In which Romi goes on and on and on

Whew. I feel like I haven't been here in ages! So much has been going on. This is going to be a long post, but I really think I owe you at least a few highlights!

I guess the super gigantic whirlwind really started being a perfect storm right after I rushed Sakaki out, with my 3 secret projects, due dates all falling within a period of two weeks. My first, a small one thankfully, was completed way ahead of time and sent off to its new home. It is still a sekrit. Then came my offering for Kristine's Pro-Verbial Club. (Isn't that a great name?) Meet Cáliz, which will not be available to everyone until later this year. She was designed to take full advantage of the rustic camel/silk blend from A Verb for Keeping Warm.

Kristine's club ships right at the same time as mine. I rushed to get Cáliz to my test knitter extraordinaire, so that I could then concentrate on my own club offering, a more complicated confection that needed tweaking before going to test knitters. All I can say is that I have the absolute best test knitters in the whole world. I am so lucky! With their help, I was able to get it all together in time. Meet Lisianthus (which, btw, is also the nickname of a very dear friend of my mother's).

You can see the center leaf panel transition into the edging a little more clearly here, I think.

And here we have the detail at the neckline.

She is knit from String Theory's seri silk silk lacewight yarn, which is utter heaven. It reminds me of that incredible color of blueish-purple hydrangeas. I have several options in my club, and the "Romi's Choice" people, who receive my choice of yarn, pin metal and pattern, received the pictured shipment for April.

There's also a little polishing cloth thrown in for fun. The packages all went out over a period of about a week and half, as I try to give the international members a little head start so they don't have to wait as long.

After that craziness, it was time to start another secret project, take the boys to STAR testing (which is an event when you homeschool as we do) and allow the poor long-suffering Mr. Romi to catch up on some things that had been put aside to help me get everything together. So the couple of weeks before I went off to teach at Yarnover were spent at a lot of swim practices and putting together some sizable wholesale shawl pin orders. This made me realize how much I really needed to have a Mac laptop, so that I could work on patterns in my Adobe software while at practice. I already had Mac and PC versions of charting software and OpenOffice so that I could use my little Toshiba laptop in the pattern writing process, but I wasn't about to buy Adobe's Creative Suite again for the PC! Enter my new MacBook Pro, the most beautiful piece of technology I have ever owned. (Posing here with one of the extra projects from my eBook).

I finished laying out my Alcyone pattern - the last shawl from the eBook subscription! - on my new laptop, the next up for test knitters after those three secret projects. And then? Disaster. I discovered an error that changed more than half of the charts and written instructions. Not complicated once discovered, but terribly time consuming, as I had to throw out a huge amount of work. By now it was time to be going, and so off I then went to Yarnover. (Can I just add that I absolutely love Yarnover? If you have a chance to go, grab it!) It was their 25th anniversary and I was lucky enough to be teaching there! Here I am with a great group of people from my Ravelry forum (thank you for letting me use the picture, Nora!); it was amazing meeting everyone in person, and I so wish I could have gotten pictures of all! :)

I also finally got to meet Twinset Ellen at dinner! Here she is (in a terrible, low-light grainy picture - sorry!) with StevenBe.

Here's Cathy, who wove that beautiful bookmark as a gift for me! I was very touched. Thank you, Cathy! :)

And here's the wonderful Kristine's wonderful mother.

I also collected some yummy yarnz, and I will show you those in my next post!

From where I live out in the middle of nowhere, it takes pretty much a full day to travel anywhere, so I had loads of time to work on different projects. One was the afore-mentioned 4th secret, and one was a little extra for my eBook: a cowl out of decadent cashmere sock yarn from Artyarns.

When I returned, it was three days until Mr. Romi left on a business trip through the next (swim meet) weekend (by now we're up to the week before Mother's Day). I was still working on some wholesale pin orders and the secret project, while trying to keep everything else going in preparation for Mr. Romi's business trip, and working through Alcyone for the second time.

Around this time, silver prices went up to an all time high of $50/ounce. I had been expecting prices to go down, and so had been absorbing the extra material cost (my sterling pin prices were set when silver was $18 an ounce). It was obvious I couldn't do that any longer and still feed the kids. So, with a weekend approaching, and no fast site fix (I needed to update the database and my site both to change silver prices), I was forced to take my jewelry site down for maintenance, thinking I could get it back up after the weekend swim meet. Um. Not.

That weekend, I put everything work related away, except for some work on the Alcyone pattern in spare moments. We were up at 4:45 a.m. both days to get there in time to set up and warm up in the pool. We got a smaller pop-up so that I could actually put it up with the help of the boys. (Mr. Romi is much taller than I, and the big pop-up tent was too much!) I love the checked top. :)

It was a very very windy weekend. This is the timing tent. Luckily it blew in after the last race when no one was in the pool! If you look closely, you will see buckets attached to the poles. They were full of water to weight the tent down. Heh.

The meet was super fun, but left me utterly exhausted. Sunday evening I went to bed early and slept late the next morning. And I slept ten hours a night for about two more nights, actually going to bed before midnight or one in the morning. This is unheard of!

Mr. Romi returned Monday and was immediately back to work catching up, and with promises to pamper me for two weekends for the missed Mother's Day. (I thought that was a great deal). :) Alcyone was fixed and in testing, and I breathed a little sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, the yearly swim team fund raising swim-a-thon event took place.

Here's a happy Bear, who swam the full 200 laps for the first time!

Onward! Life and the secret project knitting continued, it started raining, and I came down with the world's worst head cold. Bleh.

But now? The sun is out, the secret project finally dried and sent out (amazing what 3 hours in the sun will do for drying that 20 hours inside will not), and I am finishing up the pattern, getting my site back up, getting ready to release some half year club memberships (tomorrow, May 20th at 9 a.m. PST!), doing a final edit on Alcyone, and getting the last two extra patterns ready for the eBook. Other stuff is happening, too, but more about that later. (Hint: another subscription is part of it!)

I know I've omitted quite a bit, but really? If you have read this far, you deserve a cup of tea and some chocolate for your patience. So...more later!

Insanity. It's the new black.

7 Small Shawls: T - 53 days and counting down.

The kids are driving me absolutely insane with their bickering.

On the one hand, that means The Bear is back to his old self. Yay!!! On the other hand, there's that insanity thing.

Stephanie would make it sound hilariously funny.

Anne would make it look beautiful.

Kirsten would photograph the kids modeling gorgeous new designs.

I, however, am merely trying to scrape enough uninterrupted brain power together to finish just one of the many things that badly need finishing. Whenever I leave the room, the kids follow me. I think they smell proverbial blood and are moving in for the coup de grace. My sanity may not make it through the evening. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Oh, hey! Did you see the new Interweave Knits preview for winter? I have a project in it.

The Burnham Wood Capelet.

It's got cables. :)

People have been asking me to make it into a cardigan. What do you think?

My mind is wandering.

Thanks to everyone for their kind wishes. You all made me feel so much better!

Back to it....

Drive by blogging

7 Small Shawls: T - 64 days and counting down.

Dropping by to say hi! Things are crazy. I've been dyeing yarn, drying stuff out from the swim meet (that's our tent and chairs and everything spread out!):

hanging out in the emergency room (everyone is a-ok now) and having an anniversary (yesterday - 14th). I actually went out on a date with Mr. Romi!

Insanity is the mode du jour, but I thought I might heighten your anticipation a little. Elektra is coming out this week!

Kids are screaming while watching our Giants play in the World Series; made sushi for dinner; Gotta Knit (sung to the tune of "Broadway Rhythm Ballet"). More later!

Doing the parent thing

In the rain. At a swim meet. Brrrrr. Squish.

And it's supposed to be wetter tomorrow. Off to look for my rain pants. If I find them, it won't rain. Right? :)

One of Those Days

I enter into evidence the following:

1. I awoke this morning to The Bear watching videos on the school computer at 6:30 a.m. He has been forbidden to do this. Several times.

2. I set up the computer with a password (see above) which, instead of coming up when the computer is turned on, logs itself into the parent/administrator account. When I switch users, it keeps logging itself out and requiring a password to get back into the student area. I have it on good authority that it is not supposed to work this way.

3. I keep looking at things and not finding them. Case in point: my current audiobook (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and CD player. Which was right in front of me as I pitched a fit about not being able to find it.

4. While I'm having a mini nervous breakdown, friends from out of town (way out of town) call and say they are in town and wanting to come over. While the house is not a disaster of Biblical proportions, it is a mess. We are also trying to get The Bear caught up in his school since he's been lying about doing a lot of his class work. Mr. Romi is behind on two projects. I am behind on everything having to do with anything. And then some. We decide to meet our friends at swim practice. Mr. Romi is taking the kids; I'm picking them up.

5. Meanwhile, I need to get some copies of patterns made for Cast Away. I rush down to Healdsburg (15 minutes) since we don't have a copy shop in my town. On the way, I take back a morbidly overdue book found in #1 Son's room under a pile of dirty clothes. Usually, they can do copies immediately, but not today. Even when I whine. I leave and it occurs to me that I want it double sided and I don't know if the paper I'm using will be thick enough. I call them as soon as I am back in my studio; she has started the job. I go back, whining a little to myself that I could have just stayed there, but feeling really guilty about whining because she's doing it sooner than I expected. I get there and it looks good. Thankfully, I have brought my knitting, because she tells me to come back in an hour. I walk over to the library and sit down to knit outside. I knock over my beads. As I am finishing picking them up, the copy shop calls to say my order is done. I have just wasted an hour and a half.

6. I rush home to get my pin orders out. In my haste to get things packaged, I rip two envelopes, destroy the tape dispenser and lose half of the stuff I'm packing.

7. It occurs to me that I won't be able to make it to Cast Away and get over to practice on time to see my friends. I re-double my efforts to get things packed. I also have to stop by Karen's to pick up some yarn. Thankfully, she is close to swim practice. I decide to leave Cast Away until tomorrow.

8. I rush off to the local Post Office. There is a line. There is never a line at our Post Office. But today is Special. I get out late and start driving down to swim practice (usually about 30 minutes). I call and re-arrange everything I was going to do before practice so I can see our friends. I get caught in traffic. I call Mr. Romi, who has been hanging with our friends. They are leaving in 5 minutes. There is no way I can possibly make it and still be in this dimension. Since I'm not sure how to get to another dimension, I resign myself to the unpleasant fact that I will not see them.

9. I go to Karen's to pick up yarn. They are resurfacing the parking lot for her building and I park down the street and have to walk through wet asphalt to get to her door.

10. I finally get myself to swim practice. I'm late. Mr. Romi is leaving. He forgets to leave the snacks with me. I don't realize this until after practice when I have two ravenous kids. The vending machine won't take my only dollar bill. I go digging for change on the floor of the car. I find enough and go back to get Fritos (the only thing Bear can eat in the machine). They stick. I buy the Cheetos behind in order to get the Fritos. I wonder why they can't just have a whole line of Fritos. My older son refuses to eat Cheetos. I go back out to dig for more change. I find some in the ash tray. We are finally underway after buying more Fritos.

11. We get home. While I'm heating leftovers, I go upstairs to check emails. Someone has written to me that they joined my club. I haven't gotten PayPal notification. I go check PayPal and find that at least two club purchases have not shown up in my email. I resign myself to going through pages and pages to make sure that I have every club member accounted for. PayPal crashes. And then crashes again.

12. I give up and go downstairs. There are moths flying around the house.

13. And while all this is going on? I'm not at Rhinebeck.

I rest my case.

Tomorrow: the name of Shawl #4 and the winner!

Backwards and upside down

7 Small Shawls: T - 119 days and counting down.

Mercury is retrograde. I started realizing something was up when I was having problems with databases on Ravelry, 2checkout.com, iTunes and Blogger. I know this sounds weird, but honestly, every time something like this happens, it turns out Mercury is retrograde and playing tricks.

So...tonight I lost a post. It was, I thought, a pretty ok post. I'm not going to write it again. But since it's gone and I really wanted to show you something, y'all get to see the yarn tree in my front yard.

I was drying some yarn from my last club shipment.

It was hot outside (one of the few days this summer) and I had run out of room to dry all the skeins. So our Japanese maple turned out to be the prefect clean little drying rack.

The neighbors must think I'm a lunatic.