I'm Growing Suspicious Of The Bluegrass State

My camera has shipped out - hurray! And this is the information I get when I track it:

Label/Receipt Number: **** **** **** **** **** 85
Status: Shipment Accepted

Your shipment was accepted/picked up at 7:03 PM on April 28, 2008 in LEXINGTON, KY 40511.

Et tu, Kentucky?!

We meet again, for the first time, for the last time....

Let Me Bore The Crap Out Of You

Let me make you sigh
Let me do some lame tricks
Some old and some older tricks
Nothing too worthwhile....

(Points to anyone who picks up on the lyrics and their source. I'm expecting success from at least one reader.)

Things to talk about aren't much fun without pictures. My little Nikon camera finally took the big crap. It's been frustrating me more and more with its petulant little "Lens Cover Error!" message ("but the lens cover is open! take the picture dammit!") and then I smacked it a little too hard on the desk trying to shake the lens cover into place and whoops! busted the battery holder-inner-tabbie-thing (technical term) and so the poor thing is finally just tired. It was not the best camera I've ever owned anyway - I'm sure fixing it won't take much, so we'll probably send it out for repair so we'll still have a pocket point-and-shoot, but I've finally thrown my hands up and allowed myself to purchase the Canon digital SLR I wanted. (Well, not the one I wanted - I'm not made of money - but the lower-end one that really only costs a little more than replacing with yet another point and shoot that we can drop into a waterfall or slam on a desk...) I'm considering it a business expense, since it's largely necessary to get better photos of my wares for the shop.

Whenever the new camera meanders its way here from Amazon (no doubt by way of Kentucky) or I can coax my Nikon into getting a few shots for me, I'll have some fiber to go up in the shop. I wish with all sincerity that I'd gotten Travis to get video of me wrestling with this fiber - I'm sure it was hysterically funny. It was like bathing an old English sheepdog - by the time I was done just with the soaking and draining, I was covered in fuzz, sopping wet, and cursing up a storm. It does get easier, but DAMN if that wasn't something I was unprepared for. I spent the better part of the morning and afternoon muttering variations of "somebody better buy this crap or I'm gonna pile it all up on the lawn and light it on fire because OH MY GOD WHERE IS THE END OF THIS EMMEFFING ROVING????" I did calm down eventually and have resolved to not set anything ablaze.

We went for a nice long bike ride yesterday and then took to the el-cheapo ghetto theatre for the matinee of Baby Mama. I was prepared to find myself a drooling mess by the end, all the dumber for having seen it (but hopeful that geek-hot Tina Fey would smart things up just enough to save me from having my frontal lobe dribble slowly out of my left ear) and honestly, we both enjoyed the hell out of it. There's a pleasantly surprising also-starring actor who I wasn't expecting at ALL, and it was nice to see an entertaining movie in the theatre for once. It helped Travis recover from his rather painful face plant from that morning - hence the movie outing, it was a special treat to make him feel better. (I told him he should wear a helmet. I told him he shouldn't try to ride up the side of the bridge embankment so close to the edge. But what the hell do I know, I'm just the wife. I just provide fudgesicles and movies when things go badly.)

No kittens yet. I'm hoping she can hold them in until the Canon gets here - I did avoid the super saver shipping, lesson learned, so hopefully she'll be able to hang...

Happy Monday, all!

On The Twelfth Day of Sweater

I finished the sweater and got to wear it twice during the brief "cold front" here this week! Yay! Then I finally got around to taking some decent photos of it, once it got back up to over 80 degrees. (Clever, aren't I?)

I'm happy with it overall - I could have used some patience and made it just about a half inch to an inch longer, but I'm still quite pleased.


I think I like the way it looks from the back even better!


This was a very quick knit - with a bulky (the label says worsted, but forget that) yarn and size US10 needles, it wasn't really tough to finish this in less than two weeks. Probably could have done it even faster if I hadn't been dyeing yarn and cooking in between. Oh, and working. I do that sometimes.


Well, now I'm just being silly.

Pattern: Cozy V-Neck Pullover by Stefanie Japel (from the book Fitted Knits)
Yarn: Mirasol Sulka
Needles: US10
Size: XS (36.5")
Start: April 2
Finish: April 14
Mods: Made the neckline a bit deeper, didn't change needle sizes for ribbing, started the ribbing sooner on the body than pattern stated, adding bust darts, knit sleeves cuff up and grafted to caps....nothing really major, mostly just accommodating for my body type and how I prefer to knit.

Since I'm on a garment kick, I've already started my next one, the Silken Cowl Tank by Zoe Valette from Sensual Knits in Tilli Tomas Pure & Simple silk:


(I've made modifications to work it in the round to the armholes, then I'll split and work the rest flat on each side.

And Travis, however briefly, managed to rig up a working electric skeinwinder:


Adjustments may be needed, but there's definite progress. My little evil genius.

Also, we got a good shot of Rambouillet's most adorable feature, with Travis assisting to keep her a little more still than she wanted to be - she kept trying to jump up and snuggle or rub my chin, so I couldn't get a picture of her face. I swear he's not strangling her:


She has black whiskers on one side and white whiskers on the other! Argggghcute!

Finally, I updated the shop with some new sportweight yarns - here's a few thumbnails of some favourites, click for big or visit the shop:


Happy knitting!

Healthy/Happy!

Rambouillet had a vet visit on Saturday. Nervous, trembling, mewing in terror, we arrived. I'm referring there to me, not to Rambouillet. She was perfectly calm, purred and snuggled the vet and her tech the whole time. She couldn't even be bothered to stop purring while having her blood drawn, and they actually had to try to get her to stop purring so they could check her heart - the vet couldn't hear it over all the rattling! I was a complete wreck, however - things have been less than stellar at Travis' job lately, so we really couldn't afford for her to have so much as a scraped paw that needed antiseptic - we still haven't even finished payment on Bitty's pre-Christmas surgery, so Saturday's office visit and routine check was challenging enough. Fortunately, all checked out, and she's healthy and very well. She's not even a year old - not yet out of kittendom herself, and already pregnant, poor girl! - and Travis was just a hair off in his estimation of due date: she'll be birthing in a week or two!

They did an x-ray, too, in order to see how far along she was and if they could determine how many to expect in the litter, and it looks like we're expecting twins! (Thank God I don't have to find homes for a litter of nine.) I had names for up to five kittens, so narrowing it down is going to be tough. We'll see what they think when they're born.

We also noticed something absolutely precious about Rams last night - her whiskers are black on one side of her face, and white on the other. Cutest. Thing. Ever.

By tonight I should have a completed pullover sweater, so I'll hope for FO photos tomorrow - the brief cold front should last until roughly Wednesday, so I think I'll wear it tomorrow. Nothing like a heavy worsted weight merino/alpaca/silk sweater over a blouse on a frigid 60 degree day. *snort* But I have to get at least one good wear out of it before next fall! (I could have made it with short sleeves, I suppose, but as heavy as the yarn is, it might look sort of strange. Plus, I've not yet knit a long-sleeved sweater for me, and I'm really short on sweaters that I can wear when it IS cool outside - most of the warmer outerwear I have isn't particularly feminine - boxy ski sweaters and things like that - so my wardrobe has a bit of a hole in it on chilly days.)

I did get something done on Saturday, after tripping just about every breaker in the house until we found the right combination of pots and kettles and burners to extension cords. Here's a little teaser:

All told, I have a total of 20 skeins of sportweight (most not shown). Everything should be dry by, ohhh say, three weeks from Tuesday (I love the Florida humidity) by which time I should have some fingering weight yarn to dye up as well. Whee! Travis is currently attempting to electrocute himself designing and building me an electric reskeiner with strange-looking electric devices he scrapped together from God knows where - wherever men go to procure these contraptions. We'll see how that goes - I may be married to my niddy noddy for a while.

Casting About: I really need someone with mad graphic design skillz - I am in need of a logo, a banner, and an ad or two. Nothing super fancy - I do have some thoughts on logos, and some are more complicated than others. If you have these sorts of abilities and would be interested in bartering for yarn/fiber/money or any combination of the three, please let me know - I'm sort of at a loss in the fancy designin' department.

Bring Me The Head of Chip The Delivery Guy!

Old business first - the contest closed Tuesday night and I picked two winners at random. I've contacted the winners and heard back from them, so congratulations to Paula M. and Megan! I want to thank everyone so much for all the wonderful uplifting tales and inspirations you shared with me. It really did bring me up and remind me how nice people truly are. :-D

So. Louet. Right? Yeah - since this isn't some big ol' secret, my current fiber and yarn supplier is Louet. (That's the Koigu yarn base, yum. My yardage will be more generous though.) Anyway, I've been anxiously awaiting my order - it's partially backordered, but the sportweights and fibers were shipped out and due to arrive on Wednesday. I work from home on Wednesdays, so I spent the whole day tracking the package like I was SWAT and then I saw a blip on the FedEx radar: Delivery failure, invalid address.

Eh?

Okay, let's just clear up here that I may be delusional about a great many things in life, but the valid existence of my residence? I'm pretty clear on that. I called FedEx. I called Louet. Louet called FedEx. I provided explicit directions (turn right off the major cross-state highway, take a left, it's the first rather imposing home on the left. Not rocket science, pretty tough to miss.) I waited. Next day, I track again. Not on a truck. I call. "Huh. Uh, we'll put it on the afternoon truck." I track again mid-afternoon. Kentucky.

Wait, what? Kentucky? How fast does that afternoon truck move?? Does the truck have wings and turbine engines? 'Cuz that's a PLANE. And I don't recall my directions including "take a right at Kentucky"!!!

I call. I get, "Huh. Kentucky. That's weird." Yes. Yes, it is. Not only is it weird, but if you determine my residence does not exist and you decide to start an exhaustive door-to-door search, Kentucky would be an unusual choice of starting points, as one of the few places in this country to which I've never been. So. Kentucky. Okay. Can you please bring it back? "Yes. You'll have it tomorrow." Gee, will I need to pick it up or will you deliver? "Call in the morning and we'll let you know." I was kidding, are you serious? "Um. Um..." Okay, fine. I'll call you. I call Louet. Louet calls FedEx. I get home.

Wouldn't you know it. Behold, my stuff. But ... if a package is in Kentucky AND on my front door step....wait.

I am on the porch.

The package is on my porch.

The package is in Kentucky.

Thus, by the transitive properties of the package, my porch is in Kentucky.

AWESOME!

We'll be sitting on the porch this weekend, dyeing yarn, sipping mint juleps, and listening to bluegrass music.

But wait, it gets better. Get a load of this box.

Snort. Scribbled notes back and forth, and finally, a big color printed Google Map. (I really wish there was a star and the note, "Moron, it's right HERE.") I'm sure the driver is really a very smart guy - it simply appears he was expecting a business, not a residence, and is obviously keenly unaware of the ability to operate a very tiny business from a home. (It's not like this is a crate of international goods, guy. It's a 15 pound box of fluff n' string.)

I have enough to get me started this weekend, though, so that should be fun. And while I wait for things to soak / heat up / strike / set (it's a lot of waiting, this process), I have the rest of this to do:


Lookit! A body! I still have the collar to do, plus a sleeve and about a third of another sleeve. Then there's all the end weaving - knitting a sweater of yarn in 55-yard put-ups means a LOT of end weaving. I got half a sleeve out of one skein. Ugh. (But it's so PRETTY.) So far, I think I'm content with the fit. I could have been patient and added just one more inch to the body, but with the alpaca and silk element, I think it'll probably stretch a bit anyway.

There's supposed to be a cold snap this weekend - I really hope I can finish this tomorrow, because I probably won't have a chance to wear it again until about October. (This was indeed a well-planned project on my part. But pretty!)

And in conclusion, ohmygod Flickr is awesome:


Heheheh. Heheheheheheh. Heh.