Menage A Trois

March 14, 2007 By

Today I had a three way with Vicki and Ann. Then Georgie popped in for a few minutes. It was quite the morning. Vicki wrote a very nice post today (which turns out to be a contest – so go- have fun) about how she and Ann quit smoking TWO YEARS AGO. (I’m bursting with pride, by the way!) I’m not sure I remember when I started reading Vicki – she was one of my first blogs for sure. When she first quit, I sent her this huge box of stuff to help her and she sent some of the bounty off to Ann. So I started reading Ann. Her blog was, you know, okay. Nothing special. But I read, because she was friends with Vicki and I love Vicki, so I started leaving her encouraging comments too. Then, that summer, Vicki came to New York and Ann and I crossed our respective rivers to pay homage to the Knitorious One. About 30 seconds into our meeting, Ann let the F-BOMB fly and I knew we’d be friends forever. It was love at first curse word. Since then we’ve traveled together, spun together, made fun together and Vicki gets all the blame.

I left a comment over at Vicki’s that said: “I send you a big box of goodies and you give me Ann.” I was reading the comment to Ann (because I like to read aloud to her all the time – it’s the only way I know she reads the blog) and she said something like – what kind of secret pal swap was that?! And I said, YEAH! It’s the TAKE MY PAL PLEASE Swap. It amazes me on a daily basis that I could be such great friends with a person that takes in shit off the street. Literally.

Seriously though – my life is made SO MUCH RICHER (in the heartfelt sense – these girls have COST me money for sure!) by them. I can’t tell you HOW HAPPY I AM that you both quit smoking. I want you around for a long long LONG time.

Speaking of valuable people in my life – go on over and give Margene and big ol’ HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Have a great day my friend!

In other news, my “real” life (as opposed to my knitblog life) is completely and utterly boring. Yesterday my only goal was to load the tax software onto the computer. I got so carried away, that it turns out I’m pretty much finished them. There’s a couple more boxes to go through – but I’m only looking for one or two papers and then I’m DONE. Much faster than I expected. I’m a laugh RIOT.

Knitting wise, I started the armhole decreases on the back. Hopefully that will be done pretty quickly. YAWN!!!

God help me. I think I put myself to sleep.

Filed Under: Bloggers

Reasons to be cheerful

March 7, 2007 By

Reason No. 7,659 that I love knitbloggers: Yesterday, about fifteen minutes after I posted about my encounter with extra terrestrials Jenni sent me an email detailing EXACTLY which solar system the aliens were from, which kind of ship they used to land, the instruments they used to cut the crop circles and how butt cream would do nothing to stop the twitching in my ass. Thanks Jenni!! No, really, Jenni, an engineer and ecologist in New Jersey said she thought it was probably salt marsh mitigation and DING DING DING! She’s right! I heard back from the NJ Meadowlands Commission and apparently they cleared the reeds for a mitigation project being spearheaded by the Commission and the US Army Corps of Engineers. She thinks they’re probably going to plant some new pretty plants out there. WHOOHOO! No building here! It’s like the Ghostbusters sign. Closed for business! (Oh and Risa – the stuff on the other side of the river is, I believe, going to be a golf course and/or a new apartment complex. I don’t think I’ll be able to see it from my view, thank god.)

Reason No. 7,660 that I love knitbloggers: Ivete emailed me the other day asking about the double decreases I’m doing for the Katharine Hepburn cardigan. She said she was knitting it as well and her double decreases look A LOT different than mine. I, cockily it turns out, told her I was doing what the pattern said: slip two stitches knit wise, knit the next stitch, then pass the slipped stitches over. What Ivete pointed out is that it actually says slip two stitches as if you were going k2tog, then knit one, then slip the stitches over. BIG DIFFERENCE! Thank god Ivete told me this early because her way, the CORRECT way, looks a helluva lot better than the bonehead way I was doing it. There was some ripping on my end, but not that much, and I’m VERY happy now and oh my god what if she had noticed it when I was halfway done the sweater? I would have been SO PISSED. Crises averted. Thanks Ivete!

Reason No. 7,661 that I love knitbloggers: The KH Cardigan has lots of little easy peasy cables that you turn every fourth row. I heart my cable needle. But not that much. I decided I needed to learn to cable without the damn needle, for this project at least, and Wendy came to my rescue! I can now do a simple four stitch cable cross – both left and right – without a cable needle. Although it would be great if I could remember which way I’m twisting. Yeah, yeah. We all know I can fix a freaking miscrossed cable. That doesn’t mean I should have to. Thanks Wendy!

Reason No. 7,662 that I love knitbloggers: I’m feeling extremely confident in my plan for KH – I think KNOW it’s going to fit EXACTLY the way I’d like. This is in no small part to all of you, but especially Emily – who reworked the numbers again for me and told me that I was completely correct in my assessments on how to knit this baby up. Thanks Emily!! You really made me feel good about my skillz! Now imagine my surprise, as I’m knitting in bed last night, flipping through the channels, to find EMILY on TV!! I was gliding through the guide and saw a show on PBS called The Art of Quilting. Hmmmm, I thought, this could be good for some inspiration. So I turned to it and there she was!! EMILY! Have you seen what this girl can do with some fabric and a sewing machine? OH MY GOD! She’s a genius! (She knits, dyes yarn AND she likes crunching numbers for other people. I guess she’s crazy, too.)

After all this goodness, I’m cruising on Katharine Hepburn!

God bless KNITBLOGGERS one and all!

Filed Under: Bloggers, KH Cardigan

Knit Nite

February 13, 2007 By

I’m LOVING all the contest entries! I love the confessional nature of some of them. I love when people share their stories. And for the record, G and I never celebrate Valentine’s Day. I can barely remember a present or a card even. We don’t even celebrate Thanksgiving – so VDay is really off the radar. Besides, we’re one of those couples you love to hate in that every day around here is VDay. We’re so in looooooooove. (Don’t hate me cause you ain’t me!)

More trip news! Firstly, let me just say that blogging can oftentimes feel like a job. Sure – sometimes it’s a fun job, but sometimes it’s not and don’t let anyone tell you it’s easy to come up with something on a fairly regular basis. I mean, I knit a lot – but I don’t knit THAT much. (Not that I’m really complaining, per se. I know full well that I have CHOSEN to do this. I could take it all down in a second but I would honestly miss it. Breaks are good. For the most part this blog has brought nothing but goodness into my life. THANK YOU for that.) Anyway, when I’m thinking ugh – I have to write something witty and funny and smart and take pretty pictures and knit something fabulous or I know no one will ever read my blog again – my faith in blogging is RESTORED!

I mean, how else would I have ever had the chance to hang out with SUCH fabulous people?! How else? So far now I’ve met bloggers in Maryland, New York, Boston, Chicago, LA, The Peninsula. I’ve met bloggers from Wisconsin, Utah, Georgia, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Pennsylvania. Canada. I’ve met people in my own backyard that have become some of my favorite people in the world – all through this little blog. My trip out to the Central Coast of California was no exception. Or it’s called the Peninsula. Or South Bay. The area just south of San Francisco where all the computers companies reside. Near Stanford University. Seriously – this is THE fiber community. They’ve got like a million shops out there and everyone knows everyone and everyone (from what I could see) likes and RESPECTS everyone and the shops are all in on it with each other and they all carry really different yarns with almost NO overlap. I visited three stores (there are like a million more) and they were all very different in style and layout – but they were all equally warm and inviting and I would’ve been comfortable kicking up my heels and knitting for a while in any one of them.

My knitblogger adventure started Friday night. The incomparable Cookie picked me up and took me to dinner with Nathania, Jeni, and NO BLOG Hannah – who it turns out – is my long, lost twin. (GET OFF THE MYSPACE GIRL and grow up. Get yourself a BLOG!) I’m positive I laughed more than I ate and I was instantly comfortable with everyone. Which is saying a lot for people you’ve never met before (or met for just a little while – DUDES! I was at Nathania’s Bridal Shower!)

After dinner, we walked a few blocks to a coffee shop and hooked up with Kristi, Jocelyn, Freecia, Lu, Lisa, who came out with her gorgeous 2wk old son that seriously made my ovaries ache, Linda and Jill.

We ended up moving to a crepe place a couple doors down because the first place couldn’t accomodate us and we preceded to get thrown out of the crepe place. We’re so bad. HAHAHAHA! No, really, they wanted to close. So then we stood in the street because we could NOT STOP YAPPING. Nathania’s got a picture of us!

The next day, Nona picked me up and we headed out for a yarn crawl with Cookie and Kristi! I was really excited to hang with Nona – I’ve long been a fan of her blog and her new swatch project is INSPIRED! What she can do with a log cabin square just stirs my heart. Our first stop was Full Thread Ahead where Hollis, the owner, was super generous and let us into the Secret Stitches Stash where I picked out the most beautiful yarn I’ve ever seen!

Have you ever? It’s HandMaiden Sea Silk in the Straw colorway (such a pedestrian name!), but let’s be honest here – that’s pure gold folks.

Everyone was in agreement that this was definitely MY COLOR and it was all I could do to stop smelling it and fondling it and generally behaving with it in a very unladylike way. Thank you Hollis! I will definitely use this yarn for something very, very special!

Our next stop was Uncommon Threads – and unfortunately I didn’t get to hang here long enough. The back table was a VERY inviting spot and it would’ve been a lot of fun to hang with the knitters I met back there. And they had fudge. What more could you ask for?

We rushed out of Uncommon Threads so we could get to Purlescence before it closed. Another VERY fine knitting shop! I couldn’t leave empty-handed two stores in a row, so I picked up some Louet Gems and Claudia’s Handpainted for some potential Anemoi Mittens!

I’m thinking of a stained glass effect. We’ll see. After we closed down Purlescence, Kristi, Cookie, Nona and I did what knitters do best – we hung out and knit! Some delicious local flavor and fantastic conversation was the end to a perfect knitty couple of days.

I can’t thank you all enough for taking time out of your busy lives to spend time with me! It was a blast and I loved knitting and talking and hanging with all of you! Anytime you’re in my neighborhood – SHOUT! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Next up tomorrow…. A LEGEND is revealed!

Filed Under: Bloggers, Stash