The Yarn Harlot Comes to Florida

Yesterday Michele and I took a short (shorter for me than for her!) trip down to Vero Beach to attend Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, aka The Yarn Harlot's book signing. This is only the second time she's ever come to Florida, so there was no way I was going to miss it. Last year she came to Jacksonville, which, lets face it, is just barely Florida, and it was on hubby's birthday, so I couldn't really justify it.

Even on just a few hours of sleep, after a nightmare of a traveling experience, she was hilarious and engaging. I'm so glad that someone with her publishing company realized that there really are knitters in Florida, despite the unfathomable heat. We're tenacious like that. I know that we didn't produce the same sort of turnout that she might get in Portland (ahem!) or some other more fiberlicious venues, heck, we don't even have a LYS to show off, but we do love our sticks and string, and our Harlot, Just as much.

We met up with three of the other girls from our knitting group at the book store, and sweet baby Sarah, who totally steals the show in the Harlot's blog post. In this post you can also find us sitting on the far left of the group shot, about 5 rows back. You'll recognize me by the enormous and shiny forehead. :)

And here are a couple of shots swiped from Hannah, who most certainly has a more superior camera. Thanks for taking these for us!




After the signing, Michele and I tooled around Vero for a little while. We stopped at the outlet mall and snapped up a few bargains at the Children's Place Outlet store, both for J and for her sweet little baby to be. See picture above. Doesn't she look fabulous for someone who's due any moment now?

We also had lunch at Olive Garden. Who can resist their soup, salad, and breadstick lunch? Not us, apparently. While there, Michele helped me figure out where I'd gone wrong on my current sock in progress and came to the rescue with a teeny-tiny crochet hook so I could pick up the stitch I dropped. Apparently I can't knit and laugh at the same time. I've never dropped a stitch, in a pattern row, and let it ladder back 8 rows before realizing something's wrong! All's right with the world of sock again, I'm happy to report.

After that, we headed back to Melbourne, stopped in at Jo-Ann to pick up some stencils for the baby's room, and some yarn, of course, and then to Starbucks for coffee.

It was great to get out with the girls for an entire day. I had a fabulous time. I sure hope the Yarn Harlot decides that Florida is worth visiting again soon.

One of the greatest things

in the entire world is opening your mailbox and finding an unexpected package inside. That's exactly what happened last Thursday. And yes, I'm a terrible blogger, and perhaps a worse friend for not posting this any sooner. But I think the sender can understand and appreciate the way that days tend to slip by you completely unnoticed sometimes.

A little history:

I met both Laura and her husband, Doug, many many years ago on a poetry website that we all frequented. Over the years we developed a great relationship, which finally culminated in Jonas and I catching a flight to PA two years ago for a whirlwind visit with them. The time at their place, affectionately known as "Barnhenge" was one of the most wonderful times of my life. Let's face it-- no matter how much you think you know someone on the internet, they can always turn out to be raving lunatics in real life. I'm proud to report that actually meeting them in person just solidified my love for both of them.

We planned on repeating the trip the next year, along with a side trip to Maryland for Maryland Sheep and Wool and a meetup with Gretchen, but Wil landed himself in the hospital the day before the trip, and well, I couldn't just leave him there alone, could I? So the trip got canceled with a "next year for sure" clause.

Now to this year. Who knew that Fairy Fest and the Sheep and Wool festival would be the exact same weekend that baby sister would be graduating? Honestly, there was no competition, but still, it sucked to have to take a raincheck for the second year in a row.

Over the past two years we've been lax in staying in touch. Time changes circumstances and everyone gets busy. Heck, on top of keeping up with the chickens and the garden, they even went and got busy making a baby, and then being parents.

So imagine my surprise when the package wedged in my mailbox, beautifully decorated in butterflies, was from Laura! I did a little happy dance in the seat of my car all the way to J's school and back before I got to open it.

A peek at the insides:


Gorgeous alpaca yarn, (Amazing, especially considering Laura has yet come to the dark side... ahem... learned to knit), a beautiful gold bag with a stuffed Baltimore oriole inside for J man, which was actually a gift from their friend, Raven, a jar of homemade raspberry jam, cute bamboo coasters, a party favor from L's baby shower, which sadly did not make the journey in one piece, and some Tibetan prayer flags. Of course, the best part of the package was the sweet notecard inside, and just knowing that, even after two years of less than stellar communication, someone out there is thinking of you. It's a beautiful thing.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that this little package meant more to me than you can ever imagine. Thanks Laura, for the goodies and for simply being an amazingly wonderful friend. I love you, girlie.

Busy Weekend=Long Post

but not to worry... there are pictures, too.

So, Saturday, amid much fiasco about travel arrangements, mostly due to my own stupidity and inability to see logic at times, I met up with Michele to go to the Orlando Needleworks Show. We were both really excited to get to go and play with all the nice fancy yarn that you can't buy anywhere in our county.

So we get to the convention center, and pay our $6 for parking, and the garage is packed. We get inside, pay our $10 each for entry, and find that the needleworks show is mostly scrapbooking and rubber stamps. Of course it is. Why wouldn't a NEEDLEWORKS show have those things? I was disappointed that there were only a handful of booths that were offering any sort of yarn at all, and sort of felt duped by the title. To be fair, there were quite a few booths with quilting supplies, so I guess, technically, it was a needleworks show. But the ads and flyers made it sound like there would be quite a few more vendors than there were. And the vendors weren't all that friendly and outgoing, either. You'd think that if you'd spent that much money to take part in the thing, you'd at least be trying to chat up your prospective buyers. Then again, when you have the corner on the market, I guess you don't have to go out of your way to please anyone.

That said, the yarn that was there was scrumptious. Michele and I browsed all of the booths, and it was really quite comical because every booth we went to, we both oogled the exact same thing. It's a good thing we like each other, or else there might have been some catty fighting over certain yarns. :)

I was a smart girl, though. Before leaving town I removed my debit card from my wallet and took only cash. That way, I HAD to restrain myself and only buy the things I was on a mission for. Wait til you see just how close I came to blowing it. :)

You see, I had one particular project and one particular yarn that I wanted. It's intended to be a gift for someone for Christmas, and it had to be just right. I had a few select colors that I was looking for, and while I didn't find exactly the yarn I wanted, I found something very close.

I snatched it up, along with a couple ounces of roving to play around with. I'm still not a pro at the drop spindle, but I enjoy playing with it, so the little 1 oz bags are perfect for now, and give me just enough handspun to add a little flair to a project.

So, disappointed with the show, but not ready to admit defeat, Michele and I got the brilliant idea that, hey, Orlando has real honest to goodness yarn shops! Lets go find some! So we got the phone book, and we got the address, and we headed for the car.

It was a beautiful day. Not too hot, not too cold, so we put the top down and acted like a couple of movie stars.

Here we are (aren't we cute!) calling Wil to give us mapquest directions to the holy mecca of fiber.


Yes, the locals do call it Sip n' Knit.

Here is where we had the most fun all day. Unfortunately, I'd already spent most of my budget on admission and one skein of yarn at the needleworks show. It almost kills me to thing that I would have had another 30-something bucks to blow here, had I skipped the show and just gone here. Oh well, it's the price of experience, right?

I did manage to eek a couple of balls of yarn out of the change in my pocket. How could I resist?

And then it dawned on us... we were hungry. Not just a little hungry, more like that "I haven't had anything but a cup of coffee all day" type of hungry.

Fortunately, there's a Publix almost directly in front of the yarn shop, and so we pooled what resources we had left and we bought a sub and a half gallon of tea to share and we had a picnic right there in the parking lot while petting the new yarn.

Here are just some silly pictures of us oogling our new purchases... and petting them, too. :)





Now on to Sunday. Whew!

While Michele and I were at the needlworks show, we discovered that the International Auto Show was being held in the convention rooms just down the hall. This immediately made me sad because I'd made Wil stay at home because I figured he'd be bored to tears hanging out with us. So, I was morally obligated to take him back in return for taking care of J all day while I was out playing.
J had a great time too. The kid has a fascination with Mustangs, and he got his fill of them.





I'm not a car buff like Wil is, but I had a great time. Besides, it was a good excuse to wear my new shoes.

Cosmic Twins?

Go ahead and roll your eyes at the title. Yes, I realize that it sounds awful new-agey and dumb, but I'm thoroughly convinced that some people are just linked in ways that we don't quite understand.

We have a friend, Mary. Way back when, we all worked together at Best Buy and we became quite close. But there's something odd about our relationship. You see, anytime something strange happens to us, a similar event is almost undoubtedly going to occur in hers. Sometimes they're just odd coincidences- you know, the ordinary quirky things like picking out the exact same birthday card for the same person. But sometimes they're just too weird to explain.

For instance, think back to April when hubby spent a week in the hospital due to a nasty infection in his foot. Yep-- very same week Mary was in the very same hospital having surgery on the very same leg. I wish I'd known, I could have maybe gone for a visit, or arranged little hospital playdates between the patients. (Do they allow such things?)

Ok, if that's not weird enough for you, how about this one:

Two nights ago hubby was robbed outside his job at about 6 pm. This morning, about 6 am, Mary and her coworkers were held up at gunpoint on her way into work. The bastard forced them to open and empty the safe and then, thankfully, took off without injuring anyone. In another stroke of luck. The genius took a wrong turn, was caught by the police, and the money was returned.

I don't mean to make light of the situation, and I'm not here to comment on how shitty it is that this area's crime rate is rivaling some of the big cities. I'm just marveling over the fact that our lives seem to be entwined in a scarily odd sort of way.

Maybe we need to just make a habit of calling each other at the end of every day to warn each other about impending doom.

A blessing and a curse

This weekend Michele and I found ourselves in a rare position of both having a few free hours on Saturday. Now, what knitter in her right mind would turn down a couple of good hours of knitting time, kid and husband free?

Now, refer to the title of the post-- the blessing here is that we've managed to find each other, and strike up quite a friendship in a state where knitting seems to be the most uncommon hobby ever. The curse is that we've managed to find one another, and yet there are just enough miles separating us to make any impromptu get-togethers nearly impossible.

We've talked a lot about getting together for regular knit nights, whether it be once a week, or every other week, or whatever, but so far the stars have not managed to align themselves properly. But Saturday, those few stolen hours were golden. Oh, and I think we may have found a mutually agreeable half-way point that also boasts decent coffee, a wi-fi connection, and sinful pastries. What could be better?

There's been a whole lot of nothing being knit around here. I don't know if it has more to do with just not having the time to do so, or a lack of enthusiasm for the stuff dangling from the needles, but it's been a boring several months in knit-land for me.

Imagine my surprise when Michele reached into her cute little knitting bag and pulled out the beginnings of a sock in the exact same yarn and color as the one that has been travelling around in my purse since August. Neat! To further the geeky knitter concidence-- we're both knitting the exact same yarn in the exact same plain-jane rib pattern. It was just enough to get my knitterly mojo flowing again. Oh yeah, and the kid-free time helped, too.

So, we sat and knitted our twin socks for a few hours, she doing a bang-up job of learning magic loop. Let me tell ya- that girl is tenacious! She doesn't give up, even when I was useless to help her figure out a delimma. She's a true problem solver, that's for sure.

We also sat oogling yarn online and putting the final touches on our joint order from knitpicks. We're so good at enabling each other. :) Our original plan was to order together so that we could get the free shipping, but by the time we were done, I think we could just about have qualified for the free shipping individually. It's the most yarn I've ever ordered at once, and it gave me little tingles of excitement, laced with pangs of guilt for spending that much. But I justified them away by tellimg myself that I would have spent at least that much on two sweaters (which is the amount of yarn I'm ordering) even at a bargain store.

All the excitement over our order sort of had us giddy, and also feeling a bit sheepish (pardon the crappy pun). I know people who can spend more than we did on just one skein of yarn. That's all fine and good if you can afford it, and I applaud you. But see, we have these pesky things like bills getting in the way of our addictions, and apparently neither of us are that far over the edge yet, so we knit with what we can afford, and not what we'd really love to. This, my friends, is how "The Broke-Ass Knitter's Club" ws conceived. Seriously, look for it on Ravelry, just as soon as I get around to actually setting it up. We can all get together and discuss the merits of cheaper yarn, and why it doesn't all have to suck. Maybe we can share our reviews of yarns we've substituted for the more expensive stuff, etc. Whatever-- we'll see where it leads.

BTW Michele-- you better get moving on those socks, girlfriend. The Orlando Needleworks Show is only a few weeks away! I kitchenered my last toe this morning.

And today, to celebrate, hubby took me to the mall (yes, that evil and suffocating beast of consumerism) and I bought myself a pair of adorable little mary-janes in which to show off my, as J-man calls them, "yarnsocks".

More about today tomorrow. This has been long enough... and there's not even a picture to break up the monotony. Bad blogger!

Today

Today J and I met Michele, her husband, and some of her co-workers at the college campus and participated in the Strides for a Cure 5k walk. Fortunately, my family has not been personally affected by breast cancer, and I've always jokingly sworn that it's one of the perks of having a less than spectacular rack, but it was humbling and amazing to see all the people out supporting the cause, many of them survivors, or walking in memory of loved ones. It gave me just the tiniest glimpse into what it must be for Erin and her family to walk in the Heart Walk in memory of their two children.

I hope to do it again next year, and maybe start my fund raising a bit earlier than the last minute, like this year.

The walk was invigorating, and the weather was gorgeous.

Afterwards, we all gathered at the Panera across the street from the college. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones with this brilliant idea, and the staff was overwhelmed with all of us. But we managed to get a bagel and some coffee. After the throngs receeded a bit, we wrangled our way into a booth and Michele and I got a little bit of time to talk yarn and knitting. Thomas, bless his heart, is a patient husband. Thanks for letting us hang out a while and bore you. :) J did well, too. He was a stellar example of a well-behaved 3-year-old for most of the time. His worst habit was popping up over the back of the booth to oogle the folks behind us. Oh well, he's three, they can get over it.

After breakfast/lunch at Panera, J and I came home and started packing up all the stuff in his room. You see, he's not ready to let go of ANY of his toys. Not even the baby toys that he didn't even realize were tucked in the back of the closet. But, I did manage to convince him to place them lovingly in boxes (which I sneakliy sorted into 'go' and 'stay' boxes)to get them out of the way until his new bed comes.

Speaking of new beds... his new one is set to arrive tomorrow via Aunt Wendy's truck. Yay!!!

Obviously, that means that we gave up on the pirate bed idea, and went with the bunks. It'll be a stretch trying to fit a double bed into his little room, even with the paring down of toys, but it's the better option in the long run. Having the bigger bed gives him room to grow, where the pirate bed will be too "baby-ish" in just a year or two.

So, we've cleaned out toys, moved all his furniture, and disassembled his baby bed, tearfully. He's so ready for his new beds, but he's also having a hard time letting go of the familiar. Now, let's be fair, he's never really slept in this bed, so I'm not sure why he's so attached to it, other than the fact that it's always been there. But now that it's apart, he's doing better with it. I think that when the new ones arrive tomorrow he'll forget all about it. And he's super excited about getting to pick out his own sheets. At the moment he says he wants sheets with the planet earth on them. Wonder where I can find those?

Anyway, J wants me to fix popcorn and come "rewax" with him and watch a movie in bed. These are then things I'm going to miss. *sigh*

Growing up is hard.

Where was I?

Saturday J and I drove up to Merritt Island to hang out with Michele and go to the Fiber-In.

Michele's a sweetheart. When she and her husband went to the Tampa Bay Stitch n' Pitch she ganked an extra goodie bag for me. Inside were a couple of different magazines, including the Summer issue of Interweave. There was also a set of dpns, a giant, double ended crochet hook. I'm telling you, if this were in an adult store, most people would shy away from it. Still scratching my head over what in the world you're supposed to do with it. It also had a couple of balls of novelty yarn, and the cutest little Ravelry button that says "Where my stitches at?" Heh! It's now residing on my purse, along with one my friend gave me that reads "No, my powers can only be used for good." Sheesh! I get a few more and I can become an employee of TGI Fridays. :)

The Fiber-in was pretty much a letdown for both of us. I mean, there was some nice fiber to be had, but I found many of the vendors to be more than a bit stuffy and stand-offish. We didn't stay very long at all. It wasn't a total loss, though. She and I both have had an interest in learning to spin, and so we each bought a drop-spindle. The really nice lady who sold them to us also gave us a bit of the fiber she was spinning with to practice on. Michele is a MUCH better spinner than I am, but I haven't totally given up.

Here's a picture of her giving it her best.



After the disappointment of the fiber-in, we took J to Cocoa Village so he could run around the park while we gabbed about all things knitting. I think we all had a great time. After the park we enjoyed a little browse through the one and only yarn store in the county, and had ice cream and drinks at a little shop nearby.

There was also this whole incident with a dude and his monkey, but Michele already covered that one pretty well, so I won't rehash it.

As far as knitting goes, there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to get it done. I'm still working on the sleeves of the shrug I started before going out of town. I'm about 3/4 of the way done with the second, then it's just a matter of picking up stitches and creating the back.




I've got a TON of projects that I want to get started on. And silly me! I just signed up for NaKniSweMo. How crazy am I? But I've been wanting to make Kepler ever since my SIL made it, and if she can finish it during the Olympics, I'm sure that I can do it if given a whole month. :) I'll probably add a few inches of length to it, but other than that, I like the pattern just the way it is. Do I really expect to finish it in a month? Nope, not really. But signing up will at least get me started, and once it's started it'll get finished eventually.


And I'll leave you with cute J pictures. One at the park, the other playing superheroes with me last night.

Saturday Awesomeness

I was totally bummed by the fact that I had to work today because I'd much rather be at the Stitch N Pitch, hanging out, knitting, having a cold one, and enjoying some Devil Rays baseball with Michele. But as far as Saturday shifts at work go, it wasn't a terrible one. We managed to get out of there in record time, despite the number of emergency cases we had on top of our regularly scheduled appointments.

A second bonus is that J and Dada are spending the day together, and went to Abuela's to help with some yard work. Who doesn't love a quiet afternoon to themselves?

So, I got home from work, and unable to ignore the pangs of guilt from not having done any school work in the past couple of weeks, I chained myself to the computer for the next 2 hours and accomplished a dozen or so reports. Only 19 more until I'm done with this particular unit, which has dragged on for so long I can hardly stand it. Yippie!

After finishing the last report for the day, I realized that both hubby and I forgot to take the trash to the road this morning. Not a good thing, considering both cans were full. Luckily, the truck hadn't come by yet, so I dragged them to the road.

I'm not usually the mail-getter in the house. There's never anything but bills in there, and who wants to ruin a perfectly good day by thumbing through a big stack of bills? But, since I was already at the curb, I figured I'd better do my wifely duty and bring it up with me.

How totally surprised was I to find a squishy package in there! What's more... a squishy package that I wasn't even expecting.

And look what was inside!



Who would send me such a sweet little package out of the blue? Why, Michele, of course! When we met for coffee a few weeks back, I was totally enchanted with the cute little bag that she had made to carry her sock knitting around in. It's no secret that I've got a slight bag obsession anyway. Not in the expensive Coach purse kind of way, but the functionally cute kind of way. I've never been a very good seamstress, but I vowed that I MUST have one of those bags. I even went so far as to browse the fabric while at the store the other day, but didn't find anything that really suited my taste. I'm terrible at decisions, and apparently am lacking the gene for finding good contrasts, too. I shrugged it off, telling myself I'd get around to it "someday", which we all know means "never".

Somehow Michele not only found time to sew me a fabulous little bag, but she managed to pick out a fabric that is so totally me that it knocks my socks off. And look what was tucked away inside, speaking of socks! It's Knit Picks Memories in Rocky Mountain Dusk. It's even more beautiful in person than it appears in the picture, and sooo my style. Absolutely perfect, and such a pick-me-up with my poor knitting mojo lately.

Thank you so much, Michele. Now lets make a date to get together so I can show you the secret of the magic loop. :)

What's going on

Not a whole lot of anything, really.

Why is it that time seems to pass by so quickly in the summer? I mean, the days are longer, so you should be able to get more done, right? Maybe it's just that the heat sucks all life out of you.

Actually, something really great happened Saturday.

Anyone who's read this blog for any amount of time will be familiar with my lamenting over the fact that no one knits in Florida. Sure, I've got this great community of online knitters to hang out with, but nothing can compare to sitting in a cozy chair in a coffeehouse with a friend chatting about yarns and needles and patters, and laughing over your first project bloopers. Well, Saturday I got to do just that.

Bless Michele and her super-great husband for making the drive down from Merritt Island in a torrential downpour to do it. And hubby gets double gold stars for patiently sitting by and keeping a smile on his face while we gabbed like a couple of old hens. We were a wet and soggy trio, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Michele is super-crafty, toting her current sock around in an adorable little hand-made ladybug drawstring bag. I was envious of it's simplistic perfection. Really, I've oogled the Goknit pouches a time or two, and her bag was a perfect little knockoff. I'm going to have to break out the sewing machine, I think.

I hope that we find time to get together again soon. This time, I'll make the drive.

Sunday we had a fun day of shopping for nothing in particular followed by swimming and dinner at the parents.

Today my car got dropped back off at the shop to have the air conditioner fixed. While it was being worked on, J and I ran our usual errands including a stop at the scrapbook store for some pirate-y paper to make his birthday invitations, an then a run to the party store for decorations and supplies. We went a little overboard, but not horribly so. The good news is, I don't have to stress about last minute stuff now. I've got just about everything I need besides the food. Yay!

The car's still in the shop, and I don't even know if I want to venture a guess as to how much the final bill will be. Ugh!

Knitting... yes, I've finally finished the first clue on my Mystery Stole. I know, I'm about 4 weeks behind, but I'm not in a big hurry, and it's a project that requires undivided attention, which I don't have most of the time. I really do like the way it's turning out so far, though.

I'm itching to start on a new pair of socks just to give me a more mindless sort of thing to carry around with me. Right now my two WIPs are both attention hogs, and they don't travel nicely.

End pictureless ramble.

A Tangled Web

The handsome boy on the left passed away today, and it has me thinking about how strangely entwined our lives become.

Booger came to be Heidi's pet via a long and strange chain of events that started in the fall of '99. It was a time of major change in my life, and without the help of friends like Heidi, I never would have made it through.

I won't bog you down with all of the details, but Booger originally came into my life as a scrawny little juvenile boy as a temporary thing. Heidi, Wil, and I had just recently signed a lease together on an apartment that didn't allow pets. My friend, Mary, was in the process of moving and had to find somewhere to house her 4 kitties while she looked for a new place. Being the suckers we are for wayward hairballs, they somehow all came to live with us.

Anyone who has ever tried harboring 4 curious cats AND hide them from public knowledge can only imagine how much fun this was.

Through whatever turn of events, all but one of the four ended up permanently finding a place with us. Hulk became mine and Wil's, and despite the fact that Hulk and Hogan (hey! I didn't name them!) were littermates, it was Booger and Hogan that were inseperable, and so Heidi kept them. The fourth, in case you were wondering, stayed with Mary.

Fast forward a few years...

We lost our Hulk, the scrawniest of the four, just last year to renal failure. I've never quite been able to come to terms with the fact that a cat of such young age could have such profound kidney disease. He was the sweetest of cats- gentle, soulful, loud in that way that only a siamese mix can be.

Hogan is the same, only about 3 times the size of our Hulk.

Both Booger and Hogan lived a royal life at Casa de Heidi and Tom. Having no children to spoil, the cats got all the doting and affection they could stand, and have always been a source of constant joy to them. I'm not trying to paint a portrait of my friends as "the crazy cat people" or anything. Honestly, they're quite normal. But they do have several framed pictures of their boys adorning the walls, and even a ceramic figurine of the two of them snuggled together.

It was quite a shock to me this afternoon when Heidi called to tell me she had found him dead on the back porch. Up until now, he was the epitome of health. No warning signs at all.

What really sucks is that Tom is out of town on business, and she's there to sort through it all alone.

I spent some time with her tonight, but I'm terribly inadequate at consoling the grief-stricken. I did my best, though. And she was probably more than happy to see me leave.

And so, tomorrow I will take Booger to the clinic with me and have him set up for cremation. It may not be much, and it may be a bit gruesome, but I'm honored to be able to do at least that much for her, and for him.

You see, out of all the friends that have wandered in and out of my life, there are only two that have remained consistently there- Heidi and Mary. Sometimes I wonder if the strange and convoluted saga of our lives, and the intertwining lives of the cats, might have played a larger part in that than we consciously realize.

May our sweet little Booger rest in peace.