For the folks who have seen me knitting those Lorna’s Laces socks and asked where I got that special pink and brown striping colorway.. I found it!

Ashley and I are going to Camp Pluckyfluff in Taos in the fall! Woot! (We’re getting a hotel room though, gotta have my own bathroom.)

We saw Zodiac last night. Here were my exact thoughts as I watched it:

Ooh! Fun music
Hey, this is actually pretty good.
Damn, Mark Ruffalo is doing an excellent job.
Look! It’s that guy! (That happened a lot)
Ouch, we still have another hour to go.
What? Why is Jake Gyllenhaal not aging like everyone else?
Woowoo! Mark Ruffalo in his underpants!
Ew, that ending was a bummer.

Yep that was pretty much it.

Just some stuff I have my eye on. I totally absolutely do not expect people to get these for me. I just like compiling the list of goodies.

Pink! Denise! Needles!

Creamy shawl with multicolored skully beads!

Smaller organizer case in “lotus” or “anemone”

Colorsmart handmade wooden needles set

Animals Knitting Duvet Cover (clearance woo!)

Holy Crap look at that Louet Victoria Wheel

This swirly shawl pin

Anna’s Grasshopper Batting from Peace Fleece

Pink Embroidery Scissors

Stuff from my Etsy Favorites

I’ll add more as I find more cool stuff!

And I’ve changed the default blog skin to the old Moxie Hedgehog Reindeer on a rooftop design! Is that design really two years old now?

Absolutely nothing much to note. Really so few things of interest are going on these days it would just bore you to read about it.

We had an unbelievable storm during Tuesday’s stitch n bitch. Driving back up Greigos from Rio Grande Blvd the street was so flooded we weren’t sure the car was going to make it at some points. Good thing we have a tall baby suv type car. Later we saw there were watermarks up to the bottoms of the doors though. Skeery.

I went to get my glasses fixed at the optomotrist who reminded me that I haven’t been there since March 2004 so it’s time to get my eyeballs checked again. And we’re almost finished paying off the criminal dentist.

In knitting I’m about to finish the sixth scarf for the Think Pink charity. They’re all fuzzy and acrylic because I’d used up my wool pink yarn for the warming grace squares. I think that’s all I’m going to do. I’m impatient to start new socks.

For lack of anything else to write about I’m going to make up some lists.

How I feel right now:
lazy
tired
sleepy
ambitious
nauseated
hungry
hopeful

Movies I’ve watched the last few weeks: (bad ones and all)
Bewitched
Stage Beauty
Monster-in-Law
Invincible (2001 Werner Herzog not the 2006 one about football)
The Carpetbaggers
Deuce Bigelow European Gigolow
de-Lovely
Notting Hill
Kiss Them For Me
Walk the Line
Heaven’s Gate (director’s cut)
The Skeleton Key

Books I’ve read the last few weeks:
Blue Shoes and Happiness
The Moviegoer
The Tiger in the Well
The Shadow in the North
The Ruby in the Smoke

Things I’m going to go do when I finish this post:
eat
watch something on the Tivo
take my medicine
sleep (wish me luck)

Cody may or may not get one or more of the following things for my birthday on Sunday:
Needles
The new KnitPicks needle sets with all the additional options looks good. They’re backordered for a few weeks though.
I’ve been lusting after these handmade wooden needles for months. Aren’t they pretty?
Or maybe a set of needles with lights inside?
If these stretchy circular needles came in sizes other than 2 I’d want them too.

Bags
I’ve been eyeing this lemonade bag at Discount Yarn Sale for about a year.
But I love the new designs on the Lexie Barnes bowler bags
Or maybe I should get a Jordana Paige bag, like this cute black and pink tweed
I like this imitation Jordana bag too.
Although I’d be really happy with a cute matching set of an Acadia Backpack or Empire bag in black sushi material with a matching Denise needle set cover from Boogie!
Or maybe this cute sushi purse?

The Usual Etsy Suspects
The Morrigan Necklace
Assorted cute handmade hedgehog stuff

Fibery goodness
Maybe something from my favorite handspun fiber shops?
Hello
Material
Luxe

Friday
Flight out of Denver was late. In my experience this is a matter of course. Oakland airport is kind of ghetto.

The look of utter and complete surprise on Jocelyn’s face when I came in the door after Chris was priceless. She had no idea. And they had spent a lot of time fixing up the guestroom for random future guests. Chris done good.

Saturday
Adela’s yarn store - damn those women were rude. I’m submitting an essay about my experience to any and every place that will take it though. I really hate thinking about how they treat people, particularly newbies who are already insecure. So I’m going to spread the word. First stop is Knitter’s Review Forum. Then the shop reviews at Knitting.about.com. To spread the good word as well I’m going to submit my great experiences at the other shops I visited in the area. In any job involving customers there’s no shortage of complaints, but the compliments can be rare so I try to send my compliments when I can too!

My first day in California and we went to a mall. I’d forgotten to bring a jacket of any kind (hey, it’s hot here at home!) and there was a 50% off clearance sale at Torrid. I found some fun things that would keep me warm in breezy San Francisco. And I got to see a hhttp://www.sephora.com store!!

We went to dinner at absolutely the best sushi place ever ever. And dudes, I’ve been to Japan. Really interesting combinations of tastes - nice fusion style which didn’t come off as pretentious that’s quite a trick. Peanut butter and jelly rolls. Holy Crap. I happily ate them while singing the peanut butter jelly time song in my head. Peanut butter jelly peanut butter jelly.

Sunday
Took the bart into SF (I was staying about thirty minutes away in Castro Valley). Saw Jocelyn’s office. Walked around the artisan markets in the Embarcadero Ferry Building. Ate crab cakes for lunch.

ArtFibers was closed. Booo.

We went to the MOMA. I saw an Eames chair, Eva Hesse sculpture, a few Ana Mendietas, Louise Bourgeois, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, a particularly frightening de Kooning portrait (which is saying something), one of my favorite George Braques paintings. So many. At one point I was going around a room looking at the paintings not paying attention to what was in the center. When I came to the placard for it it said Marcel Duchamp, Fountain. I turned around and damned if the that urinal readymade signed R. Mutt wasn’t sitting right there. Fun! The exhibition on the top floor about Painting Masculinity was interesting as well. I bought some small art book toys for the ‘phew’s birthday. Which I need to mail today.

We went to Japantown. Mostly because I wanted to go to the Japanese dollar store I’d heard about (here). I’d been to Chinatown when I was a kid and apparently Chris had been there throughout his childhood since his grandmother lived there so Japantown was a different and more interesting area for us to see. That’s when we took all those photos of Barry as godzilla and stuff. It was fun. Bought some tchotchkes. Including washcloths with hedgehogs on them. For some reason there was more French Engrish than actual Engrish on the stuff there. Is that Frengrish?

We took a taxi to Fisherman’s Wharf so I could see the sea lions. Called Cody on my phone so he could hear them barking. Ate dinner at a mediocre and overpriced Italian place that overlooked the sea lions. Great mineral water and garlic bread. And at first the food would seem like it was really good. But eventually we would realize that it was bland and we were just really hungry. Took a very long ride on the bart back to their townhouse.

Monday (Memorial Day)
I slept late. Oops. After running some errands we drove down to San Jose to meet Nathania and Emy @ Commuknity. I’d heard about this shop from a variety of sources and Laurie had loved it so much I had to check it out since I was so close by. It was a fairly short drive. (This seems to be the major benefit of Castro Valley - it’s roughly 30 minutes to most places in the area).

Commuknity is HUGE with golden natural light and friendly people. Who are also nice enough to leave you to wander around by yourself to absorb the wonder but they’re nearby to answer questions in a friendly way too. Most yarn stores I know and love have a clausterphobic feel to them, which can be good when you feel like you’re being cuddled by all the yarn, or it can be bad when there are a lot of customers elbowing each other over the koigu. But Commuknity was open and somehow simultaneously warm.

That place has a great variety of yarns! I’m guessing every yarn in the Rowan catalog? And I got to see Bee Sweet yarn in person. I’ve been wanting to get my grubby hands on that. I’m such a sucker for the socially conscious southern hemisphere yarns. There’s a cozy sitting area around a fireplace with big comfy sofas and lots of books. And a separate room for classes - which is something I’m looking forward to when Village moves. I always feel so guilty skulking around the people taking lessons in weaving and spinning in the middle of the store.

It was really cool to meet new people who are participating in Dyeorama and find out how their experiences have been. Emy’s been SO GREAT about answering questions on the group blog. This idea of people helping each other was really what Scout and I had in mind when we went to the trouble of making everyone who signed up able to post to the blog. We wanted a place for people to share ideas and experiences so it was really nice to thank her in person.

This was the perfect antidote to the poison from Adela’s Yarn I really needed to spend some time in a good, friendly yarn shop and I couldn’t have asked for a better place.

Unfortunately, Jocelyn and I were too late to go by the crazy Winchester house so we went across the street (this is in a charming little shopping village in San Jose) and drank coffee and chatted for a while. Then we went back to her house and Chris grilled some tri tips for us while Jocelyn cooked my favorite “mushroom thing” over pasta. This is sort of a vegetarian version of beef stroganoff made with sauteed mushrooms, yogurt, and a TON of butter that she made up when we were roommates in college. I’ve never really been much of a cook. Even then.

Tuesday
Was my big day alone in the city. Jocelyn had to work (which is a bummer because this was her birthday) and I really didn’t want to spend the whole day sitting around their house. So I rode with her on the Bart train and got off at the second exit to the City - sort of near Union Square. But I’m going to write a whole separate post about that because there’s a whole lot to say about that day.

We did end up going out to dinner at a nice new French restaurant and I gave Jocelyn her two presents (a purse and wallet from Etsy don’t look Joce there are prices!).

Wednesday
I bummed around the house, took a jaccuzi bath (so jealous of this), did a load of laundry, packed. Jocelyn took the second half of the day off to drop me off at the airport. We got a bit lost but I made it to the plane. Got really delayed coming out of Denver again. Didn’t make it to Albuquerque until very, very late.

Cody’s been off this week so we’ve been doing a lot of organizing projects around the house. And a lot of sleeping and cuddling with the pets. Seems I was missed a lot.

I’m still working on the post about my big day by myself in San Francisco!

Like every yarn hoarder I have a pipe dream of someday having a yarn shop. I want mine to be a bookstore/coffeeshop/internet cafe/yarn shop where people can bring their pets. Who knows if this would ever happen. But even with just the etsy shop I have a fairly strong opinion of how I want to treat my customers - because first and foremost I am a consumer. And I will always want to treat customers the way I want to be treated when I’m shopping.

After Ramona’s party a few weeks ago I picked up a fun book called “Greetings from the Knit Cafe” It’s fun and has a lot of patterns that are very comfy looking. I particularly liked the stretches for knitters in the back but really, it made me want to travel and see other knit stores. Not to steal ideas, but to experience the little fiber families that we have at our LYS. I’ll admit that my very first experience at my LYS wasn’t super fantastic but I didn’t feel outright animosity - not at all! Which brings me to my first experience with a yarn shop in the bay area…

Adela’s Yarn
Castro Valley

It’s literally around the block from where I’m staying, this was the first shop I went to. A lot of Colinette, best collection of Tilli Tomas I’ve seen in person. The people who work there, however, were totally unacceptable to me.

I was perusing the yarn selections which were nice but were primarily commercially spun handpainted - and in the wake of dyeorama I couldn’t get around that. I knew exactly where to get a lot of that yarn undyed for one third the price and paint it my damn self.

But that Tilli Tomas was something to see. I’d seen some at a nice shop in Birmingham in December and have regretted not buying some ever since. And I’ve seen the new stuff on kpixie but I’ve been hesitating to buy it without feeling it first. Well, I’ll admit, it’s delightful to touch. The silk is like Fiesta’s La Luz and it’s softly plied with beautiful crystal beads or stones. Gorgeous stuff. Forty five bucks a skein.

I wandered around the store fondling yarn and overheard a saleslady explain how people go get crap at other stores and think they’re knitting but they get the “real” knitters and crocheters at their store, not just crafters. Nice. And an odd attitude to take for a store with high end but nonetheless some novelty-type yarns.

So I was gearing myself up to buy a skein or two of tilli tomas and I had picked up a silver thread cutter pendant which I’ve been wanting when a nice saleslady (the other saleslady) came by and asked how I was doing. At the time I was looking at the Giotto thinking about the sprout sweater I’ve been working on. So I told her I’m working on a sweater in the Giotto.

She asked me if I’d seen the new Colinette pattern book that was all Giotto, which I hadn’t but I’d been wanting to. So she took me over and we were admiring the lovely patterns. I told Jocelyn, who is tolerating all the yarn shops very nicely, that what I thought was really cool about Colinette yarns is there’s no dye lot really, each skein is handpainted and different.

And then the other lady (the not-nice saleslady) who worked there started squawking and raving. One of the residence knitters said very nastily “Oh she’s smart.” Then I had to listen to the rude saleslady explain to me in a really condescending and repetitive manner that there really are colinette dye lots and how I’d have to buy them all at the same time for them to match. I guess she hadn’t heard that I already have 12 friggin balls of giotto and I’ve been alternating skeins every other row. But she kept saying that there really are Colinette Dye lots and how you can tell how they were painted at different times.

Now that i look back on it I think she may have thought I was saying there are no dye lots like the red heart acrylics say there are no dye lots but clearly she wasn’t listening to me. She was trying to be snooty and assert her “yarn dominance”, an attitude I never tolerate well, and apparently trying to “upsell” me, a tactic which I tolerate even less.

Why stores who think they can behave snobbishly to customers and treat them like they’re morons believe that this is a successful sales tactic is beyond me.

But she kept going. Really we’re talking two-three minutes of this woman saying things and not listening to me. Every once in a while I would look over at the nice saleslady and try to gauge how she felt about her coworker’s behavior. Mostly she just looke embarassed. Then I asked rude saleslady if she was the owner of the store. She said yes. So I asked “So is your name Adela?” to which she said “there is no Adela”. That was whenI set down the small pile of purchases I’d accumulated so far. Jocelyn said “I’m thirsty! Let’s go get a drink!”, I turned to the nice saleslady and said, “Thank you for being so nice.” and we left. I wasn’t going to buy a lot there yesterday but I ended up buying nothing.

The good news is that Jocelyn and Chris are regulars at the sushi restaurant just next store so we went back to eat there last night. Now the sushi restaurant seriously rocks. Like RAWKS. We sampled a little of everything and every single thing we ate was tasty. A great fusion of tastes and textures, some fun experiments. (Did you see the PB J Sushi Roll?? Holy CRAP is that good! - Crunchy Peanut Butter, Macadamia nuts, avocado rolled up, cut up, topped with strawberry jelly, whipped cream, sprinkled with dark chocolate chips) I met the owner and chef (who has a photo of himself with Iron Chef Sakkai!) and he was very nice. So even steven as they say.

Go for the yarn if you want. Ignore the bitchy sales woman, and stay for the Sushi. Tell Stanley I said hi and he should still move to Albuquerque!

Adelas yarn

They were extremely rude. like a lot! Adelas is bad

I love Trader Joe Sundays. We get over there every other week - on Cody’s alternate Sundays off. Today we were there early so I could look at all the prepackaged meals before they were picked over.

We brought Barry. Tried to take his photo with the Trader Joe’s sign but my camera’s batteries were out.

Bet that won’t happen again after I get my new cellphone in the mail (that’s not the plan I signed up for I got an excellent deal with Cingular).

Now I get to gorge on hummus. Marmarmarm.

check it - jewelry made from inactive birth control pills to raise money for Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland. link via Colagrl

Barry says thumbs up.

Well, he does from his plush envelope flying somewhere over the Atlantic anyway.

Had a bit of a busy weekend. Heh. Busy weekend. Just a bit. Hehehehehahahahahahaheeeheeeheeheelmmfao

Yeah. Ok. So. Right now we’re looking at roughly 272 people for the dyeorama swap when I’m all done confirming a few entries and getting some info I need from a few others. Call me a softhearted woman but yeah I’m giving people about eleven more hours to confirm or ask nicely if they can join.

Let me say that again. Two hundred seventy two people. And the server didn’t go down. And it won’t show up as overage on the bill either. So hooray for Dreamhost! It shows a little having that many people signing up for WordPress but the swap registration form was great. All things considered there were very few problems to fix. Especially once we got the Internet Explorer issue resolved. When there were problems (primarily people entering wrong information and a RTFM moment or two) they were incredibly easy to fix thanks to Cody’s programming and Dreamhost running PHPmyadmin so I could maintain the database.

Now on to the programming a way to randomly match people and email them by May 1.

We were approached by a store for sponsorship and decided to give out some prizes in a random drawing from the list of people who completed the swap. I’m really pleased with the sponsor’s yarn and I think her dyeing kits are great! We’re accumulating several good gifts (I love the idea of having an incentive to be a good buddy) and trying to come up with a way to confirm when people have received their yarn. Cody has some great ideas.

It’s kind of hard to get across how much work programming something like this from scratch really is, or making things run as smoothly as possible with all the possible variables. I pretty much haven’t done much else this weekend but check emails, change database info, fix the website, and figure out how to fix bouncing emails. It’s not sexy or exciting but I’m proud of the work. And I think it’s going to be a fun swap.

The great part of this is knowing that between Cody and I we can pull off a project for almost 300 people. That’s something to put on a resume. Which is very cool.

So after all the work I’ve been shopping online for a prize for myself. Between this work and resolving a serious problem we were having wth PNM misreading our gas gauge and overcharging us by several hundred dollars, *and* selling some yarn this weekend (to a dyeorama member no less!) I feel like I should buy myself a present.

In a state of sleep-induced delirium yesterday I wandered around online looking at my favorite places. My favorites list at Etsy, Kpixie’s one of a kind yarn, the new Fiber-of-the-month club at Spunky…I couldn’t decide on anything.

After running to Trader Joe’s for groceries (we still can’t get over the prices there) and to Smith’s for the less glamorous groceries like toilet paper and kitty litter (I know TJ’s has hippie pine pellet kitty litter but that isn’t going to work for my cats’ industrial grade asses - we need crystals), I ended up going to Borders to get the brand new “Big Girl Knits” book. They couldn’t find it for me so the nice guy called Barnes and Noble (which was maybe a football field away anyway) and had them hold it at the desk for me.

It’s a great book - the models are actually plus sized not the like “oh she’s a little hippy but otherwise railass thin” kind of models. The advice is good, the patterns cover a wide variety of materials and shapes. I’m very pleased to hear that ribbon yarn is the novelty yarn for the big girl since that’s what my big tunic project is - also pleased to find out that they recommend tunics. And I love the boobs, butt, belly category. I found the bottoms section a little - well, kind of weird. But I’m not much for knitted skirts. And there weren’t any bottoms for belly people which annoys me a little. I might try the yoga pants pattern someday. Yoga pants are my favorite kind of pants. The accessories was an interesing section - mostly because of the advice to carry larger accessories. I can attest to that - there’s nothing that will make you look bigger than a tiny purse. Or make your neck and chin look larger than a mini necklace. So overall, I’m pretty pleased with the book. It’s a nice sized hardcover that will take a lot of abuse. I beat up on my books ya know.

So I was feeling pretty plus-sized friendly. And still looking around in my wishlists and things for something else fun to buy, maybe. And I’ve been going back to this one little weird thing on etsy the last few weeks. It’s by the same woman who made my incredibly cool purse. And I kept going back to this weird thing and last night I’d just pointed at this little chubby guy and made too many cute boopy “poking in the belly with my cursor” sounds for Cody - he decided that Barry had to come live with us. I’m very excited about this. He’s definitely a belly guy. No boobs and a flatter ass than mine which I wasn’t sure was possible. Aww but I love Barry. Can’t wait to have him here.

So click on the photo and give him some clicky belly boops with your cursor for luck and safe travels for Barry.

And now, photos of my ironically cabled socks (ironic of course because the cable was out when I started them) that I finished last week sometime.

a silly photo I took of myself in my rock n roll cowgirl t shirt

And a few birds have been building their nests under our porch roof again. This one had used a little strand of pink yarn. Isn’t it sweet?

Is this post long enough or what?

If officially ended Saturday around 1:30 pm my time. We justified this by saying that it was Easter sunday in Australia and the yarn store wouldn’t be open on Sunday anyway. Considering that I had bought no fiber in any form since Ash Wednesday I have to say, I did well. Particularly for someone who doesn’t really observe Lent anyway. And to my complete surprise I didn’t go crazy buying everything I saw or had on my wish list. I hadn’t been to Village wools since the large koigu shipment had come in so I was happy to sift though the shelves.

So I bought four skeins of a pretty color of koigu to make myself some kneesocks

And, social dork that I am, I did succumb to peer pressure and purchase the yarn to make a shadow shawl with my abq snb girlies. Hey, without them I never would’ve tried the Jaywalkers pattern especially as my first sock and to my utter surprise I’ve become quite the joiner. The pattern calls for three skeins of koigu kppm and three skeins of E Lavold Silky Wool (which I’ve eyed several of the last times I’d been in the store) in contrasting colors. Several people have been getting dark silky wool and bright koigu. I kind of went the other way.

So those and I paid Mama-E for her project spectrum sock yarn subscription and that was pretty much my discretionary portion of our tax return. But I’m very happy and really looking forward to those kneesocks and casting on for another project with my snb buddies.

All the purchases (including my April mama e sock yarn) involves yellow orange so I suppose it qualifies as Project Spectrum. I’m way WAY behind on my PJ project but I’ve finished the ugg booties and ironically cabled socks.

In Dye-O-Rama News, which i’m sure you read at Scout’s anyway Cody and I are putting the finishing touches on the signup forms and the Swap website tonight. SIGNUPS WILL BE TOMORROW NIGHT AT 6PM MDT - THEY WILL END SATURDAY NIGHT AT 6PM MDT. Number of participants is unlimited but only one swap per person. There is a group blog and you’ll be sent to the group blog signup form after you finish filling out the swap form. It’s all very complicated and stuff for us but (hopefully) easier for you.

My Albuquerque-related project is on hold until the signups are done but I’ve pretty much paid for and finished part one of the big indescribible project. I really wish I could go into it more but that one’s seriously top secret.

Back to the salt mines with me. Where the hell are my glasses.