Sea Anemone Knits

Liz (sadly blogless & pictureless) told me last night that I happen to be pictured on the Mary Charles website. Kinda ironic since I totally dished out a nasty little post about them. Go check it out. Watch the pictures. I’m wearing a blue shirt with curly hair.

Check it yo!

So last Thursday, I went with a bunch of the girls to see the Astros v. the Cardinals.

We were all spread out in groups of three and four or so. Staci and Sharron had their husbands there and Liz (sadly, blogless AND pictureless!) went too. I sat with Jennifer (another blogless! methinks I see a trend!) and Jet who are both Cardinals fans kept leaning over and saying things like "It’s ok, we still like you, even if you ARE rooting for the wrong team!" I have one response to that… 

::ahem:: the Astros kicked the Cardinals BUTTS!

Shawls. I started knitting the Swallowtail shawl from IK Fall 06 on Thursday the 14th. At the end of the knitting group, the shawl looked like this:

Yes, I am in fact flipping off the picture, albeit completely unintentionally. I was trying to take a picture people! Cut me some slack. Almost two weeks later, the shawl looks like this:

By now, I’ve added the first chart of the Lily-of-the-Valley lace and am going to be starting the second chart of it as soon as I update this. Then I have the peaked edging and its ready to be bathed and blocked. So basically, I have about 26 rows left. Woo! According to the shawl percentage calculator I am 93.5 percent done. double WOO!

So, we’ve been very industrious in my family. This past weekend, I picked up my cousin at the airport and we spent the night over at my Aunt’s house. My other two uncles came into town too and all of us gathered at my Grandfather’s house at some ungodly hour of the morning to begin the long process of cleaning out the house. While there, my Aunt and Uncles agreed that I could have the loveseat and matching armchair as I did not have any living room furniture. Literally. I had a couch frame with no cushions, and a stack of big floor pillows. I thought that was really awesome of them. My Papa and brother brought them over to the apt for me yestday and when I got home from work, like magic, I had furniture!

There were some hijinks going on at the house though.

Exhibit A:

My dad found this old coat and immediately put it on and was all like "How do you like my coat??" It was a lot funnier than it sounds when I write it. I guess you would have had to be there. Or know my dad…

I cleaned off a bookshelf and began wiping it down. On the bottom shelf, I encountered a species that before now was only a mere legend. Everyone has seen the "dust bunny." Dust bunnies are the more common cousin to this phenom. Behold, I present to you new photographic evidence of the existance of… DUST BUFFALO!!!!

If you look very carefully you will see a sponge carefully descending upon the herd of dust buffalo. Mere seconds after I snapped the only photographic evidence of dust buffalo the sponge swooped down and wiped the entire herd completely out of existance. Sadly, I report that an entire species is no more. A moment of silence please.

I’m feeling snarky today. (I am also really digging the word today, hence the heavy usage.) If you’re not feeling up for snark, please, I urge you to try a sampling of the archives. The archives are worth it. Promise!

I got an email this morning from Mary Charles Yarn Co a certain yarn shop near the village. They’re having a party tonight, please come join them. I mull this over all day and then think, you know, maybe yarn will cheer me up. It’s been a rough week.

Which, thank you! everone who sent emails and left comments. I really appreciated them and it was nice to know so many people have kept my family in their thoughts and prayers in the last few days. It means a lot.

So I go home. Change clothes. Sit down and watch an episode of the Muppet Show while knitting a few rows and giving the kitty a few scritches behind the ears. I leave and head over to the Yarn Party. I park. Walk in. Peruse the front room and what do I spy? Roving. Dear lord in heaven, this woman might actually be trying to run a real live yarn shop. She’s got ROVING. Not just any roving either. Gorgeous, luscious, it-should-be-illegal alpaca handdyed roving. Eight ounces of baby butt rivaling softness. I should have known better. I should not have picked it up. I cradled it lovingly in my hands, already envisioning myself standing in the park, spinning lovely laceweight yarn on my drop spindle. Sigh. I should have known that the price was not written on it for a reason. Are you ready for this? Because I really think you ought to sit down. Now. For your own health.

$80.

I actually laughed at Mary Charles. In front of her. At her. To her face. I laughed and said "Thats not gonna happen!" I put the roving back down and started thinking about the slightly felted wool roving waiting for me at home and sighed a little sigh.

Now. This is the third time I’ve been to her shop. The first time I went because I’d been hearing mixed reviews of her within the first month of her opening. I thought to myself that she deserved a shot and trucked on down. I walked upstairs and I’m greeted by three large boxes filled with bags upon bags of Noro Kureyon in gorgeous fresh on the market colorways. Unattended large boxes of Noro Kureyon. Did I mention that these boxes were alone on the landing with not a human in sight? I wanted to bury the back seat and trunk of my car in Noro and drive off cackling. Instead I went and dug through her new shop and thought she seemed rather nice and she talked to me and I felt welcome and I bought a couple of balls of Noro. I found out later the price discrepancy occuring between normal retail price and her price. Rather wide gap there. (Lets see, MSRP of $8.50, MCYC - $10.50. You can do the math) But methinks she was rather nice. One can go back.

I go back a second time. I try asking a couple of questions about pricing, I get answered rather rudely and am kinda irked aobut it.But, I run into Jet and Liz and we laugh and talk and buy yarn. I bought some pretty yarn that Mary Charles had half a ball of leftover from knitting a shop swatch. I bought the last two skeins of that colorway and she gave me the other half ball because she had nothing to make with it. So I’m now left with a yeh, could be more pleasant to talk to but not half bad opinion of the place. Still not feeling the urge to complain about the place. One can still go back… Until tonight.

So we having the horror of the roving up there. I wander a bit, talk to some girls who go to school at Rice and are skinny beyond belief and chat about knitting groups and tell them about where some of the groups meet up. Yes, I totally mugged for the Thursday night group. Wait, lets be more specific, the Thursday Night "We Have been Meeting For Waaay Longer and We Totally Trump Any Other Thursday Night Group That Might Want To Meet 2 Miles Away" Group. I wandered around looked at the overpriced yarn and went back with another question.

Me: Um, do you have any laceweight?

MCYC: Any what?

Me: Laceweight yarn.

MCYC: Whats that?

Me: …enter the gaping maw of a silence

Me: in disbelief It’s yarn for, you know, knitting lace. Really thin.

MCYC: Is it 2 ply or 4 ply?

Me: Generally 2 ply.

MCYC: Well, we have some alpaca and silk thats 2 ply.

I go over and pick up the alpaca and silk. Its DK weight yarn.

I sigh and leave.

Now, I have presented to you the ultimate resaon why I will never walk back into the woman’s shop. The lack of knowledge of laceweight yarn. This completely and TOTALLY trumps the $80 roving.

Edit: It was not, despite popular opinion, "a pisser," I was however deeply disappointed in the lack of knowledge for the art which this woman, in owning a yarn shop, is supposed to have a rudimentary working knowledge of.

My uncle called me late last night. At least he’s not in any more pain.

"(Remarking about his drink while onstage) Look at all the limes in this god-damn thing! This fuckin’ thing is tropical! Look at the limes, how they float. That’s good news man. Next time I’m on a boat and it capsizes, I’ll reach for a lime… I’ll be water skiing without a life preserver and people’ll say ‘What the hell?’ and I’ll pull out a lime…and a lemon too. I’m saved by the buoyancy of citrus." - M. Hedberg

I’ve been listening to a lot of Mitch Hedberg lately. I like that joke above all of his others that I’ve heard. I laugh like an idiot every time I hear it.

So, I’ve been housesitting and updating was a major ordeal that I just was too tired to do. Sorry!

I went to Galveston for part of my labor day weekend. I grew up in Galveston and I’m proud to present to you an exceptionally pretty view:

Ain’t she purty folks?? I got to enjoy this view at lunch with my Mom!

(In case she’s reading, Hi Mom!! I put up the picture you liked!!)

I got lots of knitting done while I was incognito. It’s a LOT of stockinette. For some reason, I’ll get bored with a stockinette project and cast on a new one that is also 90% stockinette. What the heck is wrong with me?? I worked some more on the Hourglass & I’m about 3/4 done. The rest of a sleeve and a yoke to do. Go me!

But wait! There’s more! Do you remember back when I went to NJ a couple months ago? I started the Silk Camisole from LMKG? Then when I got home, I frogged the bejeezus out of it? Yeah, so do I. I hated ripping that out. Well, good news. I restarted it over the long weekend. I’m about 5 inches in. I didn’t screw up the lace too badly and I’m surprisingly ok with the few screw ups and am not about to rip back and try to fix anything. Screw it!

I figure that I won’t get to wear it this season and so soon, I’ll put it down for a bit in favor of attempting my Mom’s cardigan again. Lace and mohair is such a bad idea. Really. Ugh. But, I told her I’d do it so I’d best just cast on and get to it while we’re young, right? Please, I need encouragement! I’ll have never knit this much lace. It’s intimidating.

I finished some footlets while I was gone. There’s not much to em. I got the yarn (Alexandrite colourway. It self striped!) from The Fiber Denn on etsy.com. Delia is very sweet, everyone, go buy yarn from her. I used KP Options US 4 needles to Magic Loop ‘em. Simple magic cast-on toe, short row heel, and blah, there you are.

And with that, I bid you adieu! I need to get some sleep tonight. Especially since the cat woke my sleepy toucas up at 4am and I proceeded to just lay there.