JenLa

A whole lotta stuff is going on around the bloggerhood, just not much of it involves me. Which is okay for a little bit, because, well, it can’t always be about me right? Or can it?

hmmmmm

Knitwitch is having a good old-fashioned murder mystery, detective story going-on. There are 2 ways to win the contest: Either find the clues and deduce her secret, or find the clues, jump to the completely wrong conclusion, and make an outlandish stab at the ridiculousness of your conclusion. Either way, if you guess correct, or if you make her shoot coffee through her nose, you’ll be in the running for her prizes. Oh hell yeah, I’m entering!

Oh, and while you’re there, check out her awesome yarn bowls. Gotta get me one of those!

Congrats to Ruth! Her handy-dandy stitch savers & uber-cute stitch markers made it into the”Cool Stuff” section of Knitty’s Spring ‘08 issue. You can find them at Ruth’s Etsy Store Way to go!

Now here’s where I usually include a picture, especially since Ruth so kindly sent me one. But me, in my usual dumbassery didn’t take the picture. I got to work this morning and thought…hmmmm, wasn’t I s’posed to grab a picture of something? I even left myself a note on here to remind me to insert the picture. Sheesh! So yeah, Ruth sent me one of the stitch savers and it is WAY cute. It says HOOPTY, which, every time I use it, will further remind me of her and the wonderful time I had on the Great South Denver Yarn Crawl of Aught-Seven.

Good Times…Good Memories!

Speaking of the Denver crew, our very own Geek Girl is getting married this weekend! I’m sure she’s going through all the last-minute “holy shit this better go right or I want someone’s head on a platter” bride stuff, so go on over and give her some love! Wish I could be there Marisa. I know it’ll be beautiful. And my best advice? Take lots of pictures. Once the day’s over, you’ll need them as evidence that you were actually there, because nothing goes in such a whirlwind as a couple’s wedding day. The DH often says…”Our wedding day? Heard it was nice. Wish I was there.”

Okay, I can’t stand it. Enough about others already. Let’s talk about me. I GOT PREZZIES!

Now before you all start thinking it’s my birthday, it isn’t. That was back in December. And now-adays the fewer I have the better I like it, so don’t be going and giving me extras. But, I’m still getting prezzies, and that I DO like. This one was the long-anticipated box from Georgia, and holy crap! was it worth the wait. Have a look!

The purple yarn is 375 yards of beautiful Jenspun handspun. Jen initially purchased the roving at SAFF as a way to induce me to try spinning again, but then decided that I would much prefer the fiber in its post-spun yarn form. Does she know me or what? Spinners, never fear, she also sent me a vagillion yards of pencil roving and a pretty little drop spindle.

Now, that blue you see there? That’s her idea of a joke. One day I was touting the “benefits” of knitting with red-heart, saying something to the effect of “hell, if I wanted to knit with coke bottles, I’d stop recycling and make my own asscylic yarn.” So what does she send me but yarn made exactly of that…recycled soda bottles. Well, for coke-bottle yarn it’s WAY better than red-heart could ever consider aspiring to be in the neighborhood of. I have no idea what I’ll knit with it, but dammit if it won’t be something for Jen.

Last, there’s the wonderful little take-and-go bag. At first glance I thought that she had found this in a clever little LYS, and I wondered how the HELL does she keep finding stuff in my favorite color combination: chocolate & lime.

A perfect match!

Then, upon closer inspection, here’s what I discovered:

Exact same fabric

Oh yeah, it’s easy to pecfectly match accessories when you’re the one making them! I love this bag so much it has inspired the colors for the bathroom remodel. And no, the DH has no say, or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. He can take his pick, either the bath remodel or the new guest room, but ONE of those rooms will be decked out in chocolate & lime. Thank you Jen!

Oh, before I forget…there might be a certain episode (8) of a certain podcast (Diva Knitting) from a certain Knitblogger (CK), with an interview from a certain mouthy other Knitblogger (me) that either earned her an “explicit” rating or broke her bleep button, (don’t know which) coming out in the certain near future. But you didn’t hear it from me, mkay?

Because it’s a New Year and that means it’s also the Fourth Annual JenLa Knit Blog Awards. The awards show where we make this shit up a couple hours before we hit publish. The awards show where you don’t get a vote. The awards show where if you whine, you get a demerit next year. The awards show where Jen and La forget to give out most of the awards. Shut up, it’s New Year’s Eve and we’ll chug champale if we want to. It’s also the awards show that almost didn’t happen this year. [Remind Jen to show you photos of her computer, currently in pieces.] Yet, we overcame not just our schedules and computer woes as well as our husbands clamoring for us to spend JUST ONE New Year’s Eve with them, but also a zombie apocalypse to bring you this year’s awards. OK, it wasn’t really a zombie apocalypse, it was really more like we were really, really tired and brain-dead, but still. We were going to nip this in the bud a couple years ago but the public outcry was too much for us. So in order to avoid disappointing a handful, we irritate the masses. Grab your steaming hot mug of Shutthefuckup and kindly ignore the fact that the list shrinks by approximately 20% every year.

1. If Only It Were Her Underwear Award goes to Purling Dervish for the most frequent changing of themes.

2. Designer of the Year Always a hard one, and every year it gets harder with more and more knitters bringing their talents to the designing end of it all. However, this year Anne Hanson Came close to making us give up designs by anybody else. And she designs them so fast, you’d have to be faithful only to her just to knit them all!

3. The Thanks For Making Us Look Bad Award: Amy’s Babies. Why don’t you just do everything better than us, then? FINE.

4. The Cutest Ugly Thing Ever Award: F. Pea’s Star Nose Mole. Does ugly GET any cuter? Sheesh! So what’s next? Knitted manatees or Jerusalem crickets?

5. Funnestest. The Furry Fury This blog has EVERYTHING! Humor, monkeys, singing and dancing, plus a lot of made up words. The english language only has a quarter of a million words and if you read us [like........ever] you know it’s not enough.

6. Double Chocolate, Chocolate Chip Award: Shut Up and Knit! the sweetest Cookie we ever bit into…and nibbled on…and spit back out. Oops!

7. Excellence in Knitucation Award: TECHKnitting. We’ve learned things we didn’t even know we didn’t know.

8. Best Streaming Curse: Wanderlust knits much, much envy.

9. Now Dance For Our Amusement: Uberstrickenfrau. Post more, Olga. Enough with your lame excuses about life and responsibilities, we have decreed that you shall write in a more frequent manner.

10. Blogistan’s Most Popular Book: Yarn Harlot strikes again with her run-away Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot’s Guide to the Land of Knitting. Between her book and her tour, she’s gotta be the hottest knitlebrity out there. Hell, she even has her own Wiki entry ferkreissake!

11. Jen & La’s Favorite New Book: Cat Bordhi’s New Pathways for Sock Knitters. Yes, it’s our award show, and if we wanna be different, then dammit, we’ll be different!

12. The Jaws, aka Fresh Blood Award goes to: Ok, wow there are one hell of a lot of new knitting blogs lately. And a bunch of them are actually good! So this year instead of deciding, we’re awarding a whole list of our faves as a way to say “Welcome to the Bloggerhood”. In no particular order:
Fumbling With Needles
Knit Devil
Uberstrickenfrau (what can we say? we. love. her)
Knits 4 Bears
Ruth

13. Best New Internet Knit Thing Ever: What do YOU think?? Ravelry. Duh

14. Longest acronym in the history of all mankind: MAMoStriLiWhUnDerInfluHomiIdWhoFaMeStiNeedaCouMoYeaToGeOvLastin Found here at Purls B4Swine.

15. Best LYS: Knitch. In addition to the awesome yarn store, knitter’s loft with kitchen, they have a bar. What ever else could you possibly want…except, maybe some cabana boys? Oh, wait. They’ve got one of those too!

16. Overshare, aka TMI, aka Poke Out My Mind’s Eye award goes to: Evil Science Chick (again) for her wonderful spinning analogy.

17. Most contageous virus wide-spread meme: The Days-Of-the-Week meme

18. Longest Picture Award: This one. Dude, Jessica called it right there in the comments.

19. Our Favorite Blog Pet Award: Chappy! Sorry, Chappy, there’s no biscuit jackpot here, but we know adoration counts with dogs.

20. Stupidest Pet Trick We’re Still Waiting to See Award: The Chicken Goddess shampoos her chickens. No, really. For fun. Still waiting for that video, though..

21. Home Away from Home Award: Purling Oaks, where we feel like we could just drop in, have a cup of tea and absorb all the comforts and warmth.

22. Most Inappropriate Name Award: Turtlegirl. Have you seen how much stuff she knitted this year? There’s definitely steady, but no slow here.

23. Twice as Nice Award: Two Black Sheep. Lola and Ava-knitting/blogging/swearing sisters trying to keep the blog a secret from their Mom. Lola even got knocked up just to distract her.

24. Spinning Technical: Tie! Abby’s Yarns and Spinning Spider Jenny make that whole twisting hairs into yarn thing seem so easy-and fun!

25. The Hawkeye Award: Carol of Knit & Run spotted a tiny (but ubercool) write-up about us in a small (but incredibly tasteful, in our humble opinion) crafting magazine.

26. Queen of Socks It’s not just the profusion of socks, but the variety and beauty that edge Debi out in front. And get a load of her maincures du jour!

27. Best Podcast Award: Is a tie this year between Sticks & String and Stash & Burn! Not only do they both have content continuity (is that redundant?) but they stick with the fiber and and we LOVE that. Their voices are pleasant (La especially likes David’s aussie accent). Both ‘casts have interesting interview, introduce us to new yarns, books, techniques and other yummy fibery subjects. S & B’s dedication to greener knitting and S & S’s thought-compelling essays are just a few of the reasons you all should be listening too!

28. KAL of the Year: Knit From Your Stash 2007. ALL the cool kids were doing it!

29. I Think I’m Turning Japanese Award: You can’t knit just one of Anna’s designs over at Mochimochi Land.

30. Give ‘Til It Bleeds Award: Sarkasmo donates blood. Her own blood. Like, from inside her body! How’s that iron, Sarkasmo?

31. Cutest Couple Award: Red Dog Knits Scrappy and Gangles. Plus, they have the coolest mom evar. Take us on a laundry basket ride, Kristi!

32. We’re Gonna Need a Step Ladder to Reach the Bar You Set Award: Farm Witch for living off the grid, farming yarn while making the earth more livable and for her beautiful creations.

33. Realest: Big Alice, who gives you the bad along with the good. No pretense of perfection, and we’re grateful for her special dose of humanity in a polished up world.

34. Most Popular Pattern: Monkey. They might have even been more popular than last year’s Jaywalkers, but we’re not betting the farm on it just yet.

35. Give Us Somma That Award: Norma, just a wee little shot of your energy, please? Your drive? Your convictions? Kthanks.

36. Blogudrama of the Year: Oh, let’s not drag THAT up again, please. In fact, we’ll just be eliminating the Best Buns award this year, too.

37. Scared the Crap Out of Us Award: Peeve went MIA for a really long time. Oh sure, she CLAIMS life and other stuff got in the way. We suppose her reasons were all good and acceptable, but we worry, you know. Welcome back!

38. The Pacific Sardine Award: aka How Many Knitters Can La Fit Under Her Teeny Tiny Roof goes to The First Official Gathering of the Anti Social Knitters Group (A.S.K. for short), supervised by Saber, Trixie & Sassy and those in attendance:
Zoe
Susan
Betty
Wen
Andria
Madge
Marie
Lyssa
Monica
Michelle & Maya
Wendy

39. Biggest Yarn Craze: This was a toughy! On the one hand, the sock yarn nobody can keep in stock would definitely be Smooshy, but for pure luxury, hands-down, sea silk made anyone with even a vague budget cap on their yarn buying sea green with envy…Though we predict that Woolmeise, will sure be a contender next year. You all are buying up so quickly we can’t get our hands on a single skank!

40. Raving For Rovings Awards: Though you can always count on BFL being popular, Cormo seems to be the spinning fiber of the moment. It’s Corriedale. It’s Merino. It’s Cormo! [We hereby predict Shetland for 2008. That's foreshadowing, folks.] And while there are any number of awesome roving clubs out there, luxury abounds at Wooly Wonka Fibers and there are colors you will dream of all night long at Electric Sheep. But Jen was several times thwarted this year from getting her hands on some Funky Carolina.

41. Everyone’s a Comedian Award: LOLcats. Incessantly duplicated, almost never replicated. Hysterically funny at that URL. Every knitting blog’s a wannabe. Oops, we might be bleeding into Biggest Irritation Award territory here…..

42. Al Swearengen Award for Excellence in Swearing: Lizard Smells, the curser formerly known as Cheap Ass Knitter wins, as predicted by…um… us, last year. Insider what?

43. Best Effin’ Oh of the Year Award: Autumn Rose. We shall live vicariously through CK, Claudia and Deb.

44. Most Missed: Lauren. Sneef!

45. Knotion of the Year: Go Knit Pouches. We got ours from Spinning Yarns Online.

46. Pusher of the Year: Loopy Ewe. You can’t resist the pull of her tractor beam, don’t even try.

47. Blue Fairy Award: Rabbitch , for becoming a Real, Live Yarn Person. No, seriously! Go Look. She didn’t even have to stop telling lies.

48. Best Comment We Got Award: Heather cracked us up and demonstrated a deep sense of kindred spirit with her comment here.

49. Robert Altman Award: For all the highly complex and irritating dramas she was involved with this year, Claudia should get a studio deal.

50. Secretly Famous Award: Famous Steve is so secretly famous, even he doesn’t know what he’s famous for.

51. Picture Perfect Award for best photography goes to Cara, hands down! I mean, really. Who doesn’t have a set of her gorgeous greeting cards? Well you should get one…or ten!

52. Best Non-Knitting Blog: Ugly Overload. Try it each morning before coffee.

53. Harnessing the Power of the Knitter Award: Norma and the Red Scarf Project. So successful it’s almost too successful.

54. Shortest Meet-up in Knitting History Happened over some fish tacos and Bug chasing between House La and House Pacalaga, and lasted all of about 2 hours. One of La’s favorite brief moments of ‘07.

55. Religious Moments in Knitting Award: Thank you sweet Wool Gods for Thy bounty that is Addi Lace Needles. We give thanks for their pointy gloriousness, their smooth-ed jointyness. Thy comfort is in our hands. Thou cleaveth not the plies of the yarn, but scoopeth them in divine perfection. The lovingly crafted stitches Thou clingest not. Addi Lace Needles, Answer to Our Knitting Prayers. May all blasphemers and profaners against Thy perfection burn in everlasting Hell. Amen.

2007 sucked less. It was weird, but not as horrible as 06. At the end of it all, we probably both feel a little out of touch with the rest of you, but right now it’s a whole new year! While the future may be uncertain, knitting and blog friends are definite. And although not a lot has been happening on the blog lately, it doesn’t mean there’s not a lot happening. There’s lots to tell, which is a good way for a new year to begin if you have a blog. Thank you to all our readers, lurkers, commentors and linkers. You’re all a part of our lives and we’d feel so lonely without you.

Happy New Year from Jen and La!

Lyssa, has been fostering 6 kittens who are now old enough to adopt. She’d love for them to go to knitterly homes so she turned to us ASKnitters to help spread the word. The are A-DOOR-A-BULL! They’ve even got their own blog! How can you resist those faces? You want one, you know you do!

Erin, in her most recent episode of Damnknit recounted an incident where a co-worker, ONE WHOSE IMPENDING OFFSPRING SHE’S KNITTING AND CROCHETING FOR!!!!, was very condescending towards her and all fiber enthusiasts, referring to our hobby as old-fashioned and out-dated, and stereotyping us as all just a bunch of crazy-old-cat-lady grandmothers (including the men). She took particular insult to this, and rightly so, and did something about it, creating a simple survey, in which she’s asking us all to participate. So please, take the 5 minutes to answer her questions, and help her prove just how crazy we really are! Crazy old cat ladies, indeed. Yeah, tell that to Russell Crowe Sly Stallone!

Hey, have you all seen this? Thanks to Dark Roasted Blend, I have.

Physically, I don’t go on vacation until Saturday, but mentally I think I’m already there!
~My lists have been made;
~The flight itineraries has been printed;
~Pet-care instructions and assignments have been given;
~On-line check-in has been calendared for 9:01 am on Friday;
~Yarn Crawl arrangements have been confirmed, and phone numbers exchanged, timetables have been set;
~Clothes and Marina prezzies are half-packed;
~Vacation knitting finalized: MG for airport/airplane knitting, and Roman socks for social knitting, which will include Movie in the Park (which I have been informed is Saturday) and the Great South Denver Yarn Crawl, which is next Tuesday.

Now just gotta wait for Saturday to arrive. In the meantime, if you need me, I’ll be over here knitting/ripping/knitting Morning Glory Crack.

Today’s WTF Wednesday is more in the vein of “WTF, why is this happening? And WTF can we do about it?”

When I read Janice’s post this morning, I realized just how bad I’ve been at keeping up with blogs lately. I didn’t even know about what Gerry, Annie and the family were going through. Having only too recently battled through a terminal illness with my mother, my heart just breaks for them. Anita’s post is very articulate and she’s right. We come together for so many people out there and this time it’s for one of our own. There are a few different ways to help. Go buy Annie’s books or knitting patterns, for one. [bypass Amazon this time and go right to her site.] Or, you can visit the We Love Annie blog to buy contest raffle tickets. There is also a donation button on both her and the We Love Annie blogs for more direct assistance. The funds will go to help defray the costs resulting from the illness and treatment. On that page you will also find an address if you’d like to send a letter of support or a care package. Put the button on your blog. Post about it and spread the word. You might not think a little bit will help, but I promise you, it does. Just knowing that people are out there pulling for you helps so much. If you only have a small budget to devote to your knitting, why not invest it by helping out a fellow knitter and a dynamic designer? In addition to thanking Janice and Anita for bringing it to my attention, I’m very happy to find that one of my local yarn stores, Main Street Yarns is heading up the effort to do something. I have not been lucky enough to take a class with Annie yet, but her book, Confessions of a Knitting Heretic made a huge impact on my knitting a few years ago and I remember emailing her to thank her for writing it. She not only validated what I thought was my unusual style of knitting, she showed me how to fix it, when to do it differently and she was the first person I ever heard that screamed “THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO KNIT!!!” I just wish the opportunity to repay her wasn’t taking this form.

I really don’t follow professional sports at all, (don’t get me started on over-paid, under-worked, strutting prima donnas who get away with murder, sometimes literally) but when your home-town boys make the Stanley Cup playoffs, you tend to sit up and take notice.

Anyhow…saw this little dude hangin out on a neighbor’s lawn, and thought “Hmmmm, looks like the Joneses got themselves some of that there new lawn decor. Not bad, as far as lawn decor goes, if you’re into that sort of thing, which I’m not, but if I were, that might be the way I’d go. Looks so real…” And then the cheeky devil swiveled his head, looked me right in the eye and quacked. Come to find out, he was standing guard duty over his little lady and her nest back in the Lilies of the Nile. I think this is the same pair who come to brood at our complex’s pool year after year. It’s quite the domestic spectacle. I just hope the outdoor cats don’t get the ducklings this year.

CK, our very own knitting diva, is celebrating her second year in Blogistan by hosting a contest where she promises the more entrants, the more yarny goodness as prizes. So go over, give her a shout and enter her contest! And while you’re there, you may as well do some shopping. A little stash enhancement never hurt anyone, although it may get you blamed for leading someone else down the primrose path of yarn collection addiction. But, in my defense, SHE WAS BUYING YARN FROM JOANN! Which is ok every once in a while, but not all the time. Sheesh! It’s not like Iheld her down and put a gun to her head, and made her click “BUY”. I just turned her on to one or two of my favorite on-line bargain spots, and she just went crazy! I tell you. No restraint whatsoever…uh…yeah.

Looks like Madge has been chosen by a new member to the Devil clan. (Could she have picked a better name for him?) She’s a lady after my own heart, the big softy!

1. Do I like chocolate covered grasshoppers, dipped in raspberry jam and then smothered in whipped cream? Dunno. And let’s keep it that way, mkay?
2. Who are my biological parents? Dunno, and that’s okay, my adoptive parents are all I need.
3. Can I ride a rhino? Dunno, and I hope never to find out.
4. What does the inside of my eyelids look like from the inside? Uh…Dunno.
5. Which would I rather have, world peace, or an end to world hunger? Dunno, can’t I have both?
6. Am I a pansy or a bitch? Dunno…What’s behind door number 3?

Since I know all the rest there is worth knowing (which isn’t a whole hellofalot) about me, I think I’m done. Let’s put this one to rest and move on, shall we?

Have a great weekend!