comfort-fit band. He likes it, even though I wanted him to get diamonds. But then again, I suppose he isn't a diamond type of guy. Me, on the other hand, haven't met a high-grade diamond I didn't like.

I guess that's about it for the ins and outs of my life. I won't be posting until Thanksgiving night or possibly even Friday. Tomorrow night is going to be taken up with cleaning and cooking, since I doubt that the oven repair man is going to be able to repair the damned thing. It's a curse. I know it. And it's all because Hubster prefers my cooking to my grandmother's.

Who the hell does he think taught me in the first place?

Happy Thanksgiving!