Yes, its time for the WOW! Selection for September (and August cause we’re slow).

First up, August. I selected some lovely Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Crazy Color 6-ply / 6-fädig that I had bought at Little Knits when they put it on sale for like 10 cents a ball or something cruel like that. I was worried that with the low yardage and the sport weight yarn I’d be making anklets for everyone, so I used Kim Salazar’s Pine Tree Sock pattern, because it was toe up. As you can see, I had more than enough yardage to make a very nice pair of size six hobbit feet socks.

Hunter is not impressed with the regia. He didn’t try to eat it once! I was lazy and did an Estonian Cast off on the cuff, which is why they are so wavy. But they are good and stretchy, unlike my first “normal” cast off. (Yes, Barb, you were right. :)) I’m not sure its actually called Estonian Cast Off, but I learned it in a Nancy Bush class about Estonian Lace.

Now on to September! In August, a group of friends bought me this skein of totally awesome Socks that Rock Lightweight in the very very very very wanted Oregon Red Clover Honey colorway. Why?  Because I rock.  *preen*  Hee.

I cast on for Drunken Bees in September, which meant it was stashed for a few days, so it TOTALLY COUNTS as a WOW! selection.

Henri Emile Rat says it ought to be called Rat Colorway, cause it matches him. Here’s a close up of the sock.

I so love Socks that Rock.

Monica, otherwise known as my Evil Yarn Pusher, had sent me a link to Rohrspatz & Wollmeise, a German site.   The Wollmeise side is full of absolutely gorgeous handpainted yarns, by Claudia.  We immediately needed all of them.  

She dyes a variety of yarn weights, but of course, we wanted sock yarn.  Especially after going through the flickr group and seeing all the yarn that other people had bought.   In particular, this picture shows the basic color range.  What’s great about Claudia is that you can request all of her colors in light, medium and strong.

So, since the exchange rate sucks ass right now, and shipping for just a few skeins would have killed us, Monica and I decided to do an order together.   Lynette jumped in, and Monica convinced some of her California knitting friends that they also need ze german yarnz.  We ordered 10 skeins all together.  Claudia ships 5 per package, for a total of 12 euro shipping per package.  I believe once we split up the shipping cost, each skein cost us 21 dollars US, which is quite reasonable.

She also packages them gorgeously.

I really did try to get a picture that didn’t include Hunter’s head, but he was very very very interested in the packages.  He stole all the feathers off of them immediately, and then went for the mini skeins.   It was like wild animal kingdom, but with cats and yarn.

Honestly, I knew the yarn was going to be gorgeous, but I didn’t realize how gorgeous until I opened the packages.  These pictures in no way do the yarn justice.  If you click on each picture, you’ll get a larger picture.

The colors aren’t quite as dark as this picture.   The Lowenzahn (in strong) is for me.  I fell in love with the Rhabarber and Brombeere (in strong), despite not particularly liking red.  Sadly, they have other homes.

The Iris sibirica and Dornroschen (in strong) are mine.   The Dornroschen is to make Aimee the Sis a pair of socks.   I’m totally in love with the Iris skein - it reminds me of the Irises we had at our old house in Colorado.

Claudia has a blog which shows a few limited edition colors she is dyeing this summer as well.

I know, you all are dying.  Just dying.   Many fabulous knitting things have happened, but have I blogged about them?  Of course not.

First, I went on the Threadbear Road Trip that Dee organized.   I bought no yarn, because a couple of days before I went I found an incredible pair of shoes for a very marked down price that ate up my yarn budget.  I did still manage to spend 40 dollars on patterns.   Dee organizes AWESOME trips, so go on the next one she does.

Oh, I also didn’t take any pictures.   Well, except this one.

It’s Monica’s “One Size Fits All” shirt!   As you can tell, it fits me!   I only wore it long enough to take the picture on the bus, and then threw it to Lynette.  It’s her job to wear it next.

The next yarn related event involved going to Loopy Yarn for their Spring Yarn Tasting.  I ended up  falling in love with Berroco Bonsai, which is mosty soy, with a polymide rapper.   It’s uncomfortably close to a novelty yarn, but it knits up great, and I fell in love with this sweater.

Yes, I will stand like that when I finish the sweater.  I went with brown though.  I’ve done a fair bit of the front, but if you all wait for me to go take a picture of it, this blog entry will never ever finish.  Instead, look at the baby baby ducks that are hanging out in my apartment’s pond.

Speaking of Loopy, my review of them on Yelp was May 23rd’s Review of the Day.  Yes, I squealed.

In other exciting knitting news, Monica is now a fabulous sock designer!  I got to test knit her sock patterns - here are two of them.

On the left is “Sweet Dreams”.  On the right is “Sleepwalkers”.   I used Socks that Rock lightweight Lemongrass, since I didn’t have any Dream in Color yarn.

There, that’s a blog entry that should hold you all for awhile.

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 am in a fabulous mood today.   I have to admit to being a huge moper lately - November 4th was supposed to be my wedding day.  Instead, I spent it in a suburb of Cincinnati, OH, visiting a great uncle and his family.  Which was very nice, but still.   More on that later though.

But why am I in a fabulous mood?

1. The Democratic Party takes over the House of Representatives.  Hello Speaker Pelosi!
2. If Tester in Montana and Webb in Virginia win, the Democrats will have control of the Senate as well!   Its close in both races.
3. I had a lovely evening with the new guy.  He keeps calling me an election nerd though.
4. I’m having a great hair day.   I was wondering why guys kept looking at me - I believe my aura of happiness and great hair is attracting the Men Types.

Okay, on to knitting.   As I mentioned, my Mom, Mike (her partner), Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Frank all flew into Chicago on Thursday.   Originally it was to see me get married, but instead they decided to road trip it to Cincinnati, OH for my Great Uncle Mervin’s 80th birthday party.   Given that my other option was staying at home and bawling hysterically, I decided to go with them.    Plus, I got to drive like 85 and scare the old folks.

What happens first?  Well, a flamingo showed up and insisted on coming along.  He said it was too damn cold in Chicago and he wanted to go south.  I tried to tell him that it was just as cold in Ohio, but he wouldn’t listen.

Actually, I knitted him using the awesome Fiber Trends Flamingo Pattern.  It’s amazingly well written, very easy to follow, and the results were awesome.

The Flamingo (who is now named Pinky by my mom and grandma) made friends with all the stuffed animals in the car.  He got out of the car when we stopped at a rest stop in Indiana and immediately honed in on Mike, my mom’s partner.   Who is wearing the Sweater of Great Boringness I knitted for him last year.

I actually knitted the Flamingo for Mike as a joke.   A few years back, I was desperately shopping for Christmas gifts.  Online.  And in a panic, I bought him a Flamingo Lamp from the National Wildlife Federation catalog.  (They’ve apparently gone a bit more upscale since then.)   Well, I thought it was a small lamp.  It wasn’t.  It was massive.  Apparently everyone in my family thought I had lost my mind (I wasn’t there), but my mom and Mike loved it.   So since then, flamingos just show up around Mike

I personally think its a little big on him, and the neckline is bugging me.  But, he still looks great, and Mom is happy, so I’m happy.

We make it to Ohio.  I don’t really know many of my relatives on my Grandma’s side, so it was great to meet all my second cousins.   Here’s Uncle Merv, my Grandma, and one of my cousins looking at the neato Heritage books that my grandma and Aunt Irma have been putting together.

Okay, Uncle Merv is asleep.  But he had a bad cold, and apparently its a total tradition to take pictures of asleep relatives.  It must run in the family, because I took this picture before learning of it.

Speaking of the heritage book, here’s an awesome picture of my Grandma’s family.  I knew my Great Grandma Leona - it turns out I was the one cousin she managed to teach to crochet.

While I was in Ohio, I found time to go to Lambikin’s Hideway in Hamilton, OH.  It was just a few miles from my Uncle Merv’s house.  My mom begged to come along.  I told her she could, but only if she bought me yarn.

Pictured are awesome ceramic buttons from Sweaterkits.com and two skeins of Naturwolle (Black Forest Yarn) that was 50% off.

Lambikin’s is a really nice shop - I wish I had taken pictures, but I’m always too shy to do that.  They had a lot of basic yarns, with just a bit of froofroo.  They also had their own flamingo, but theirs was much more fuzzy than mine.  Probably because I used Cascade 220, and they used something with Mohair in it.

Well, after partying hardy, we headed home.   One large problem is that Mom refused to order food for Pinky and Vealy, the cow.   She said they could eat leftovers.  Well, we stopped at this scary truck stop restaurant named Grandma’s.   Despite being scary, the food was actually pretty good.   Pinky and Vealy were pretty fed up, and tried to make a break for it.

My mother set that picture up.  I believe it runs in the family.

I’m cheesed off that they are trying to steal my awesome green Coach purse!

So, the trip went well, although I did sort of just throw them out of the car at Midway Airport. I hope they made it home.

Yes, among the 20 million anti-abortion ads in Indiana, I did spy a porn sign.  Which I of course took a picture of.