Lace, Wabbits and Thanks

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your answers to my lace question! Thank you thank you! And Kerry gave me an idea. I will have a contest when I reveal what that yarn is. :)

In answer to Tora, who asked about how to keep track of the lace chart. Here's what I do.... I, like Tora, use a magnetic board for larger lace pattern repeats. The magnet strip stays at the top of the row I am working, and I highlight each row with a highlighter as I finish it. I also highlight the lines between repeats on the chart and use stitch markers that correspond to the highlighted line. I often count stitches between markers on the purl row when I knit patterns that are not lace on each row. This is all important because I have two smallish kids and a rabbit that is obsessed with me (more on that later). I can always find my way back to where I left off when the kids started yelling. :)

Have any of you had experience grafting lace? I am pretty sure it was absent from the list of things you would all want to learn. Did you find it easy? Difficult? Too frightening to start? ;)

And now for the obsessive rabbit. Since the weather is a little summery these days, I've been wearing shorts. And, um, the Diva seems to like my legs. If I sit down at the dining room table, she runs around my feet and through my legs in figure eights, nips at my ankles and scrabbles at my legs. I cannot get her to stop. I try picking her up (the Toymaker says she just loves me a lot) but she wants up and down and up and down and...you get the idea. I have to wear long pants in the kitchen, and she needs to be put away during meals. If I am walking around the kitchen (she is not allowed to leave the kitchen/dining room), she constantly does figure eights through my legs. I have to shuffle my feet to keep from stepping on her. It is very bizarre. Here is the older son trying to keep her away from me:

but it doesn't last. She didn't even finish her parsley (her favorite food) before she was back. Younger son put out her book - right under my chair. That worked for a little while.

("Mo-oommmmmm, the rabbit ate my homework!") And then she was back.

I hope she gets less obsessive as she gets older.

Lacy Stuff

First of all, look at this yummy lacy yarny goodness:

and repeat after me: "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm." :)

I'll even tell you what I'm making, where it came from and how to get your own. Soon. Right now it's stealthy. Very very stealthy. I can tell you that it's laceweight alpaca and it is totally and absolutely scrumptious. Mmmm hmm!

And now I have a question for all of you who love lace or would love to love lace but haven't knitted it yet. What would you like to be taught about lace in a class? What would make it seem easier? What do you have problems doing? If you were to attend your dream lace class, what would it entail? Inquiring minds would love to know. :)

In Thanks

To all of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms and our country, and to their families: thank you. Thank you.

Monday's Musing

"Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses."
- George Washington Carver

Have a great week, everyone! :)

Title Here

Last Friday (here you must forgive me for being on Sonoma County time and not posting earlier about it), Therese and I went down to Knitterly in Petaluma for a Habu trunk show. It was fabulous, although both of us missed dear Susan, who had hurt her back that very morning, and was in some serious pain (good vibes to Susan everyone!).

I forgot my camera. :sigh: But you must believe me when I say it was a gorgeous sight. As always, Takako was wonderful: kind, helpful and gracious. She had extra yarn and sample garments to try. And she was looking cool and unruffled as ever, although it was an absurdly hot day.

Even though I have a healthy Habu stash, I couldn't leave without another cool little item. It followed me around the store and begged me to take it home.

Isn't it nifty?

It's rayon, if you can believe it.

It is fairly stiff, but softens dramatically when knitted and worn.

I am planning on pairing it with some black silk/stainless steel in my stash.

In other news, Faroese Muir is progressing, but my progress at this point is about as interesting as watching paint dry! Here it is all rumpled.

And as "The Blob."

As my friend, blogless Dana knows, lace looks like cr*p until you block it! :)

I am in the home stretch. So much knitting to do, so little time!

Monday's Musing

I love this quote.

"A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her."
- David Brinkley

There will always be brick throwers, but after they have thrown their bricks, aren't you stronger for having survived? I think so. :)

Have a great week, everyone!

This church is on the move!

Isn't that cool?!

Fire

The weather has been very strange around these parts: more like late summer/fall than early summer/spring. Right now we have an offshore air flow with 40 mph winds, and that brings on fire season. Early this morning the smoke detectors came on and then went off again, and the toymaker and I did a reconnoiter to make sure that nothing was amiss. On opening the office window (the AC had been on) we realized what had happened. A local brush fire had set everything off, even with all the windows closed. We closed the window. It was already 78 F at 5:00 am. We went back to sleep until another round of smoke detectors went.

And then this morning, we went down a couple of blocks to watch the fire. It was, luckily, fairly small.

As we watched, though, it grew.

And then the tanker planes came into view. They must have been flying it for hours. I caught these pictures of our local heroes dropping fire retardant.

The next tanker plane flew straight into the center, and is obscured by the smoke, but you can see the retardant.

And then the tanker flew out of the smoke (the retardant is also circled to the right),

leaving a haze of retardant behind to blow over the fire.

Wow.

Thank you seems such an insignificant thing to say to someone who protects us all by risking his/her own life, doesn't it? Nonetheless, I don't know what else to say! So a giant thank you to all of you firefighters, paid and volunteer (like my town) alike that stop fires like this from spreading any further than they do! I am in awe.

Yarn paradise

I am lucky enough to live fairly close to yarn paradise, aka Knitterly. I know others who are not so fortunate, and believe me, once they see Knitterly in person, they are forever jealous! Nonetheless, it's still about a 40-45 minute drive, depending on traffic, so with other commitments (read: lots of kid stuff!), I don't often get there. But I did go down to meet Trish from Tanglewood Fibers!

(And look! She's holding one of Sheila's gorgeous orifice hooks!) I'm sure we actually knew each other in another life. Really. It was uncanny! She was down from Oregon teaching a spinning class, and I hung out awhile with Shelli, the owner of Knitterly, and Sandi, who does the Knitterly blog, and spun on my lowly drop spindle in the back, even though Trish tried to enable me into wheel spinning. She's tricky, that one. :)

We tried for a Yarn Harlot moment, but were unable to Kinnear each other properly, so we resorted to taking each other's picture:

Meanwhile, the kind Shelli was working on one of her usual soft and sumptuous creations. Honestly, she always has the absolute softest and prettiest yarns on her needles.

And Sandi (whose husband was taking the spinning class) was working with a gorgeous one of a kind skein from Trish and some Swarovski crystals.

It looks pretty in the picture, but it was amazing up close! Just look at the expression of pure bliss on her face!

And last but not least, the big news is that I will be teaching a class on Ice Queen at Knitterly on Saturday May 24th! I am quite excited about it, and I hope that some of you locals will be able to make it! We'll have fun, and, after all, it is in yarn paradise. What could be better?! :)

Monday's Musing

"Yes we can." - Barack Obama

Can we do whatever we put our minds to? Yes, we can! :)

Have a great week!!!

Happy Happy!

Happy Mother's Day all you other Mamas out there! It's already been a great one for me, because I got to sleep in! Woohoo! :)

Oh! And don't forget my sale!

Friday Eye Candy + Coupons!!!

Look! It's more newness! :)

First of all, inspired by our rabbits, especially the mischievous Ms. Diva, we have the bunny pin. I made one of these for Karen, and people keep asking about it! So here we have it. In da flesh copper.

And you know I cannot resist the siren call of the sterling silver yarn balls. I had to come up with another earring design so I wouldn't be wearing the same thing all the time. ;) And I love them! You can't have these, but I can make you your own pair!

They have a plain wire back and they look so elegant on! Here you can see the back:

btw, I am now shipping my earrings (the ones without the hooks) with clear plastic earring keeps.

And to celebrate the new offerings and Mother's Day, through May 11 I have coupons for Designs by Romi!! $5 off purchases of $15 and above (enter DBR05 at check-out), and 15% off purchases of $50 and above (enter DBR15 at check-out). If you are ordering earrings or pendants, put the coupon number in the comment section and I will refund the proper amount. I know this is weird, mixing the percentage and the fixed dollar amount, but I can't get anything else to work in the database and I am absolutely determined to have a little Mother's Day sale. So there you have it!

In other news, I was tagged by Margaridaa for a meme:

"The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer."

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
Living in San Francisco and planning to have my first child

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
Update my website, make jewelry, take packages to the Post Office, homeschool my elder son, knit

3) Snacks I enjoy:
Chips and salsa, hummus and pita, sushi, chocolate, popcorn

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
I can't say; I think I'd need to be one to decide. If anyone out there wants to give me a billion dollars, I'll let you know for sure. ;)

5) Places I have lived:
California: Corte Madera, Healdsburg, Terra Linda, Tiburon, San Francisco (currently Geyserville)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Rochester, New York

7) 6 peeps I wanna know more about:
Yarnhog
Dr. Steph
Gudrun
Joanne
Lorraine
Lisa

Have fun! :)

Spinnin'

Recently, when I was reading this gorgeous post by b r o o k l y n t w e e d (and what post of his is not gorgeous, might I ask?), I was having a bit of a laugh at myself. So I thought I'd share my version of plying.

Here is my Lazy Kate.

And here she is in action.

Of course, when dinner needs to be cooked, she gets busy and chips in with her special stirring and measuring skills!

But even though Kate is a plain Jane, I still ended up with some fairly nice yarn. :)

My fiber pusher teacher, Ba, has told me she approves.

Monday's Musing

"A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world; everyone you meet is your mirror."
- Ken Keyes, Jr.

Isn't it true? If you don't think so, try it.... :)

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Dude!

The other day, Prudence pointed out to me that my book-to-be is up on Amazon.com for pre-order! Ulp. I didn't know this, and it was very odd to go there and, well, there was my book! And you can pre-order! I already said that, didn't I?

Those of you who are seasoned authors have taken this is stride, I know, but I am still awed by the fact that my book is on Amazon.com. Wow. Meanwhile, I am editing. It is all very surreal. But look! In my sidebar! There it is! For pre-order! ;)

Eye Candy Friday

Just look at the gorgeous hand spun that Angela sent me!

It's been sitting patiently waiting for the perfect sunny day to have a photo session.

Isn't it delectable? Look at all that orangey yarny goodness!

And it's perfect. Now what to make?!

As an aside, does anyone want to know what a dork I am? She sent it all wound into a nice ball, but I had to unwind it and make a hank out of it so I could pet it properly. Yes, it's true love. And I am a complete fiber nerd.