Earplugs are divine. One of my cats howls desperately at night for a few days after I return from a trip away from home (such as my recent visits to Portland and San Diego). She doesn’t actually howl, what she does is scream. At the top of her lungs. You would never think it possible for such a small creature to make such a racket. It’s my punishment for going away. She yowls until about 3 am, then figures she’s bugged me enough and goes to sleep, remaining quiet as a mouse until midgnight the following day. I have considered all sorts of evil deeds and uses for a dead cat when she’s in full throttle, but have found earplugs to be the kindest solution – for the both of us. Heavenly.
I’m a bit over-knitted these days, it’s the usual post-tradeshow collapse. Last night however, I started on a pair of fingerless gloves using yarn that Sheep Shop Yarn Co has given to me to try out. It’s a really lovely silk and wool mix (30% silk, 70% wool) that is crazy soft. The yarn is new, called Sheep 3, not yet up on the website. The colorway I’m working with is a pretty mix of what I would call “rhubarb” colors – G43 on the color card of the page linked above. OK.. so I started this post a few days ago, and I’ve now undone and redone these gloves what feels like a ridiculous number of times. So if I was over-knitted before, I have no idea what that makes me now. Thank goodness for determination and stubbornness or I’d be nowhere in this world. What you see here will be ripped off the needles once again tonight. Ah.. the joy of designing. Gotta add, I love the yarn though, and it’s holding up extremely well to this relentless abuse I’m subjecting it to.
To add a little funk to the gloves I think I’m going to trim them with part of a fleece from Ozark Handspun that picks up the pinks and greys of the yarn. The fleece is different from what is shown on their site too, you can see a picture at the end of this post. It’s so lovely it deserved a spot all it’s own. You attach the fleece to your work by pulling off what you need and stabbing through it as you knit with regular yarn. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told. I’m yet to try it. Here’s the wonderful thing. I don’t know what he does, but there is no nasty fleece smell. The fleece is odorless, or maybe a little floral, but not stinky in the least. It’s hot pink and, well, sheep-colored, and I think it could look pretty cool trimming the cuffs of the gloves.
Is it just me? Home Depot is never a one-stop-shop. I buy what I need, then get home and can’t find something I need to do the project, or find out I need something else I don’t have, so end up having to make a return trip to get other stuff to complete the project. Case in point: I don’t want to spend a fortune taking Freia to the dog wash every time she rolls in something nasty, which is more often than not. Yesterday, I stop at HD and find a clever shower attachment, basically a valved, detachable second hose to wash the dog with. But to attach this, I need to remove the shower head and my wrench is nowhere to be found. So today I go back and get a set of wrenches (not bad at $13) and some pipe tape. The story is not over until the new sprayer is attached, but things are looking good.. Sprayer is now attached, dog is washed, all is well.
Why can you never find tennis balls or tweezers when you need them – yet when you don’t need them, they are everywhere? The two aren’t connected other than the disappearing act syndrome. I guess keys have a tendency to suffer the same problem.
A good find… A store near me had its last day in business yesterday and I picked up a great compact hat stand that holds about 20 or so hats. It will be perfect for trade shows and can sort of be dismantled. I was willing to pay up to $25 and that was what they wanted for it, couldn’t be better! Freia is investigating the new hat stand here.
This dog is driving me round the bend these days on a barking frenzy.. I certainly don’t need to worry about intruders, in fact, I don’t believe anyone within a 1/4 mile radius does either, she’s protecting the world from all threats, real and imagined. Maybe I should just start using those earplugs 24/7? Better yet, I could knit up some pink fleece earmuffs.
interesting to hear more of where he’s coming from and heading to in his design process. After the slide show I went to front of the hall to introduce myself, thank him for being him and beg him to stop by my booth.. ok, yes, I grovelled a bit.. But he’s way cool! I saw him again later that night and gave my my postcard with the picture of Freia on it to see if that would work to get him to stop by. As it happened, I don’t know if he ever did or not. I saw him walking the show floor a few times, I’ve no idea if he ever peeked into my space though as I wasn’t in the booth 100% of the time.
So, here is what my booth looked like this time. Quite a change from previous shows, I brought in more color and reduced the amount of samples and kits on show to the new stuff and the best sellers. The idea was to also keep it all bright and colorful. The best aspect of this is that customers could actually enter the space! Last year, when I took a single corner booth, I brought and displayed everything.. too much stuff. You couldn’t even turn around to catch your breath! This was more shoppable and customer friendly. I think people liked it. I got a few “nice booth” compliments.. always a good thing.
I have some cool news though. It looks like I may be doing another stint on Shay Pendray’s Needle Arts Studio (which has just been purchased by Interweave) on PBS. Just have to wrangle up sponsorship for the slots. Also found out that I made the cover (sort of) of the 
Had a lovely walk this morning at the Berkeley Marina. It was weirdly foggy, really thick soupy fog and crisp and cool. I couldn’t see much more than 100 feet in front of me. First off, met a friend from the Every Dog Day Care and Freia was respectfully goofy to Guido, a funny looking Italian Pointer type dog, called a Spumoni or something.. not really spumoni, but something like that. Then we saw Bella (Border Collie) and shortly thereafter came across Bella (Leonburger) , Mitzie (choc Lab), Ruby (Schnauzer) and Babette (Toy Rat Terrier), we all walked together for a bit in the fog, then we met up with Henry (Borzoi) and Ivy (Belgian Malinois? or Black German Sheperd Dog) What a pack we all were! What a weird mix of dogs, from the tall, skinny Borzoi who is waist high to most of us, down to the shivering Babette, who can’t be more than 7 inches tall with 3″ legs! And the 150 lb Bella who leans against me for pets and lets me keep my hands warm in her soft thick coat.
