two weeks already?

En route to my weekly nail beautification appointment this morning, I heard on the radio that Someone has discovered that as you age, a certain enzyme in the brain starts to decrease. It seems that the scientific Someone also discovered that it is this particular enzyme that acts as the 'little voice' in your head that keeps you from saying Inappropriate Things. What can we conclude from this? I apparently was thirteen going on thirty, which would account for my current, enzyme-deficient adjusted age of 56. This also explains several branches of my family tree. I'm just grate4ful (heh, heh. I love new nails!) to have a bona fide excuse, because letting people assume I'm always a wretchedly rude old battle-axe was growing tiresome. Nevermind that I 'prolly deserved it.

New yarns have been arriving in the shop. The 100% silk 'Alchemy' yarns are glorious. Knitting a mitered scarf, the "tres tres chic kerchief" in their Silken Straw as a shop sample. It's the kind of yarn that requires a certain level of nakedness to be properly appreciated. If you can't make it to your LYS to fondle firsthand, you have my sympathies. The Silk Purse yarn is the stuff of dreams. Also recently added are yarns from The Fibre Company. Excellent stuff, espcially the 'Road to China' and 'Organik' yarns. My 'February Lady' sweater is being knit in 'Organik' color 'crater lake'. It might be the best, non-pilling, merino/silk/baby alpaca blend ever. Evah. Srsly.

New knitters have been joining the ranks of the hand-craftily superior in droves. I think Clementine has been personally responsible, especially as she has thrown several cr*cheters at me. I can't help those people. I did order in some special yarn, for those hooker-y types. My allegiance has to end there. Do not ask me to sort out your loopy yarn mess. I. Don't. Know. How.
See, confession is good for the soul. All better now.

Last tidbit for the day... if you are in or near the Ft. Wayne area on the evening of October 17th, be advised that I, your intrepid fiber hostess, will be (forcibly) performing a bellydance. In public. With an audience. Of multiple humans. There is more to be said on this subject, but I cannot bring myself to type the words aloud without whisky, and I have to drive home in an hour. Suffice it to say, there are (in my case), leather and feathers involved. Why do I feel a youtube video coming on? Oh yeah... 'cuz it'll likely be up five minutes after we finish performing.

No, I'm not slurring... yet

No photos. I have to burp the camera of it's many and varied collected snaps, and really, aside from the Magnificent Short-row Heels I just completed on some shockingly pink Koigu, there ain't all that much to see. Oh, 'Pickle' has fully consumed the second ball of Malabrigo, so a dip into the yarn stash ('search and rescue', to be more accurate) for ball #3 will be required this evening. Love the cables. Easy pattern to memorize. Even with the PVC adhesive fumes leaking in from the construction project next door. Not to worry, once the dizziness wears off, so does the urge to faint/puke/cry. The upside is that the weather has been gorgeous, so having the shop doors propped open hasn't been a hardship. See, I'm *such* a 'Pollyanna'. I can play the "glad game" all. damn. day. Cuz' I have the Bushmill's. And a spanking cute La Push, WA shot glass. Be prepared. With a penis, I'd have been a hell of a Boy Scout.

I'm gonna go tend to my socks now, as they are appallingly pink and in dire need of more ribbing. Toe-ups often become high-maintenance, which may cause them to become anklets in this instance. Don't push me. I may be re-dedicating myself to the simple beauty of the after-thought heel once these damn pinky-pies are off needles.

knitter, interrupted

I am an erratic knitter. One of the sideline problems to not being able to consume copious amounts of my ADD medication is my already short attention span is constantly stuttering and hiccuping onto the Next Great Idea. Sometimes I can disregard these impulses. Other times I can channel them onto a 'list'. And sometimes inspiration trounces you unawares, say, at your mailbox, and you know you haven't got any choice but to trudge back to the haus, grab up those four skeins of "lettuce" Malabrigo worsted, and push the cat out of the way...

This is pretty much how messy my side of the bed is all the time, and you will notice I've set aside the super-steamy, sexy, hawt highlander novel for this, the 'Rivulet' scarf. Yeah, I'm still knitting away on sixty-eleven pairs of socks, have a gob (that is the official standard unit of measure) of raspberry pink silk/merino awaiting transformation into a sweate4r (oooh, look! e4 is back. Must be the new nails.), and have shelved all plans for home-organization beyond just knocking down the cobwebs in the kitchen before they try to beat me with my own tasting spoon... all because this would not be denied...

Every time I pull it out of the knitting bag, someone (No-Amy, just fer instance...) exclaims that it looks like a pickle. She may have accused it of smelling like a pickle, as well. The hazards of pub knitting. All that lovely knitted texture, cables done to perfection, and she likens it to a pickle. *sigh* It's growing pretty quickly, and my continental knitting skills have improved dramatically, what with all the purling required of this design. Texture is the new yoga.
What's not the new yoga: freezing on the beach. Here's a pic of the fandamnly (sans moi, the photographer). Lake Michigan, mid-August, just as the fog began rolling in. Looks like torture, right? Trust me, I was in no quick hurry to snap the picture and miss the cold crash of the surf around their ankles. I feel no compulsion what-so-ever to figure out the auto-timer on that camera. Nope. None.

business or pleasure?

Tomorrow our Clementine turns two. Not the most earth-shattering announcement, but after the first year, I didn't expect to be tucking another anniversary under my belt. Embarking on year three in the face of the financial disaster currently riding the rails might seem like a doomed mission, but not for nothing do I come from tenacious a**hole stock. The knot is tied at the end of the rope. Commencing to hang on through the thick and thin of the coming year, secret stash of bourbon at the ready.
Today is 'Love Your LYS' day, according to the Harlot's page-a-day calender. Now, I get that she's a Canadian, she has unlimited access to 'Screech' (Newfoundland rum rocks!), and her depth perception may nay be so good, but, honestly... August? WTF? How freaking nuts is a yarn shop appreciation day in the heat of summer? I demand to know who is responsible for this abomination. It's nearly ninety degrees out, so humid even I have kinky hair today, and I'm supposed to believe that yarn shops around the world are rejoicing, reveling in their day of recognition. I can only shake my head and wonder at the desperation Ms.McPhee must've been faced with to feel compelled to pop that corker into her stack of fun factoids for her first-ever calendar...

Middle Child turned 10 yesterday, and had a celebration in spite of our last minute guilt trip to Milwukee. Getting home with exactly zero days to prepare for a child's birthday party tends to make a parent frantic, which leads to Bad Decisions... decisions like letting said child loose in the Barbie aisle, carte blanche. Oh yes, there was an overdose of pink and purple plastic in her shopping cart, which has had the added effect of turning her play space into something of a cat house, swathed in slutty dresses and replete with two alarmingly cheerful Ken dolls. *sigh*

no excuse for it

It would seem I've become an Olympic-level participant in blog-avoidance. Not much to blog about, here in the heartland during the dog days of summer. Not complaining. Just trying to stifle the yawn.
Monday/Tuesday Mandi has shown a remarkable ability to talk me into the strangest things. Case in point: the creation of new yarn displays. I had a notion when the shop first opened about screwing paint cans to the wall, to display hand painted sock yarns. Imagine the shock on every one's faces when I pulled out of Lowe's with these in tow...

Yes, that's a roadster's-worth of cans. There were six more in the 'trunk'. Made a helluva racket driving back to the shop. The stares from men in tall trucks at stoplights were more than entertaining. Next up... remembering to bring in the drill to get the display built.

Still working on my Seattle disease... the skinny clap. Once it's finished I can go apply for my passport. That's what it takes these days to make progress. High-end bribes. I ordered gobs of 'Alchemy Yarns' and have future projects piling up aplenty, but this wee scarf is nearly done. Yay, me. To complicate matters, the skeins of yarn my clap is reposed on is still more of the 'Blue Heron Yarns' rayon metallic. The idea of a knitted tank won't go away, but since I'm trapped on the 'forever plateau' weight-loss wise, I'm hoping to put off the urge to knit clingy things for a while.

There's been a few new developments on the quilting front, the most alarming of which is my fascination with curved seams. Not the wavy, staggering drunk, careless seaming of a novice patch worker, but full-on, deliberate curves.

Yeah, baby. Gonna stitch it like I mean it... just as soon as I get my tired old machine to co-operate. This is the worst possible to for it to go all temperamental on me, but I'm learning to stop flinching and just roll.
That's all for now, my darling chicas. Clementine is starting a couple of knit-alongs for back-to-school. New yarns and fabrics arriving almost daily, which prolly 'splains my acute sense of impending doom. I did warn y'all not to use the words "stimulus package" in range of my hearing, right?

string theory

New 'Farmhouse Yarns' fingering weight sock yarn. Lil' friend Susan requested it be caked up to show off the colorways better. Yes, it does make them prettier, and yes, she's quite smug about this.

Finally got around to finishing the 'beach glass' modern quilt wrap kit. Miss G will be knitting these bits o' fluff into submission. Me, I'm still knitting on my 'Blue Heron Yarns' clap. Five dropped stitches so far. Mandi has three. No-Amy is choking us with her knitty-dust. She's knitting like a woman on fire. Last time I checked she'd dropped ten stitches, but a day has passed, so I figure her's should be about finished. I'll try to mooch a photo of it for y'alls.

With the demise of our most beloved Amy Butler fabric lines ('Belle' and 'Lotus' are sadly discontinued), I thought it was time to package up some of those exotic prints into quilterly stacks of gooodness. Behold, fabric-mavens: the quilt-in-a-box. Twelve half-yard cuts of mixey-matchy cuteness, crammed into a recycled grape tub... 'cuz Miss Rob always brings me weird stuff to re-use.

The county fair starts today. Trailers full of four legged animals have been pouring into town, the rides are nearly set up, and my almost over-whelming urge to stomp over and order a deep-fried Snickers bar/dill pickle from one of those scary, carney grease-wagons is getting harder to resist. I also realize that it's been over half a year since I made an honest attempt at sewing anything, so tonight, whilst the chicken and noodles sit in the simmering oven, I'm hauling out the box of half-finished quilt tops and seeing what I can make 'go away'. The fact that we're having an unusual break in summer's torturous heat makes thinking about quilt tops seem nay so crazy. Maybe clearing some of life's thready excesses out of my closet will make it easier to look ahead to new projects with fresh, less jaded eyes...

quite done moping

Sooo... boo, already. A month-long hiatus seemed just the thing to cure my blog ennui. Not for nothing am I known as the Procrastination Queen. That four of my five children have celebrated birthdays since the day after my return flight from Seattle, (with the resultant flurry of required activity that cake and gift-shopping beget) should be 'excuse' enough. Factor in a mild bout of post-vacation "Washington-is-more-fabulous-than-chocolate" depression, and you have the empty shell of me, able to do little more than drag my arse to yoga and belly-dance classes, drink double Bushmill's (neat, thank you), and stay up way too late reading romance novels. It has actually served to extend my vacation, delaying the pain of re-entry for a month. Now we're back into 'life as usual', the kids and Herr Becher are learning Japanese (Rosetta Stone rocks, btw), and I'm tagging along, knitting in hand, keeping the avalanche-prone laundry mountains from smothering anyone whilst they're the nether-regions of Becher Haus, and sneaking a clove smoke on the front porch when I need to hide from the noise of chirruns.

I was pretty sure I had photos of new sock yarns to show you, but Wednesday is nail day, so I dashed off without the proper equipment to photograph the 'Farmhouse Yarns'. Tho thorry. Now, since it's quiet here and tonight is movie night for the chirruns (we have to arrive early to get seven whole seats in a row), I'm going to go read some Scots romance/p0rn. A girl's gotta keep her mind active, ya know? C

Jamie's 'knitting'

As some of you know, the concept of yardwork or 'landscaping' is foreign to the residents of Becher Haus. So, bearing that in mind, allow me to show you a few scenes from the grounds around 'chez jamie', the other half of Miss G.

 

 

 

 

Digging in the dirt is Mr.G's knitting... his happy place, which is now festooned with everything from strawberry-scented roses to avocados and kiwi. The Scottish moss was my favorite... he let me dig my toes into it. Now, to wrangle an invite back to the house of hounds...

water and rabid foxes

glacial waters cascading down mt. rainier. i made it down the path for the photo-op, and discovered my inner mountain goat on the way back up.

golden fox, parking lot, paradise base camp, mt.rainier. "don't touch it, it might have rabies". i wasn't always so paranoid... but look how crazy he looks.

scenic view from an edge of cresent lake. we came, we saw, we smoked.

cutesty shoes what cost more than the average plane ticket. i didn't even get in deep trouble for these... perhaps that shoe is still waiting to fall...

more pics to follow...

squawk

Miss Fiona, one of the French bulldogs-in-residence at 'So Much Yarn' in Seattle. This creature tongue-bathed my legs and broke her licker... as you can plainly see, it no longer retracts. The yarn-ladies were lovely, and apparently adept hypnotists. I left with a gob of yarn earmarked for another 'Clopotis'. As I said before, it was a drinking day.

Deception Pass. Headed out to Whidby. I have a photo showing the perpetually pissed face I made every time I got near a bridge, but my pride doesna allow me to show it to you... yet. I brought the good scotch in with me today, so maybe later. Suffice it to say, a lot of Xanax was consumed so that Melly and crew could get me to...

here. For all you Sandra Bullock fans, this is a bit of Coupeville, the wee hamlet where the street scenes for the movie 'Practical Magic' were filmed. The building on the far right is the 'potions' shop from the movie. In real life, it's a gift shop filled with fabulous scents and bobbles. I snagged a gaudy, beaded necklace as my souvenir. Loved the island; the nerve-shattering bridges and breath-taking views were a bit more formidable than I expected.

Another unexpected delight: taking the ferry back to 'civilization'. We'd arranged to meet Miss G at 'Great Yarns' in Everett for knit night. The ride was fun, and the harbor views couldn't have been more charming.
Tomorrow: Cami meets the scary mountain and shows off her souvenir shoes...

four thousand words (subtitled)

Arriving in Washington: view of Mt. Rainier from port-side of plane.

Self-portrait at the gum wall. My apologies to the other 'touristy types' who may have been offended at my gum offering to Melly. We're not lesbians, we just play them on t.v. (another story for another time, I assure you...)

Tahoe, the fish-launcher. I so totally did want to catch a fish in the market, and between the Jameson's and Miss G's coaxing, managed to do so twice. Smelled of salmon the rest of the day. Too drunk to care. The Alibi Room rocks, btw. If you're local, or in Seattle for any reason, head down to Post Alley and tell Corey hey.

Flower market femmes. I was dawdling to smell some lilies, and looked up in time to see I was being abandoned...
More pics to follow. Next up, views of Whidby Island, a scary bridge, and the most amazing yard evah. Landscaping is Jaime's 'knitting'... and he's damn fine at it!

little things

I haven't had much to say lately. The blog had become too much about the shop, and not about why I started blogging in the first place, which was to have a place to put all the strange, weird, and wonderful crap that was accumulating. I was house-bound with five children, Clementine's was just an idea, and typing seemed more fun than muttering to myself.

Fast forward to the middle of May, 2009...

I've devoted the past three weeks to building my tolerance for whiskey. Wild Turkey and Jameson's Irish are my favs. This doesn't seem useful to the casual observer, but next summer's pub crawl across Ireland will go much smoother if I can drink and stay dressed. Not sure what the public intoxication laws are like there, so it's really best not to tempt fate. The last thing I need is to wind up in a dirty Irish jail because I got drunk and showed someone my tattoos.

Today was the onset of another town fish-fry, but buffered somewhat by the addition of the Strawberry Festival. Seriously. The whole town was staggering drunk by 7:40 this evening. As a thoughtful shop-keep, I had laid in an extra supply of toilet tissue and paper towels. Tomorrow will be more of the same smelly fish stink, coupled with the air-conditioning repairman's efforts to make things cold. I was such a sweaty mess by the time I got out of the store today I nearly decided to peel my legs out of my jeans and drive home butt-ass nekked. I didn't, but I reserve the right to do so tomorrow. I might even wear full-seat panties so I don't have to rip myself off the leather, fruit roll-up style, once I arrive home. Ouch.

Nine days until we (the Melly, the Mandi, the No-Amy, and me) leave for Seattle and parts northwest. Planes, trains, and automobiles... and a big boat, will all be employed to move and entertain us. I have put my foot down about the three hours of dinner theater with the dancing midgets. Sure, it's only $104.oo for the meal, but that doesn't include drinks. How much alcohol it would take for me to sit calmly whilst sword-swallowers and bearded ladies cavort with midgets... at the tables... is kind of an unknown factor, but I'm pretty sure I'd be paying handsomely for the THREE HOURS of torture. At least two hundred bucks. No, we're knocking over a liquor store and hauling our drinkies poolside. Melly's grilling us a red onion pizza. Maybe she'll sing for us while she's at it.

the week in review

I tend to go 'all in' when it comes to my hobbies. Getting the chance to proof-read and edit Karen's newest installment was definitely a high point of the past week, though it sheds some troubling light on what appears to be the latest in the string of addictions...
behold, the Post-It flag, in all it's glory...

Melly has loaned me her girl-child's stripity stockings for use as a shop sample. These just went up Thursday, so if you need to fondle them to talk yourself into the yarn, by all means, do drop by.

Lastly, a new customer brought her 'baby' in for a wee bit of shopping. His name is Spot, he's a bit short of leg, and is five months old. Super cute. Just had to share him. Do NOT go get another damn chihuahua. Yes, Aliya. I'm talking to you.

Now I'm off to watch the mens spread the tar on the parking lot across the street. Ooh. No I'm not. It's crackville over there. I think I need to go wash my eyes, instead. Ugh.
p.s. My crazy Aunt in Alabama has started a blog. I believe it's some sort of therapy. I would counter that mayhap it's too late, but go take a peek. Funny, terrible stuff. From the mind of an evil genius... and blood relative.

super-secret editing gig underway

Just a quickie-update. 'Korin Bridges' dropped off a draft of the third book in the 'Sisterhood of Secrets' series yesterday (the link is to the second one, currently making the rounds). I'm going after it with pen in hand, and having a fabulous time. Of course, by the time I'd gotten through the sixth chapter I was in dire need of a cigarette and fresh panties, but all I can say is you won't be disappointed.
Back in a bit. You go be crafty. I have some serious 'editing' to do...