There has not been much sheepery, or geekery....

and I can't quite bring myself to apologize...

There was scads of  sheepery at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival 2013. Scads and Scads. I pet and Oxford for about 30 minutes over the course of the day and when you think about how much shopping there was to be done, that's a pretty significant commitment to petting a sheep.

Haul-
Yarn bowl,knitting needles, spindle, felt balls, food, cheese...

Geekery--

Saw Iron Man 3 for Alpha's birthday. I was really excited during the previews. Catching Fire, Thor 2, Wolverine.... yeah. There was geeking in the seating. Then there was quite a lot of geeking during the movie. I mean, it's Iron Man.

I remember seeing the first Iron Man movie with Alpha when we went to college. We were engaged and  it was the last week of the semester (looks up.. yeah May 3rd). We sat in the theatre and had an absolutely marvelous time. (Robert Downey Jr. was is and always will be perfect for the role.) I thought that maybe my future husband could give my father a run for his money when it came to comic books. Having been married for almost 5 years... I know that that is true now. I mean we showed up to a college lecture about Iron Man (given by Marymount last year; the college presentations were awkward and undergraduate, but the guest lecturer on Marvel and Iron Man was amazing.)

Wow... 5 years of Iron Man. 5 years of amazing Marvel movies... that's really strange to think about right now.

Anyway, once I get my hands on a picture-taker I will enlighten you all on what I've been doing lately instead of knitting on the shawl like I should.

Fairfax Fair 2012

I woke up today really excited. I blocked out this Saturday for the last 2 weeks since I knew the exact date of the fair, and mentally segmented October to go since last year. I didn't go to the museum exhibit about Dead Sea Scrolls; I didn't go to my alma mater's Homecoming; heck, I didn't even plan to do anything else for the entire day. So waking up without a car was a little devastating.

Dad took Imp and Mei-Mei to Dead Sea Scroll exhibit.
Alpha was at work.
Momar went here and was stuck on I-495 for 45 minutes because of a really bad traffic accident.

I waited for several hours, questioning whether I should take the bus, wait for Momar to return, whether Momar was hurt or had forgotten how much I wanted to go. As stupid as I knew it was, I began to feel sorry for myself. Once I succumbed to the temptation to wallow in bed eating cold, leftover pizza Momar came home and turned straight around to come with me.

The Fall Fairfax Fair was fun. Luckily, my progress in various crafty things and my assiduous window catalog shopping left me mostly immune to the lures of many handcrafted goodies. I know my tastes now and I rarely succumb to even thrift store prices.

I helped pick out a few Christmas gifts for family and thought I completely scored an awesome gift for Alpha. It was an antler back-scratcher. (His favorite Christmas gift ever was a bamboo back-scratcher from the Dollar Store.) There is no problem with sharing it because I am a bad hinter and he guessed within 5 minutes what it was. Sadly... Alpha is kind of creeped out by bones.

Sad, followed by fun, followed by disappointment in my gift-giving abilities. 

I have found it!

My LYS (Local Yarn Store) is now Aylin's Woolgatherer. It's close and the staff are SUPER helpful.

They had my Baby Alpaca Lace... I nearly cried in relief as I swiped the card and made that sucker mine. I will work back to the shawl as soon as I am emotionally ready to. Given the fact that most of my other yarns are nasty acrylic, I will be emotionally ready a lot sooner than otherwise.

Also, I have realized two things. 1) I love Alpaca. It's a wonderful, soft fibre that doesn't irritate my sensitive skin. 2) I am addicted to lace-weight yarns. I almost walked out with a couple skeins of lace-weight, but prudence and the guilt of knowing that I bought a set of needles prevented me.

I don't really get it...

buntings. I don't really understand they have snuck up on me as a decoration.

At first they are like this. I've seen these before. I don't know if they have a purpose, but I am use to them. They are colorful and flap in the breeze. And everything is better when it flaps in the breeze.

 
Then, they transform and have happy little sayings, like "Happy Thanksgiving," "Happy Birthday," "Happy Halloween." (This example can be found over here. Not necessarily an endorsement, mind you.) Surprisingly,  I can understand these. They have writing on them. The bunting makes a little bit of sense... I suppose. A temporary, seasonal message. Although, you know, it loses major points in that it's mostly inside at this point. No happy flapping in the breeze for these guys since they will probably be used again next year.

But then we reach this stage where it becomes weird. I can understand decoration for decoration's sake... but 'buntings?' What happened to quilts and tapestries and I don't know.... paintings. (Big fan of the paintings over here... way big fan.) Sadly, I don't want to incriminate any of the people that I respect, though I question their taste in this regard so I am not posting images of this decorating trend.

Then the weird becomes ridiculous. Bunting on cake, bunting on cupcakes... bunting necklaces!!!


At that point, I shake my head because I realize the world is crazy and it doesn't care that there is no purpose for these things. It's a fad, a fashion statement. It's like mason jar glassware, reclaimed wood, and window shutters on the inside.  It's 'thrifty', pinterest and all that that entails.

P.S.- in the interest of full disclosure, I have and use a jam jar mug. Bought the jam, cleaned the jar and kept the lid. It's pretty useful for hot chocolate, but I am not posting pictures of my brilliance and aesthetic savoir faire because I don't think it's super cool to advertise that I am a hoarder.

Do you know what's depressing?

This... This is depressing.

This means that it's been 5 months since I started the shawl... I don't want to work on anything else. (Although I have now because I have PTSD from Wednesday.) That also means I've frogged it every single month. You know, I don't even know how many times I've had to restart the stupid thing. I thought it was only 4, but then it could be in the upper bajillions.

Now I am working on a cabled wrap. It's a glorified scarf really. I had to lay out the pattern myself and draw it 6 times. I wonder how many times I'll have to frog it. It's already been frogged a couple times because I've had to figure out the gauge.

Tip: Don't take off the labels of your yarn. It has REALLY important information like the correct needle size and washing instructions. In the case of fancy yarn... it has colorway and dye lots. Those can be really important... as I have learned.


P.S.- I've just noticed a pattern... I am a perfectionist. I need to work on that if I am ever to get to a finished object (FO).

Still a dog hater... but not as violent

Now to reach my happy place I just imagine a sign posted around the neck the the EVIL ONE (See yesterday's post) and sending it to these people.

"I ate a lace shawl project that mommie's nanny had worked over 40 hours on."

I can commiserate with those who have posted, however I don't consider the little beastie a member of my family. I guess I am still a dog hater.

Upon which day I decided to become a dog hater...

It’s a no good, terrible, awful, very bad day, but I don’t really want to move to Australia.

So, I have been trying to make Galia Lael’s Oceanspray. I bought the yarn for it last year around thanksgiving at the Wool Lady. It took a while to decide what project it would become, but I loved the simple layout of the shawl.

I had to frog and recast the project three times. I had a problem with dropping stitches (or having little people pull at the needles). I decided this time to use a life-line... but it wasn’t in yet (I don’t much see the point if I haven’t reach the complicated part of the shawl). I’ve become a minor master of dropped stitches. I have learned to fix them.

Today, I decided to take a small human out for a walk. (It’s part of my job as a nanny you know.) When I came back, my employer was distressed and hoped that I wouldn’t leave. She told me that her dog, Wolfie (as in Wolf-ALL-the-plastic-things-down) had got into my knitting. The dog pulled out the needles, chewed up the $3.00 needle protector that I bought to prevent dropped stitches, and then ate the SIDE of the project. She didn’t eat a hole in the top, which while tragic, wouldn’t have been desperate. She ATE THE WHOLE SIDE. I have 3 inches to 3 feet of useless laceweight ribbons covered in dog slobber.

That was the beginning of the day. Less than a minute after this terrible, tragic and ultimately dehumanizing event (the dog is not allowed near me for fear of its life), Alpha called to say that the car was towed.

Our community has few parking spots. In the year 2005, there was such a dearth of spots that a meeting was assembled and it was decided to hand out passes. Those unfortunates who did not have passes in the parking lot after 11 would be towed. This has cleared space in the parking lot, but the streets for ¼ mile around our community are bumper-to-bumper.

We actually do have a pass. Unfortunately, laws in this state prohibit anything to ‘obstruct vision of the road” so if you have something dangling off your rear-view mirror the cops can pull you over. Alpha didn’t believe me when I said this was the case, but while I am happy to be proven right on the law, I am not happy that we had to take the pass off, forget it, then get towed.

So, project et and car towed, that is already a bad day. It gets worse.

I lost my license. Can’t get the car without a license. Alpha lost his. He found a university card. The impound lot won’t take check, or credit and it appears that our pin doesn’t work. Not even at the bank atm.

At this point, I am done with the day. I send Alpha off to get cash from the bank with his passport. Guess what happens on the way to the bank?
An accident. And a 17-year-old who thinks that you need to get into the left lane to make a right turn and that’s it’s Alpha’s fault for not seeing the turning signal. (Not saying that there isn’t some fault there... but it isn’t ONLY the other driver’s fault when you don’t use common sense.) It’s only a fender bender and no real damage to either car, but the police are called by the stupid teen (because Alpha and Dad won’t sign a paper claiming all fault). Alpha gets a ticket for not having his license.

So, checking our bank balance after renewing my license, I see that funds are mysteriously disappearing. It appears that my account is still linked to Momar’s and when she accidentally overdrafted over the weekend, the bank munched the remainder out of my account.

I burned myself making pizza and I didn’t get the e-mail asking me to come into work tonight.

But to end on a good note: My employer will pay for the yarn. There’s a yarn store that’s holding onto a skein of Plymouth Baby Alpaca for me. We got our car back. I didn’t have to deal with the cop. Renewed my license and we have money in the bank. Also there was ice cream to be had.


Lots and Lots of Ice Cream.

I still hate dogs though.