Restless Knitter

Saturday, the Ventura County Handweavers & Spinners Guild held their annual open house, sale and show. While hubby and his mom were doing some sightseeing, I did some sightseeing of my own. I swear, this just followed me home. All on it’s own accord, with it’s little rubber feet.

The lady was selling it because she isn’t interested in 8 harnesses, she does what she wants with 4. I bought it because I’m interested in 8 harnesses and this was a cheap way to find out if I really want that many. (And, there were two other people who appeared to be ready to slap down their money and I was afraid it was going to get away from me. Nothing like a little competition to make the heart grow fonder.) In one of the first Handwoven magazines I bought, there was a dog collar that was made with an 8 harness that I’ve wanted to make. I’ve already slapped a little test warp on this one to see if I like the mechanics of a table loom. Just from my little play session, I think I’ll like a floor loom better (you were right Janice) but this one will still provide some entertainment. If not, I’ll sell it and move on. The loom itself is a 10inch 8 harness maple loom by Montana Loom and I paid less for it than most of the 8 harnesses I’ve seen on EBay.

The Secret of Chrysopolis is no more. Amazing what one little dropped stitch can do. I attempted to fix it and found myself with one stitch where five had previously been. Instead of adding more frustration to my life, I said a nice goodbye, promising to come back to it again someday.

Today has brought us a new adventure in California weather. It’s windy. Hurricane force winds in some area. Winds up to 80 mph. Don’t even attempt to fix your hair wind. I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto. But with the wind comes something else

Dust, or dirt. I took this picture and came inside to upload it and start a post. In that half hour (I’m slow), it changed to look like this

Most of the sky looks like this behind our house. In front of the house, it’s still blue. Scratch that. It was blue, now it’s hidden behind a veil of dirt.

Edited to add: I know better than to listen to the “dirt” source. That isn’t dirt, it’s smoke. There are 7 fires surrounding us.  Don’t I feel stupid.

I believe another package has disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle. I have come up with a brilliant plan to find this Triangle. See, our mailbox isn’t at our house. It’s part of, what I would call, a community mailbox. There are 5 or 7 mailboxes all in one big metal box down the street. To get our mail, we take a key and open the slot that is for us. Anything bigger than a magazine needs to be brought to our door. Anyway. This morning, I found a box that is too big for the mailbox. I stuck a nasty note in it about opening mail that doesn’t belong to you. I addressed the box to myself and stuck neon green, yellow, orange, and pink stickers all over it. I mailed it to myself with delivery confirmation. Tomorrow, I will drive by all the houses and find out just where the mail lady thinks we live. I’ll also find out who the jackass is that ate my TimTams! Brilliant don’t ya think. Or maybe I’ve gone a little off the deep end.

Just as I finished writing that, I heard something at the door. The mail lady came and delivered

On the plus side, hooray for getting my toys! On the negative side, there went six bucks down the toilet, mailing myself an empty box.

Want to see what was inside those packages? Two of the packages were from Donna. In the box

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, these are the best cookies/biscuits EVER! And Addi Lace needles in sizes 5 and 6, woot!

And in the envelope

A yarn bouquet! Isn’t that just too cute? I love it! It’s so cute that I almost hate disassembling it. Almost. The yarn is from Zen Yarn Garden and is the perfect pink. Thank you Donna!

In the brown box was one of the books I ordered from YesAsia. The schematics seem to be a little different in this book so it’s going to take some studying to figure out. The challenge is good for the mind. Or at least what’s left of it.

I hope you have a lot of time because this ended up being way longer than I was planning. This post actually has knitting related words! House stuff at the end, with a link to pictures, if you are so inclined to skip past the yarny things.

I want some of these circulars. I don’t need them, I just want them because they are in color. I haven’t found them in the stores yet but rest assured, when I do I will own at least one of them. I did, however, find a yarn shop 5 miles from the apartment. It’s going out of business and everything is 50% off. I bought yarn, pattern books, shawl patterns, and magazines. All of which I Do Not Need. The pattern books were mostly Katia kids/baby patterns. I got the Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton book number 2 for $6, which has the Klaralund that went around awhile back. I have a strong dislike for Noro but there are patterns in the book I like that I could use different yarn for. Because, you know, I will knit every pattern in my I-like-it list in this lifetime.

I bought 2 skeins of Douceur et Soie in black, 7 GGH Mystik in green, and 13 Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran in blue. I have no clue what I’m going to do with any of it, though the Douceur et Soie will mostly likely be used for something from Victorian Lace Today.

See that box of magazines? These were all store copies, costing a whopping 5 cents each. Want to guess how many I came out of there with? Go ahead, guess. I’ll tell you tomorrow, just in case you want to play the guessing game. Each stack is 8.5 in (21.5cm) tall. I’d make this a prize winning contest but I can’t even get my ass in gear enough to mail a package that is LOOOONG overdue so if you did guess and I were to send something, there’s no telling when you’d get the actual prize. So the guessing is just for fun. Or maybe someday in the future I’ll get my ass in gear and send something. Yes, guess for an undetermined prize with no clue when it would ever arrive. (And if you already know how many there are, shhh don’t tell!) You have until I get my ass in gear and post again.

I seem to recall saying that I would take a picture of the bag I was making the day after I posted about it.

I seem to be a big fat liar as I just took this picture today. I don’t like it. I tried to put things in it and they didn’t want to go in. They wanted to get stuck in the holes. The only things that like this bags are round things, or soft things, but not things with any kind of corners or edges. That includes yarn balls with labels. So when I made this washcloth

I had a thought. What if I make a bag that doesn’t have holes? I like this stitch and just maybe things with edges and corners will cooperate and not fight the bag. (The other side of the cloth is smooth.) That’s what I’m working on at the moment, when I’m actually working on something besides house stuff. A bag, in this stitch, in the round, without a pointy bottom.

Speaking of house stuff, we officially have one. Well, almost. We’ll be closing on the 26th (WOOHOO!) but because we don’t have a refrigerator or a bed to sleep on, we’ll have to get those first. Though sleeping on the floor would probably be an improvement over the mattress in this apartment. If you want to see pictures, you know what to do. (psst, click on Pictures) We might paint before we move our stuff in too. Let me just say in advance, if this is your mom and dad’s house or the house you grew up in, I am sorry. I know it’s what worked for them but it wouldn’t be my first house of choice. However, I think I’ll like it better after putting walls back where they belong and taking out walls that were added. Walls that were added to create a bedroom where no bedroom should be. It’s a smaller house than I’m used to, especially the kitchen, though it’s most likely plenty of space for just the two of us. It’s just going to take some time to adjust to not having all the extra room. Even though it doesn’t sound like it, I am happy to have the house.

I never really thought of myself as a Retail Therapy person. When things go wrong or I get stressed, I normally like to hide in a hole. You’d have to practically drag me out of the house. Or so I thought. But then came yesterday, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve been lying to myself about my shopping habits. You see, last night at 6:30, I went to the yarn shop and bought yarn. Yarn that I never thought I’d buy, at least never pay full price for. Rowan Kidsilk Haze. I have good reasons. Really.

Reason 1: There’s a bit (a bit, ha! that’s an understatement) of rebellion in me. I had to get this yarn to start knitting Loden Mist from the spring Knitters before everyone else and their sister start knitting it. If everyone else started first, I’d rebel and swear not to knit it just because everyone else was doing it.

Reason(s) 2: (Yes, I’m going to bitch again. I think you all secretly like my bitching so who am I to deny you the pleasure of reading it.) This has not been the best of weeks.
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