JenLa

Last Wednesday I played hookie from work to spend the day with Donna and her family.

Donna Does Disney

I acted as unofficial tourguide and quasi-ambassador of fun at the Happiest Place On Earth, and loved every minute of it…even though the park was a bit on the crowded side…and even though I had spent the entire day there not 2 weeks prior. Half the fun of Disneyland, at least for me, isn’t the actual park, it’s the people with whom you spend the day. Both Donna and Em were Disney virgins, with Dave having visited once before…22 years ago, made for an exciting day. Donna and I both brought knitting, but we were so busy jaw-jacking, we didn’t even whip it out until we sat down to dinner. Carolyn joined us and a wonderful cafe in Downtown Disney, where all the adults had cheeseburgers, and the teenager had a rack of ribs, whose size equaled a full-rack by Ausie standards. Rack jokes were quite prevalent, much to the teenager’s chagrin, of course.

By the end of the night I had talked myself hoarse, and the next morning I awoke to the flu, the one I had JUST gotten over, reestablishing itself securely in my head and chest. But it was SO worth it! And it’s not like it was a mancold or anything…I think I’d have to have testicles to be so entirely debilitated by a little bug. (Yes, yes we do have an outbreak of the Mancold at Casa de La…2 reported cases. I’m surprised they can function at all…GRUMBLEeffinpansiesGRUMBLE

Not only did I have a wonderful day, but Donna brought me a prezzie all the way from Australia!

George!

That there is 100 grams of spun Ausie heaven from The Knittery. Purple-to-gray merino/cashmere yarnie goodness called Midnight! I don’t want to knit it. I just want to stroke it and pet it and call it George. Thank you Donna!

If you’d like to keep track of the rest of their trip (hiya back, Wendy!), you can find their travel blog here. Hawaii should prove to be VERY interesting…

This is the second year in a row I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a knit wonder from downunder. Last year it was Peeve. This year, Donna. Who will it be next year? Hell, we’ve even just converted the office/craft/dump-all room into a guestroom…

…complete with Cat. (she thinks it’s her room. No, seriously, she does)

Saturday couldn’t have been more perfect if I had planned it myself. Well, ok, I admit it. I planned SOME of Saturday, but the lovely weather-gamut-running weather? That was all by chance. The part I planned? Why, a meet-up of course. A small gathering of local bloggers whom I either crush on/stalk regularly, covet their children and/or haven’t seen in ages! It was the perfect afternoon of yarn shopping, good food, good conversation and great company. First, we did a little shopping at Alamitos Bay Yarn Company, where it just so happened to have been the same day Laura Bryant of Prism Yarn was doing her trunk show, where we were also outted as bloggers by the owner. Dammit! Can’t do anything in stealth mode anymore.

As usual I was tempted by all kinds of yarn, but seriously restrained myself to 1 skein:

Now, I know one of you out there coughDebcough is saying….hey, you already HAVE a skein of Moutaincolors Bearfoot in Indian Corn! To which I would have to respond…well, HAD is more accurate, having destroyed the original skein with too much of the rippage in a failed attempt at an original design. I loved the yarn so much I decided to replace it with the same exact yarn. And this time? No more experiments!

Oh! And a book

Then we all trogged the massive distance of 100 feet to have lunch at Busters.

Wen, Michelle & Silvia
Andria, Carolyn, me & Jill (yes, that would be the “formerly from Atlanta-area Jill”)

Where Michelle always somehow manages to order the most curious-looking food on the menu…

…where Jill refused allow me to be the only lush (hey! it was 12:08 when I ordered that margarita!) and where Andria dropped the “V” bomb just in time to send our waiter scuttling away, but not before we saw him blush, all the way from his toes!

It’s over! The pure Evil of the GA 2007 Summer has been thwarted. On Saturday, I was driving around at work and I felt a breeze come through the car windows. A breeze that didn’t suck the will to live right out of me. A breeze that cooled my skin. Later that day, I was drinking wine and eating cold pizza in the back yard, taking notes of how Tangle’s eyes went from blue-green to whiskey colored overnight and then it hit me: the light has changed. The afternoon light has officially designated the change of seasons. Summer is vanquished. Long live Autumn! Oh, summer, I know you’re going to give us a few days of hell to show us the fury of your passion, but face it, you’re just showing off now. You get 15 months a year to be a pain in my ass and Autumn only gets about an hour to try and make up for it, so get lost. It’s requiring all my willpower to not bring in firewood and borrow all the neighborhood crockpots so I can make twenty kinds of soup.

Further proof?

That is one of my several echinacea plants, but the last one to have healthy blooms and the name of the variety? Harvest Moon. See how this is all coming together? Since the soup thing isn’t terribly realistic, I did something even better. I re-dyed the sleeves for Ribby Cardi.

It’s blocking right now in the fresh, cool, beautiful breeze. I hope to locate and install a zipper tomorrow.

Nothing says autumn like sweaters. I am ready for sweater weather!

I went to a spinning party on Sunday with all the usual suspects and I think we lured another one to the dark side. She’s our official Hat Lady for the Harlot visit on Weds, by the way, so any locals reading this, please be sure to whip out a hat or two if you can manage it. We sat on the porch with our wheels and frightened Jane’s neighbors. All except one who saw us, came over with her sock in progress and her hand dyed sock yarns that she sells under a secret identity. A covert Yarn Person right across the street. Goes to show you never can tell who’s going to whip out the secret password. I took no pictures [I suck], but the others did. Visit Jane or ESC to look at pictures.

As if I didn’t already have my Perfect Weather, my nearly completed sweater, my cool friends and my bitchin’ flower, I have one other thing to celebrate:

You see that? Cookie knit those for me. ME! Look at that color! Admire that stitch definition. I am a lucky, lucky farm girl. They arrived on the very day it was cool enough to wear them, too. I wore them outdoors and admired them in the sparkling sunlight. Thank you, very much, Cookie! See? They fit! You made me very happy! There may or may not have been chocolate. Only the socks know and they’re not talking.

It’s nice to be able to write about the good stuff that’s happening. I will savor it while I have it.

aka
The Great South Denver Yarn Crawl of Aught-Seven

DANGER! Lengthy, picture-heavy post to follow. This will be your only warning

As Ruth and I were departing for destinations wooly, the DH asked his usual (assish) question, “So, when will you be home?” As I viewed the cargo capacity of the Hoopty, I was sorely tempted to respond impudently “uh…sometime next week?” (cuz, see…home was actually in CA and not in CO at all…anyways…) Instead, I muttered some sort of approximation later on in the day too wrapped up in the fantasy of filling the van to capacity with yarn, books, and all things fibery to really give a rat’s ass…

We met up with the majority of our compatriots at our first stop, where the unthinkable happened: I bought absolutely nothing, but not for lack of wanting. In my opinion, the store was organized poorly, with a plethora of novelty and fun fur. Besides, they were snotty to Ruth on the phone when she tried to arrange small discounts. I started to feel guilty that we were standing around in their space and using their air, but I got over it.

So then it was on to A Knitted Peace.

Heaven in a LYS

Where they treated us like royalty. They had fresh coffee a-brewing, which they served up and BROUGHT TO US!!! I’m sure they locked their doors behind us, brought out their best yarns, buttons, notions and books exclusively for us. The ladies were engaging, willing to help, chatty, considerate and really REALLY nice. They had several knitting areas, all with kitzchy-you’d-only-find-in-a-craft-store-but-so-non-tacky comfy seating. I wanted to move in. Instead I scored!

2 of the 3 MUST HAVE! books and some beautiful local yarn
(not going to go into detail, but you can click the pic to embiggen and get details)

I also bought 2 balls of Plymouth wool/asscrylic blend in a pretty sage colorway for my Colorado SIL who, up until I got my hands on her, was crocheting baby blankets for preemies with *shudder* red heart. Put a stop to THAT right away, let me tell you! She accused me of turning her into a yarn snob. Oh well. The burden one must bear to make the world a better fibery place.

We took a break and lunched at Chammps, where we met up with Blogless Rachel (need to do something about that) and there was much food and likker and laughter (mainly at the expense of MEHn) to be had. Taking one for the team has a whole new meaning now!

On the way to our next stop, we passed points of interest…

and

…for example

We arrived at Colorful Yarns, where Wandawoman joined us! This was a small, but delightful shop on the ground floor of an office building. They had yummy homemade brownies and ginger cookies set up in the back just for us! Mmmm, chocolate and ginger…2 of my favorites! I walked out of there a good pound heavier, both from the brownie I ate, and the yarn I scored.

Pretty in Pink
(again, click to embiggen and get details)

Our last stop was String where the owner was having a 50% off everything blue (except the books) in celebration of the birth of her grandson! So, I bought blue…

mmmmm…Ahhhhhh-lpaca!

…and Marly fell in love

can I has tribbles?

The Whack

From left to right:
Marly aka Smiley
Ruth aka Wheels
Rachel aka The Hooker (she crochets)
Wandawoman aka…well, Wandawoman
me and my sensible shoes
Imbrium aka G33k Girl;
and Leslie aka Nekkid Needles

It was the perfect day, and one never to be forgotten, mainly due to the company and conversation of the 6 totally fiber-whacked wonderful women, but partly to the Hoopty’s impeccable timing…

~~~~~~~

This post was brought to you by the numbers 13 and 42 and the word UPGRADE. As in we did, finally…upgrade. Let us know if you’re still having issues…TECHNICAL issues, like with commenting and the like. Well, let Jen know, I’m still a techtard.

So Sunday found me at Wen’s for the June ASKnitters meet-up and yarn swap, along with Madge, Marie, Ellen and Zoe, and a very special guest of honor:

.
Layla
Let me tell you, after weeks of the DH prepping for our big Rome event this weekend, the “Kids” returning from their senior field study and the scare Sassy gave me I was more than ready for some time with the girls, and again, I was not disappointed. Besides some amazing food, tasty beverages and wonderful conversation, there was yarn to swap. Let me point out the obvious irony here: Yarn swap on July 1, less than 13 hours after my KFYS Challenge ended. Of course, according to my rules, swaps were allowed, but still.

My meager offerings: (click the pics for more details)

Were added to the stockpile to help create:

The Great Yarn Heap

Some of the yarn labels were downright comical

Laugh it up, Fuzzball!
For a split second I contemplated taking this home for you!

But what followed me home is almost embarrassing. I blame 2 things:

My drink, and the coaster on which it sat. The second probably doesn’t make much sense to anyone else, but it’s perfectly logical to me.

Wanna see what followed me home? Click on the pic for more details.

And last, but not least, dye blanks:

The wool I’m going to dye and most will be gifted back to the ASKnitters, but the raw silk is already gone. CJ and her hunky hubby were in Long Beach for the week, and came over for coffee and dessert. She didn’t come empty handed, nor did she leave thusly, as the raw silk found itself following her home for the dyeing.

Here’s the yummy goodness with which she enhanced my stash:

2 gorgeous skanks of Malabrigo Baby Merino Lace from Purlescence. Since there’s no colorway listed on the tag, I’ve now dubbed it “I Heart CJ“. Think it’ll stick?

So yeah, this haul looks shameless, especially in comparison with my measly 5 offerings, but with the exception of 1 or 2, I have projects in mind for each and every one of them. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!