Laurel tagged me on this meme.   I’ve spent ever since then bugging people, asking them what is weird about me.  Most people  just start laughing hysterically.  Hrmpf.

1.  I keep my stuffed animals seperated depending on whether they are prey or predator.  The new guy actually offered this up as “weird”.  Personally, I think its just good sense.   Speaking of predators, here is Hunter, getting very close to grown up.

2.  Most of my stuffed animals have personalities and jobs.  Multiple people have offered this up as being “weird”.  I mean, if they don’t have jobs, what are they supposed to do all day?  Damn lazy stuffed animals.   As evidence, I present the following conversation, which Canadian Stitch and I had, after he was trapped in bed with me and the new guy.  Again, the new guy said this conversation was “Weird”, but he was busy playing Diablo II, so he can’t talk.  And, yes, Stitch sounded like Stitch.

Canadian Stitch:  I’m traumatized.

Me:  I’m sorry.  I didn’t know you were there.

Canadian Stitch:  I need therapy now.  It’s awful.

Me:  You’ll have to go back to Canada for that.  It’s free there.

Canadian Stitch:  But there’s a long line!  I can’t wait that long!

Me:  Well, my insurance doesn’t cover Canadian Stitches, and you don’t have any money.

Yes, I was attempting to hide the huge pile of clean nightgowns lurking on my dresser.

3.  I go places, I take my camera, and usually end up with one picture.  For example, today Laurel and I went to The Fold for their New Years Open House.  This is the only picture I took.

This was us, throwing our hands in the air, because we got lost, thanks to Google Maps instructions.  There were many things to take pictures of - huge lines, good deals on yarn, but I never took my camera out of my purse.

4.  If you say “Komodo Dragon”, I will immediately say “Gaping Jaws of Putrifaction”.

I took this picture at the Shedd Aquarium - the new guy took me, because honestly, if you want to impress me, take me to see animals and give me books to read.  He’s managed both.

5.  I’m an INFJ, which according to the latest internet meme, makes me a freak.  That’s the rarest personality type.

Katie is sitting on my printer.  I didn’t have an INFJ picture, and Katie was jealous of the Hunter pictures.

6.  I love cardigans, and twin sets in particular.  It’s not a comfort issue, I just love them.  I own a zillion, I knit them - I think its because it just seems so decadent to have two pieces of clothing when one will do.

I managed to catch _another_ cold.  Yes, I just had one last month.   Then, to add insult to injury, Monica caught it via IM.   Because she’s sick too.  I’ve found that if I drink hot drinks all day and keep advil and cold medicine with METH in me, I can swallow without wincing.  But its too hot in California for hot drinks.  So, we must all feel very bad for Monica.

But in good news, my camera has arrived from Colorado!   That means I can finally, finally talk about my yarn store trip when I was in Colorado.   Monica had told me about The Lamb Shoppe in Denver, and after seeing their website, I had to go.  So I rudely ditched my family, and met up with my long time Internet friend Ali, where we went Yarn Craaaazy!

Speaking of Ali, I’ve actually known her online for like 12 years, but we’d never met in person.   Also, I’m wearing heels in that picture - I really am that short.

Oh, and notice behind us?  Yarn?  In awesome shelves?  And hanging?  They also made the very good choice of putting out the pattern support for the yarn right next to the yarn itself.  I love it when yarn shops do that.

The owners, Anita and Mary Carol, are super nice.   Here’s me (again!) posing with one of them.  Unfortunately, I didn’t, um, ask anyone their names.  Because I’m bad that way.

Why yes, that is a massive amount of Debbie Bliss yarn behind us!  They had Alpaca Silk and all the Cashmerino lines.  They also have some Interlacements yarn - I think that’s some of it just to the right of us, hanging.

Here’s the owner again, this time posing right in front of their more novelty yarns.

I so love those cherry shelves.

They also carry the Alpaca with a Twist yarn line, which I’d never seen in person.  I fell in love with the Fino, which is a lace weight yarn that is 70% Alpaca, 30% Silk.  I almost bought a skein, but decided that one skein (it’s 875 yards) would not be enough for a shawl, and two skeins would put me over my self imposed budget.

Of course, the Summer 2006 Interweave Knits comes out with the Icarus Shawl, which is gorgeous, and it uses 875 yards of lace weight yarn.  Great, now I have to go back to Denver to buy more yarn.

Here’s one last picture - this takes in the rest of the shelves.

They do have some sock yarn, and some yarn meant for babies/children.  I ended up buying some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock yarn - it was a one of a kind colorway, with lots of greens and blues.

One thing that is apparent from the pictures is that they have a lovely range of colors.  They have variegated yarn, as well as children’s colors.  Oh, and they have Brown Sheep - not just the typical stuff for felting, but Cotton Fleece as well.

They have late hours most nights - and by late, I mean 9pm.  That would be wonderful if I lived in Denver.  It’s very bright and open.  They also have a coffee bar, and places to sit.  They are in a little shopping center that includes a deli and a frozen custard shop.  So, you could grab lunch, yarn shop, and then get yummy yummy custard.

If you’ve been reading Dee’s blog, you know that Dee and I headed into the city for Lorna’s Laces tour and sale with the Windy City Knitting Guild (eek, they forgot to renew their domain name!).   Beyond the fact that the WCKG has a great newsletter and classes, getting to go on the tour and sale is well worth the cost of the dues.   Really.
When I signed up a few weeks ago, they already had 40 people signed up for the sale and tour.   They told us that they’d only allow 20 people into the sale at once, so we were determined to get there early enough to be in the first 20.

So, we decided that I’d pick up Dee at 7:45.  The sale was to start at 10.   I decided to drive because my car gets much better gas milage, and I never get to drive.  Probably because people say I’m perhaps not that great of a driver.  And they shriek in panic a lot.  Dee had never ridden with me, so she didn’t realize that she might almost die.   Twice.  I mean, Dee didn’t even shriek overly loudly - she’s a good trooper.

Anyways, after almost dying, twice, we arrive at about 8:45 and find out that we are number 5 and 6.  We jump for joy.  Then we sit on the dock waiting for yarn.

Oh, all pictures were taken by Dee, because I left my camera at Aimee The Sis’s house in Colorado, and she’s holding it hostage until Violet the Monkey/Rabbit is returned to her and the lovely arms of Franz.   And Violet is all like “I don’t want to go back to that stinky monkey Franz - I want to stay here with Cussing Cat”  and Cussing Cat is all like “Um, you are a rabbit.  Or a monkey.  I’m a cat.  I really just want to eat you for dinner”.

So its a little complicated here, you understand.

So, we sat on the dock, and froze our butts off.  Which is a good thing, because the more pain and suffering you go through in order to buy yarn then allows you to buy even MORE yarn.  For example:

Your SO:  How much yarn did you buy?

You:  Um, *mumblemumblemumbleamount*

Your SO:  WHAT!@!!!!!

You:  But I had to wait outside so long sitting on a dock that my butt is still numb.

Your SO:  Oh.  Okay.

Anyways, at 10, they opened the door, and we all raced up the stairs and was stopped here.

After much squealing of glee (rather than in fear of one’s life), the first 20 of us were allowed into the promise land.  We have no pictures before we attacked the yarn, because well, we were too busy attacking yarn.  But here’s what one of the tables looked like after the first group was done - there were three tables in total of mill ends and other yarn laid out.

The hanging yarn was all shepherd sock yarn, which was not for us.  But everything on the tables was.

First, I found yarn for Monica and Lynette.  We’re currently engaged in a complicated yarn swap, and my part of the deal was to find yummy Lorna’s goodness.  I ended up with 6 skeins of Shepherd Sport in Glenwood for Monica.  It’s a mill end, which means it has a few odd splotches, but its still gorgeous.    It was only 6 dollars a skein.  Lynette had asked for 2 skeins of Shepherd Sport, but it was so cheap that I picked up 3 total, in Sherbet.

For me, I picked up 7 skeins of Shepherd Worsted in Lilac.  For 10 dollars per skein.  I just about died.  I also picked up two skeins of Shepherd Sock in Camouflage, and two skeins of shepherd sock in a one of a kind colorway - its pretty close to Glenwood, but with more yellow.  (Speaking of Shepherd Sock, Little Knits has it on sale for 8 dollars a skein right now.)
The tour afterwards was very interesting as well.  We got to see Beth dye a set of yarn - they work in small batches - its not at all factory like.  Dee has pictures in her gallery.  They also have a fairly complicated system in order to get yarn to the right stores.   One thing that really impressed me is that all of her employees get health coverage - a lot of businesses don’t offer benefits.

It was totally worth getting up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning.

Edit - Comments now work!  I apologize if this leads to itunes redownloading the same file. Something wonky happened that I had to fix by renaming the post slug.  Weird, huh?  Leave me comments now, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.

I have a brand new microphone (a Samson C01U thanks to ebay), and I hope the sound quality is better. I’m still having crazy p noises - I need to work out my homemade pop screen a bit more. But, no max headroom noises!

We talk about some great sales at Little Knits and Webs. I mention Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, Dee and Monica and the Windy City Knitting Guild. I play the Math 4 Knitters promo, and do a shout out to The Mosh Knit.
If you need even more Gail, you can listen to an essay I wrote in the latest Cast On.

This week’s song is What Might Have Been by Chris Yale, thanks to the Podsafe Music Network. Intro music is by Amy Dalley, from Friday Night.

We’re back to shorter podcasts - this one is 10:31, and only because the song is long.

 Standard Podcast [10:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Thank you guys so much for all the good wishes! I’m feeling really overwhelmed, and I’ve only just started planning! It’s so great to get so many comments.

I think one of the very best things about learning to knit is the fact that I’ve made so many friends. This is sappy, but it honestly means so much to me to have friends - for years, I was too afraid. I didn’t have friends, I didn’t have activities, and I was miserable and lonely. In the past five years, my life has changed so much for the better, I can hardly believe it.

For example, the knitting group at Barnes and Noble bought me a birthday present!

They are a set of size small (very important!) polar bear slippers! I love them. As soon as I got home last night, I put them on and modeled them for Kevin. He thinks they are fabulous too. I wish I was wearing them now!

Aimee the Sis’s birthday was yesterday. I did finish her birthday scarf, but I’m giving it to her when she visits the midwest for Thanksgiving. Then, I’ll post a picture. I’ve finished the front (or maybe its the back - the instructions are identical) of her Christmas Sweater - its the Eyelet Cable Raglan Pullover from the Adrienne Vittadini Fall 2004 booklet.

I picked up the kit from The Handworks Gallery during their last Adrienne Vittadini trunk sale at 20 or 30% off (I always forget). That made the kit affordable. But, I do understand the price of the yarn after knitting with it. Martina, which is a silk/wool blend, is wonderful to knit with. I love the fabric its creating - its definately a luxury yarn, and well worth the cost.

In enabling news, Little Knits is selling off their entire line of KFI yarns - that includes Noro, Debbie Bliss, ect. I linked to the Knitters Review post with the details. I don’t think her web site reflects the sale prices currently - I’d call her, as she suggests.

S.W.A.K is also having a very nice sale - I picked up some pattern books yesterday as well as A Yorkshire Fable for 50% off and they’ve already shipped.

Vintage Knits has everything 20% off until the end of the year. You’ll need the code from the post I linked to. I’ve never ordered from them in the past, but I’ve heard nice things.