Thanks, Secret Pals!

You may remember a previous post wherein I received Package Two from my One Skein Secret Angel Pal, somewhat in advance of Package One….but we crossed our fingers and waited with bated breath for Monday’s mail.

‘And Lo, their faith was rewarded, and it was good!’

That is Littlest having yarn for dinner, which she has determined needed some butter….

There were two skeins of Katia Diva yarn in cool colors that should go well on Littlest (do you think there’s enough-60+ yds in toto- for a shrug for her??), some row counters….Oh, and let’s not neglect the cozy fuzzy socks! The socks that will keep my always very cold tootsies warm this winter. Of course, being from Maine my pal would not appreciate how cold it gets in the SF Bay Area….at my house we have at least one good frost in the winter….meaning down to the high 20s….yep, California ain’t all sunshine….in fact we rarely have sunshine in winter here.

A family photo of my angel’s most favoritest female relatives in the North Atlantic,

and a note about a certain post to my blog that some of you may remember.

And then today, I got this package from my Secret Pal 8 Pal, wherein she reveals herself as one of the mods for SP8!

The package from her contains two skeins of Crystal Palace Taos yarn in oh so lovely subtle colors, which may be just right for Papa Bear:

a cool pattern for a Brioche pattern scarf (I have never done Briche before, so that will be cool), lots of chocolates from Ritter and Ghirardelli (which unfortunately have now disappeared!!! I had help, honest), and some lovely soaps that are not pictured here.

And I think, that my Secret Pal was trying to say something with Lucy’s Predica-Mints…..I am just not sure what…..

Who is my pal you ask????

Well she is KnitKittyKnit!

Who knew?!

Thanks ever so very much, Secret Pals……I am loving everything, and floating just a wee bit higher today at all the attention **wink**

Knitters can rob banks too!

OldLadyPenPal Shares a Tale: If I needed a bank robber costume….

Arizona-Local Authorities were amazed today when a robbery was reported by a local bank. Apparently the robbers were all clothed in hand-knit sweaters and were armed with numerous sets of knitting needles, which they waved threatening at the tellers and security guards.

“I just could not think with the lead robber who wore a handknit thing over her head waving her size 17s in my face. I just handed over the money and forgot to put in the ink packets, says Mary who was the teller who was told to put all the small bills into a bag already full of yarn and knitting paraphernalia.

Fortunately, the gang, calling themselves Knit One Steal Too, were easily apprehended at the local yarn shop, where they bought huge amounts of luxury yarns with large bills. The yarn store owners became suspiciuous when she noticed the handknit mask in one of the knitting bags with a lot of large bills and the size 17 inch straight needles. “You know, knitters just don’t use straight needles anymore,” said Linette owner of the yarn store across from the bank. “I saw some commotion over at the bank, but had no idea it was Knit One Steal Two, but I am sure glad I had that silent alarm system installed last weekend.” The detectives had actually found a lead on the internet to the gang that have been on a bank robbing needle-waving crime spree lasting 10 months, where one of the gang-memeber apparently posted a free pattern for a ‘bank robbing ski mask’ called Babyface on a site called Knitty.com

The members will be arraigned Monday in the Federal Court Ninth district for multiple accounts of conspiracy, assault with deadly weapons, and federal bank robbery. The maximum penalty for these is 10 years, 35 years without knitting needles, and life, respectively.

A raid on the gang’s hideout turned up more knitting needles, including some size 50 needles used at the Compass Bank robbery three nights ago, and huge amounts of yarn. “Clearly, these robbers had an unhealthy obsession with yarn and knitting; so unhealthy that they had to resort to bank robbery to fund their habits,” says Dr. John Knitlees, the police psychologist. “There was so much yarn that they could never hope to knit it all in their combined lifetimes. Really, this hoarding behaviour is extremely unhealthy and indicative of individuals with personality disorders accompanied by shades of obsessive-compulsive tendencies. These knitters should be stripped of their yarn and pointy sticks, lest they do some terrible damage to themselves. Restraints would probably be good too.”

Footing the blog!

Here are my feet…..

Here are my feet on carpet….

Here are my feet in UFO socks on carpet….

Here is the yarn in the UFO socks on my feet on the carpet in the aforementioned photo.

Here is the bag that holds the yarn that knits the UFO socks in the aforementioned photo for the feet on the carpet….

Secret Pal, who are you?

Upon finally getting a chance to go through Yarn Yenta’s list, I have narrowed the list of potential secret pals down to this list…..

*Left Coast Knits
Just Regular Folks
Knit Happens
Knit Kitty Knit
Knitter Navy Wife
Res Ipsa knit with her
The Knitting Ref
The Knitting Wounded
Yarn Spinner

I really have very little to go on, all I really know about this person is that she lives in CM, CA….Costa Mesa?

Although it did cross my mind that it would be really perverse if Left Coast Knitter was my pal, since we have known each other for a long time now…..My money is on the Knitting Ref, though.

In other news, I have been revealed by my own Secret Pal, Civil Bitch who posted on yesterdays’ post…..Cheers to you, Shelly! It’s been fun being your pal, but sad to see the many changes in your life these 3 months. Glad that J is home and not still in hospital with the dread MRSA….!

The Postman knocks twice…..

Today started as an ordinary day. I woke up to the Rock stomping through the house, with an accompaniment of Rowanberry pitter patter…..We got groceries, and took the kids to their swim lessons.

After that we parted ways, with DH going off to the salt mines in the basement of the local Sears store, and the kidlets and I meeting Oma for lunch and some shopping. After completeing the shopping, we got in the car and went home…..to find not one, but TWO packages on the doorstep….

The first package was the fleece that I purchased at the winery coming back from the processorand here is a photo of the fleecey goodness….Meet Starla, who was a lovely merino cross, in a grey and tan, but the roving looks moorit…..

The second package was more interesting because it was from my One Skein Secret Pal Angel. You may recall that I had not heard from my OSSP at all, and in fact I was having to repeatedly let the mods know, which was frustrating in the extreme. But I have an angel, and this is a picture of her! Can you believe how much she looks like Marlene Dietrich? Isn’t that amazing???

She sent me a couple of sweaters for my California weather….see how small they are? It should be noted that the baby ran off with them after the photo shoot, but was distracted by the open unflushed toilet…..she kept running out to show me her hands, which were wet only, Thank God. Luckily nothing actually went into the toilet. Proximity Alerts only.

And she sent me a lobster….how did she know that I love lobster…..? Her note says that I have to mount it on my car and pretend I just got back from Maine.

And two buttons that are suspiciously the Maine State Bird……could she be from Maine?? ***wink wink***

And finally the coup de grace…..not one, but TWO skeins of this Caron yarn that I have never seen before….not that I am an expert on Caron yarns by any stretch of the imagination, but it is nice to know that there are yarns that I have not met yet. And OSSP, can I say that the colors are totally ones that I would pick for myself!

And even better, I know just what to do with it. But I will come back to that.

Now since I had the camera out, Little Hill (DS) wanted to take photos. Having admonished me for using a paring knife to open the packages, instead of the proper tool for the job, he decided that the tool in question would be photgraphed. And so dear readers, please be advised that the proper tool for opening packages left on the stoop is this:

I think that I will call it Still Life with Tools by Little Hill.

So what’s knitting me? you ask. Well see the picture…..what is that? you may ask.

THAT is a wonder of modern mathematics….a one sided object called a Mobius Strip. It is being knit with the 3 skeins of Claudia HandPaint received from my Secret Pal in June…..and Secret Pal, note how it coordinates with my sewing room…..pretty cool huh? In the photo, there are 2.5 skeins left. The photo is somewhat out of date, as I am on the last skein now. In 8 days….can I just say how very fast it is going?

So what does this have to do with the two skeins of Caron yarn? Well, there is this way to knit a basket with a mobius strip. Basically you knit the mobius as the handle and then open the knitting and pick up and knit the basket. Pretty cool, hunh? That is what I plan to do with the caron yarn…..

So thanks so much OSSP, but one thing, in your postcard, you said this was pkg #2, and this is the only that has been delivered so far…..I hope that it shows up on Monday or so, but wanted you to know!

Swapping sheep

So I was minding my own business on knitty chat one day, and someone suggested an informal natural fiber swap (okay, it might have been me) wherein the participants would trade local and naturally colored fiber for spinning with each other. No blind taste tests, no secrets….just good clean sheep swappin’.

So I found some lovely cormo roving from a local NoCal shepherd and sent it on its merry way to the Four Corners where Sarah lives. In return, she went down the road to her local Churro shepherd and sent me this lovely roving…..

Meet Ewe.

Ewe is my daughter’s lamby toy.

Dear Husband named her Ewe, which of course is a female sheep. However, the name Ewe does lend itself to some amusing conversations. I will leave it to your imagination….and allow me to say that my daughter has so far not displayed any unusual symptoms of personality disorders that may come from pronoun confusion with a stuffed animal.

I had to show this photo, because it was just too weird for words. So that everyone understands completely. On a dark night, it is possible to take a photo of Ewe where she seems to be there, but really is not. No digital editing necessary. Yes, that’s right, this photo is a freaky flukey thing in digital photog, happening due to DD’s extremely fast sleight of hand, wherein she removed Ewe from the photo frame so quickly that the camera could not even register that Ewe was gone.

And it ain’t even Halloween.

On a final note, I have been adopted! Yes, I have a One Skein Angel, who is so on the ball that she already has a package in the mail to me. Well there was the little identity slip up, but she attributes that to pre-coffee jitters, and I am content to agree with her assessment.

And finally, my SP8 is also sending a package…..can I just say that I cannot wait!

Oh, and be sure to check out my new website…..www.ceallachdyes.com or alternatively dyeingtoknitandspin.com. The site is essentially complete, although I am still working on getting merchant services up and running, as well as a separate bank account. Any comments would be welcome, of course.

And now, I am off to pick up the kidlets from the Y and stop into the Fry’s for USB cables and hubs. Exciting stuff, I know!

Finito!

Voila!

Here it is! The ends are all woven in, the armpits grafted, the tie done. There is absolutely nothing else to be done on this sweater, unless I block it, which seems rather pointless since it is mainly nylon. In fact, I feel a bit like Eliza Doolittle ready to burst into song about how I could have knit all night……wouldn’t that be loverly???

Oohs and Ahhs are welcome!

I have some photos that I want to post….First the photos from Lambtown. First I have to say that I was not trying real hard to photog the show, and once I walked into the hall with the fiber vendors, I completely forgot about taking pics. Oh, and because I know that someone will ask, I am not sure of the breed of these sheep, but they are commercial or market sheep.

However, I do have a couple of nice photos of the shearing contest and Janet in front of an incroyable kite.

And finally, some may know that I am in the Dyer’s Garden Along, but had some …erm…delays in getting the garden in, as well as my herbicidal husband who killed most of my seedlings while I was in London in May. That said, the garden is going, and I did harvest some dyestuff from the garden recently and then freeze them.

From top left counterclockwise are: Amaranth, marigold, zinnia, coreopsis, and peeking out are some zucchini that are just going gangbusters so far.

Isn’t the amaranth spectacular….notice that the new growth on the leaf is scarlet, and it darkens to a deep burgundy at the leaf tips.

Sweater is finished!

Smania is complete

The sweater is done! Yeah! (I do have to sew in the ends and graft the armpits, but that is finishwork, not knitting, so the sweater is done.)

I decided to do a series of eyelets along the neck and run a cord….as you can see….the cord is crocheted and I will add a couple of beads to it, when I find the right ones.

The Next Sweater

So the next question is….what do I knit next? So to help my favorite readers, I am posting three photos of piles of yarn along with descriptions of what I think I might knit with them. I need thoughts and even votes on which project to start.

Here we have Noro Airisu…..a cotton/rayon/silk blend that I would knit a cardi out of….with openwork sleeves, like a mesh pattern and possibly an openwork hem.

Here we have Prism in Ischia, which I would knit a simple shell out of, possibly again with the openwork.

And finally, Giotto in color fresco, I don’t know what I want to do with this….there are 5-6 skeins. Cast your vote now for the next project.

Long time no smoke signal

Hey there all!

I know it’s been awhile since I posted, (okay a week) but I have been a busy bee.

Lambtown and a weekend without rugrats

This past weekend was Lambtown see the sidebar for the link to the event. I had done what I always do wherein I comb through the lists of classes looking for the ones that I would like to take….I do this repeatedly, mostly because I would not want to miss anything that is interesting.

Then I forget to sign up. Well not really forget, more like I get weighed down in whether I will find someone to watch the kids….(someone thought it would not be good for me to leave the children in the car for 5 hours in summer heat and passed a law of all things making it a felony.) and whether I really want to spend the money on the class, whether the class is worth the money, and whether I will be bored silly. Then there is my natural inclination to participate heavily in the class, which some folks think is bad, and so it all adds up to one thing.

I did not sign up for the classses after all, and instead used the time without the kids to just loaf on the couch. Well some of the time anyway. Some of the time was used to photograph the yarn for the store (did you know that my digital camera comes with a flower and superflower setting that are great for photos of yarn??), some of it was used to sew some of the backlog of fabric accruing in my sewing room.

I went to Lambtown with Janet from knitting, and we made the rounds of the whole fair before going into the fiber fair to make the rounds there. We also had lunch there….Janet had a chicken and mushroom crepe, I had lamb ribs which were by all reports both excellent. The fiber fair was larger than normal, and we made the rounds there as well. Janet bought some yarn, and I got a little mixed bag of fiber in greens for spinning up, as well as almost a pound of cormo roving for Morgsarah from Knitty chat as part of a local fiber swap that we decided to do. (people pick partners, and then swap fiber from local fiber sources in natural colors). The final thing that I got was a pair of Clover’s new lighted knitting needles, which are apparently do new that they are not shown on the Web at all….totally on a whim…

So actually it shaped up into a rather pleasant weekend.

Home Leave for the Family

Monday morning my sister in law flew in from Rome, with her two girls and her rather ill husband for 2 weeks on home leave from the UN and the plant diversity preservation firm that he works for. The nieces are blossoming, especially the older who is 13, 5 foot ten inches tall, slender and lovely. Can I just say that I hate her for winning the gene pool crap shoot? But she has redeemed herself by learning to knit. Her grandmother has been teaching her, but I have seen some of the knitting that GRandma does…..okay, entire cardigans done on like size 1 or 2 needles, in basketweave where each repeat is like 4-5 stitches….and I am thinking that Niecey needs some big ass needles and some fluffy yarns to get her well and goodly hooked. So we are planning a clandestine trip to the yarn store, and if she makes it to our house, she may get to comb through my yarn stash for goodies. Either way, I plan to comb through too and pull out any novelty yarns or ball ends for her to play with. And the huge clovers that I have are so for her.

Tuesday I worked remotely from MIL’s home so that I could visit with them, which was really nice and worked out well for the editing of the documents that I needed to work on.

Dinner at ChezPanisse

We met the family at Chez Panisse last night, which is a 5star restaurant in Berkeley, for dinner. There was 10 of us, including DH and I, his sisters and there partners, the aforementioned nieces, and DSIL’s husbands youngest daughter from the previous marriage and her beau. DH and I sat with the beau who works for a solar company…..very interesting conversation…

But you want to hear about the food of course. I have copied the menu in from here for you to droll over, since they change it daily.

CHEZ PANISSE CAFÉ DINNER MENU

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Fixed Menu $26.00
Garden lettuce salad
Tomato and onion panade with green beans and okra
Boysenberry sherbet with candied orange peel and biscotti

Little Gem lettuce with Caesar dressing, $9.00
Heirloom and cherry tomato salad with aïoli, $10.00
Local king salmon with cucumber, chervil, and capers, $11.00
Eggplant, roasted pepper, and cipollini salad, $10.00
Pizzetta with tomato sauce, scallions, and sheep’s milk ricotta, $12.00
Baked Sonoma goat cheese with garden lettuces, $9.50
Garden lettuce salad, $7.00
Summer squash minestrone and basil, $7.00

Spaghetti alla puttanesca: pasta with tomato, anchovy, olive, and hot pepper, $16.00
California white sea bass with summer shell beans and tomato vinaigrette, $26.00
Bollito misto: Magruder Ranch grass-fed brisket and shoulder with tomato, romano bean and horseradish, $28.00
Grilled Sonoma County duck breast with corn, squash, and rocket salad, $22.00
Tomato and onion panade with green beans and okra, $18.00
Pizza with greens and pancetta, $17.00

Side orders: a plate of olives, anchovies, Parmesan, or Tuscan olive oil, $3.50 each

DESSERTArtisan cheese selection: Fromage de Meaux, Twig Farm Tomme, and Sally Jackson Sheep, $12.00
Bittersweet chocolate pavé with Cognac cream, $8.50*
Golden Sweet apricot tart with vanilla ice cream, $9.50
Boysenberry sherbet with summer berries, $8.00
Affogato: warm espresso over vanilla ice cream with biscotti, $7.50
Noyau ice cream with nectarines, $8.00
A bowl of Middleton Gardens raspberries and Raye Byrne mulberries, $7.50

We all began with a loverly red wine that took us right through dinner. Each person had a salad, mine was baked goat cheese with rocket and some other lettuces….it was lovely and the goat cheese had a touch of sour that was nice. The second course was a variety. Mine was duck breast with corn and more rocket, the breast was done to perfection, with the skin still on and crispy with a hint of salt that was just to my taste. DH had the brisket which mealted in the mouth. Nieceys had the tomato panade-think lasagna with bread instead of noodles….very gooey and they enjoyed it. I am not sure what everyone else had, until we got to dessert.

Dessert at our table of 10 consisted of 6 bittersweet chocolate paves which is a flourless chocolate cake, suitably drizzled with chocolate and other delightful things. There were then 2 more apricot tarts, including my own, which were also lovely.

Getting Ready for business

The website for Ceallach Dyes is also taking up quite a bit of time….but is almost done….I have some finishing touches to make and the SIL and her BF will be helping with some polish, and then I should be publishing it soon. So look for that….there will of course be announcements here and in various other locations.

Other stuff that I just need to vent on a little bit

Do you ever find yourself on kind of a negative vibe? I am finding myself there right now. I am spending a lot of time complaining aobut things, or maybe it’s that I am really irritable and so things are getting on my nerves more, I don’t know what it is. What I do know is that I feel like a complete bee-hotch, and it seems out of my control.

Perfect example: the cube at work is really cold….in fact I started to measure the temp and at my cube, it was 72 degrees. There were days that I had on two sweaters and a shawl and sat at my desk shivering. Hardly an atmosphere conducive to prodcutivity. Lest the reader think that I am crazy, my neighbors were also saying it was too cold, as were passerby. So I call to get it taken care of. A month goes by, while I am on vacation, and no one comes to look at it. I call again, explain about the previous ticket which this person cannot find, and open a new ticket. They tell me 4-8 hours and someone will be by. 2 days later still no one. I call again. Nothing.

I called 5 times on this, each time getting more ticked about it, because I should not have to call so many times. Finally, after the last call, the engineer calls me and explains that they had had bigger problems, one of the chillers has been down and needed to be replaced. Now I am understanding on things like this, but at no point did someone say to me, they have big problems and your ticket may take a while. He also for the first time says no problem shoudl be able to pick it, yadda yadda—again the first time. That same day they came and put a portable temp tracking device in my cube. Next day Mr.HVAC comes by and finds out that someone had turned the two closest thermostats down to 68 degrees, which is why it was so cold at my desk. So turns out I was not crazy, I should have been complaining and it’s a good thing that I did.

While this is going on, my neighbors are basically ignoring my efforts, which quite frankly are also on their behalf. No support, no encouragement. Nuttin’. At one point, one of them said to my face that I was being a bee-hotch (same one who is my ‘friend’ that won’t even look me in the eye right now….not sure what bug is in her bonnet, but if she ain’t got the guts to come out with it, I will not be responsible and quite frankly she is being rude.)

Meanwhile, every morning this week, I have to be on the phone an hour before my normal start time for project meetings, and I can barely get up in time. I am exhausted from these meetings, it’s not like I can just go to bed earlier because I would just lay there til my normal bed time. So instead it’s just wearing me down and I have started having PVCs again.

So yesterday, we are driving around looking for parking at the restaurant and I am getting more and more steamed, because all the parking is 1 hour in an area with restaurants (which usually take a minimum of 1 hour) or permit parking. DH keeps talking about dropping me at the restaurant, which I hate for some reason, and then parking in a garage 2 miles away, and I am just getting more and more agitated.

DH and I also had a fight recently because my hairbrush was missing after the hskpr was in, and he kind of glanced around and put no effort when I had asked him to have a look, while complaining that it was mine and I should find it, when I had already spent 30 minutes looking for it…..Turns out it was in his bathroom drawer, which I am sure I checked. It’s a little thing, but it escalated into this big blowout, and then I realized I had not had breakfast at 10 am, and he was trying to get me out the door directly following my last meeting when I had not had a shower, and he called me a name that I hate, so no wonder it became a big blowout. And DH does not know how to fight or makeup, and he wanted to hug me and I just wanted him and the kids to leave forever because I am not handling anything at all lately with grace, confidence and style, but where other people get to have bad days, for some reason I don’t get the same kind of slack.

I am going to go crawl under a rock now.