Time Picks At All Wounds

I'm not one to post remember-the-Alamo type things, but after seven years, things are still pretty scabby, aren't they? This hasn't even healed to a scar yet - it's only stopped gushing blood.

The strangest phenomenon to me is the desire to avoid the date. Not avoid thinking about what it means or avoid it altogether by, like, sleeping through it (though I did attempt this morning, entirely by accident, and ended up with one of those brush-my-teeth-while-in-the-shower, do-my-makeup-at-red-lights kind of mornings). Rather, I try to avoid the actual date. When scheduling things, I flinch a little when it falls on September 11. When writing out a check or dating a report, I feel inclined to back-date or forward-date things. All activities should took place before or after, not on....like somehow even seven years later, it feels wildly inappropriate to just be carrying on with our lives and business on September 11.

But that's kind of all we can do - carry on. Make it work. Holler at your boy. All that Tim Gunn kind of stuff. (And crack reeeally half-hearted lame jokes in an attempt to look like we're recovering.)

Hey, Lookit Me!

I'm on Lime & Violet's Daily Chum! It's obnoxious to post about that, isn't it? It totally is. That's okay, I just get so tickled when somebody likes me - please indulge me. I'm giddy - like last week when someone mentioned me and Sundara (cue the choir of angels) in the same sentence, though I managed to not post about that (well, until now. Oops.)

It's funny, it's not vanity, it's kind of the total opposite - there's some sort of weird sense of other-personness to it. Like if I was the big geek in high school wearing headgear and a ponytail and glasses (because if Hollywood is to be believed, in high school a ponytail and glasses = hopeless loser. Oh, and overalls. Gotta have the overalls) and the hot football captain started flirting with me. I'm going to giggle and flirt back, but really it's just like, "Did he have corneal surgery? He thinks I'm somebody else, doesn't he?" (Which, coincidentally and despite all my grand feelings of self-worth and confidence, was sort of exactly how I felt when Travis first kissed me.)

Anyway, I thought it was nifty. You can go about your business now. ;-)

FO, Funny Medical Stories, Shop Updated, and Whatever Else Comes To Mind

I finally got my NPR Series yarns done, and I'm working on a new batch for The Loopy Ewe. There will be additional skeins added to the shop over the next couple of weeks as I play with different ideas and techniques. Take a look at the NPR skeins if you so desire.

I'm making fast progress on all this stuff now, since I've been off work since Friday for a minor dental procedure - I'm having an implant placed to replace a baby tooth (yes, I really still had a baby tooth at 29 years old) and without knowing how having a hole drilled into my jawbone would affect me, I made sure to schedule it over the weekend and take today off as well. It's not too painful, so I can get a lot of work done.

The extraction was a treat, though. That was a few weeks ago, just before Vegas (cut to me trying to scream, around the hand in my mouth, "But I'm going to Vegas! Vegas! I can't be toothless in Vegas!") Fortunately it's a tooth near the back so I don't too strongly resemble a hillbilly who opens green bean cans with her teeth. I've seen the doctor a couple of times about this tooth, and I guess he was tired of me putting it off. (When you do theatre and seem to go out of town for fun picture-taking-type things regularly, it's easy to come up with reasons to not be toothless.) So he put his foot down, declared the tooth a danger to the bone above, skipped the numbing goo, and crammed a bigass needle into the roof of my mouth before I could complain or, more likely, bolt from the chair. It hurt like a bitch, and then he said the magic words: "If you're good, I won't charge you for the consult and extraction." Since that amounted to about a $200 savings, I shut right up. He waited a minute, asked to take a look, and popped the tooth right out. WE LOOK WITH OUR EYES!!! (This story makes him sound like a jerk - but I'd trust him with my life. He's been my oral surgeon for many years and did my jaw surgery three years ago. He reminds me of my granddaddy, and he's stern but fair and really kinda fun. Besides, a 27 year-old baby tooth comes out with remarkable ease - the novocaine probably wasn't ever necessary.)

I was going to let him throw that tooth away, then I had a revelation - do you have any idea what the payout is on a 27 year-old baby tooth? The tooth fairy owes me for principal plus almost three decades of interest! (I've consulted the tooth fairy and she declared that she handed over all fairy duties at the altar last year, so I'm waiting for that other fairy to come through. I got some ice cream and a couple of subs....I think that might be about it.) ;-)

I'm taking a break while the pots heat up - think I'll sit in my Ikea chair and work on my Habitat beanie hat thing. Now that I'm not working on any patterns, I'm casting on for stuff like a fool and just hoping to finish something. Kind of like throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks, but with yarn and a little more effort (and maybe a lot more mess - there are project bags all over the living room.)

Oh! An FO! I finished a non-pattern-writing knit, yahooooo!:

A Baby Bolero from Leigh Radford's One Skein, knit in Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton. I have another skein of Organic Cotton coming in sage green for a second bolero - I did a stash-swap with a Raveler for it, since two gender-surprise babies are on their way to a coworker. (Twins!) It only took about four days from start to finish, and I think the seaming on this thing took longer than the actual knitting - I SUCK at seaming. I know a lot of people say it, but I truly am awful at it. I seamed and unseamed the shoulder no fewer than ten times before I was kind of sort of happy with it. Let's hope the second one goes a little more smoothly!

Shop Stuff

Fair warning, nothing in this post but a small announcement or something about the shop and a pretty picture at the end:

There has been some interest expressed in a YoYo shop newsletter of sorts - I'm going to set up an email list, for notifications when shop updates happen (it's been slow in the updating lately, but I always have something up my sleeves.) If you'd be interested in receiving these notifications - they won't be constant, they'll only be when there's going to be an update or a sale (yes, a sale!) and I won't share your info obviously, etc., etc. - then please let me know either by comment (include your email address on that email address line) or shoot me an email at alysonknitsATgmailDOTcom.

(It seems likely that those who are on the list would get not only early warning of updates and sales, but the occasional fun stuff like sale codes or a contest or something....)

I Have An FO! ...If Buying Something Makes It An FO

Vegas was AMAZING! Your comments on that post were such a blast to read, and I wish you could have heard Travis reading the news aloud in the car on the way to the airport - I've never heard him speak so fast!

I'll talk about it in a post soon - we had a great time, incredible food, and enjoyed being out of the rain for a bit. Fay didn't do any damage to our place or have much effect on our area as far as floods or power outages, but man was I tired of the colour grey. I have hundreds of photos to narrow down to a post's worth, so for now I wanted to share something I procured recently at Orlando's Happiest Place on Earth. I'm referring, of course, to the Neiman Marcus Last Call outlet center. Have you ever felt the joy of getting something couture for 93% off? It feels a lot like what I imagine stealing would be like - dirty and kind of exhilarating - but without the guilt because at least you paid SOMEthing.

But this. This. THIS. This sounds as ridiculous as it really was, but when I saw it, everything around it went hazy and it glowed and I heard music....it was kind of like when Wayne first saw Cassandra on stage in Wayne's World. (Except I heard The Carpenters' "Close to You" rather than "Dreamweaver".) If I were to ever knit something like this, I'd lay down the needles and burn the stash, because my work as a knitter would be over.

It's stunning, isn't it?


The retail price on this was horrifying. I would not, could not (Sam I Am) ever pay that sort of money for a sweater, even being as in love with it as I am. Wanna know what the original tag said? One thousand five hundred and ninety five dollars. A sixteen hundred dollar sweater. NEVER. But it was marked down so ridiculously - I mean, obscenely ridiculously - that when I did the math, the yarn alone to knit a comparable sweater would have been almost twice as much more. And I still would have had to knit it!


The deets: It's a TSE hooded sweater coat in Oatmeal. And seeing that little TSE tag gave me joy because I know what TSE is about - TSE is about cashmere. Only the purest cashmere. Yep, 100% cashmere sweater coat.


I plan to wear it all the time. Or leave it wrapped in tissue paper in the bottom drawer with a lavender sachet like it is right now. Maybe put it on a mannequin and encase it in glass and put it in the living room. (Yep, I love it that much. Look at me - I'm wearing it in August.)


If you see me in this at Taos Wool and you ask me if I knit it, hell yes I did. Forgot the pattern. Couldn't tell ya. What's that over there? *zoom*


This is a crapload of pictures of a storebought sweater, I know. I'm just in love.


See? That's my in-love face. (I know, poor Travis. My in-love face should be cuter than this.)

I'll close with a bit of knitting news - I do still knit, when I'm not shopping for things I can pass off as knit. Miss Valerie of Yarn 4 Socks has given me permission to show a little sneaky peek of the pattern I'm working on for the October Sock Club (clicky linky to spendy). As a reminder, the yarn for that month will be Sunshine Yarns, which means it's guaranteed fabulous. (One of my favourites.) The shot I'm showing here is the heel. I just can't get excited about a plain old heel sometimes - pretty sure Cookie did that to me.