Sniff, Wheeze, Hack

Yesterday: Got sick, closed the shop, went to the doctor, slept all day.
Today: Feeling better.
Can't wait for spring!

Shop Elves

I have long thought that the shop had elves. Unfortunately, they have never been the kind of elves that tidy up and do all your knitting for you in the night. These were the kind of elves that liked throwing yarn off the shelves. This is often what I would see when I first came into the shop in the morning. The funny thing is that these elves have either gotten bored with that trick or have been replaced by new elves because now what I come out to in the morning it this. And this. For some reason, I am constantly finding unwound skeins. The funny thing is that I never see it happen. I'll just walk around the shop in the morning and see unwound skeins all over the place.

Hopefully, this group of elves will move on sometime and be replaced by elves that like doing things like, say, dusting. A girl can only hope.

The Children's Museum

I took my nephew to the Children's Museum yesterday and I think I'm still tired! I was so tired when I got home, I literally had to lie down. Thank goodness we went with my friend Stef, her daughter (who gets along really well with LN) and her husband. Little Nephew had a great time there and, I have to say, the place is just great for kids. All the games have plenty of pieces to go around, and everything is kid safe and kid tough. That last is super important in my nephew's case. He's a bit of a bull in the china shop.
The tough part about it is that he's so fast! I spent almost the entire time there chasing after him just trying to keep him in sight. Stef didn't quite believe me when I told her he could disappear in the blink of an eye until he actually did. Fortunately, we found him but not before I had a few bad moments. All in all, everyone had a nice time. LN also seems to have grown up enough not to have a tantrum when we left. That was a real highlight for me!

Self-patterning Sock Yarn Wrap-up

As promised, here is the rest of this year's self-patterning sock yarn odyssey.

I took me about two weeks to get the yarn wound. Once that was done, I had to dye it. I had estimated that it would take me about three hours to dye it. It took six. I couldn't believe it! I was going to dye a bunch of yarn for a wholesale order the same day and had to do it another day! It did come out pretty and I hung it all up in the bathroom to dry.

When it was finally dry, the lovely Susan came over to help me wind it. Here's what one of the skeins looked like (there were four). It looks kind of short in the picture but that's because I have it all braided up so it won't tangle.Wanda was helping us out that day. We set ourselves up with Susan in the front room holding one end of the skein and me all the way in the kitchen with the ballwinder and the other end around my ever-trusty milkcan. As I wound, Susan would carefully unwrap one strand at a time from her hand so that it didn't tangle.

The first skein we wound was the smallest and didn't take very long. The second skein, however, was super tangled and I ended up having to get up and walk back and forth with the ballwinder, untangling as I went. That took two hours and I was about beside myself thinking that the other two big skeins were going to be just as bad. Fortunately, the other two were much better and only took about 45 minutes a piece. What I realized is that the tangled skein was the one that I took off of the frame by myself and the other two must have been the ones that Doria helped me with. I'm usually a fairly independent, "I can handle it myself" kind of person but I am never going to take one of those skeins off the frame without help again! The consequences are too aweful!

This is what we had by the end of the day. It took another couple of days to wind these off into 4 oz. skeins. I have to say that I'm very glad that I only do this once a year but it was worth it to see the look on people's faces when they got their yarn. Annie was very pleased. She cast on a sock that night and this is what she had by the next week!

Thank you to Susan, Doria, Annie and everyone else who helped or sent nice comments about the yarn.

How Massachusetts Am I?

You Are 84% Massachusetts Not bad considering I lived out of state for fifteen years!

How Massachusetts Are You?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Oh, and Happy Valentines Day everyone! Little Nephew gave me a Spiderman valentine first thing this morning. It had a fake tatoo in it and everything! May be the best valentine I've ever gotten!

Out of the Habit

Boy, once you get out of the habit of blogging, it is really hard to get back into it. All is well here. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I did spend most of January either busy or sick or both (bleh!), but now I'm back.
I finally finished the sock club's self-patterning yarn (there will be pictures shortly) and I've even dyed more yarn for the shop ('bout time, I know).
So that's it for now. At least, I've posted instead of just thinking about it!