I have much to blog about. I'll try to fit it all in one, but if I get bored or see something shiny I may have to do two posts.

I GOT THE MOST WONDERFUL PACKAGE! My Malabrigo swap partner, Crazytalk23 sent me the greatest lace yarn that is (as someone described it on Ravelry) Velvet Green! I cast on the new scarf pattern in the Spring Knitty and it is looking mighty pretty. My pal sent some wonderful patterns along with it, but I couldn't resist the Ribbon Lace Scarf. I have plenty of yarn for both the other patterns.






In my package was the yarn of course. Then a needle case that really cool. It's like your grandmas old change purse, but much longer. Dagoba cacao nibs and some yummy lotion. A Stella notebook and a really cool pencil. A headband which I love! And the sweet patterns...all ready to be put in my binder. No loose sheets for me to lose here!

I've slowly been sending out my WAY overdue packages one by one when I have the extra funds for shipping. I'm not signing up for any more in the near future, because as much as I love to participate, they certainly take a chunk out of my gas money budget.





I also went to Stitches West for my birthday. I had Sooooo much fun and got a crapload of stuff. I took 4 classes including one on how to spin. I'm really getting into it and have even had the pleasure of trying a Louet wheel. Betsy, my new pal from pub knit night, brought hers to the last meet up! It was wonderful and now I want one badly, but..it will have to wait. My first skein of yarn turned out nice. I'm slowly getting better and need to experiment more. I bought great buttons. One with a spider, a web and a fly stuck in the web. You can see my first attempt at spinning on the lower left corner under my drop spindle. I searched high and low for every booth selling Malabrigo and bought A LOT. I thought I had hit Malabrigo heaven when I found the booth that was solely them, but it was all a ruse. You
couldn't buy any of the wonderful stuff there. Only pet and look at it, what the hell?! I was confused and disappointed to say the least.

I got to see a few famous knitters and some friends from Ravelry. On top below are the amazing two that started Ravelry, Casey and Jess. In the middle my mom and I enjoying a bloody mary before our first class of the weekend. And in the bottom picture is Cookie A, who designs the most spectacular socks. She is holding my mermaid glove, she designed the stitch patter for a sock and some ingenious person decided it would make neat fingerless gloves. She is very talented and probably a bit scared of me.



No more blogging today. It is far to pretty for me to be blogging and cleaning while spring is springing! I'm off to wander around the ranch!
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STITCHES WEST!!

Hip hip horray! I'm here. I went to the Ravelry meetup tonight and met with Knitterotica and neecespieces. We had the sushi for dinner with me madre and then accidentally met up at the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth where all three of us bought beautiful yarn. At the Ravelry meetup I got to annoy the founders of the wonderful Ravelry and also Cookie A. I got a picture with all three, but didn't bring my camera's cord so you don't get to see them until I get home on Sunday! I also bought way to much yarn on the first night. Good thing it was all for free because my mommy is a freiken goddess! I'm off to bed now as I have a knitwear design class that starts at 8:30 in the morn! Please leave me a comment if you'll be around tomorrow. I'll have the good old puter on me and hopefully will be able to do a bit of blogging on my break. Maybe even find a camera cord and upload some pictures!!

Long time coming...

Wow. It certainly has been a while since I've posted here.

First off. I have received three packages from swaps that I haven't yet posted about. First up my coffee swap package. I got the best coffee from my swap pal. I have been buying it ever since and I love the stuff! It is called Illy and it is delicious. The biscotti and the scones were also very yummy. The scones didn't last more than 2 days! The blue yarn is Rowan Cotton. I have never used this yarn, but I can tell I love it already. The yellow yarn is baby alpaca and I think I will be making a large scarf with it. It is buttery goodness! I got to talk to my partner a lot over on Ravelry. Her name is Diane and she is a total sweetheart. Go on over and read her blog! The green thing in the front is a neat fold up bag that I have been using to put small projects into.




My second box came from GossamerFlame over on Ravelry. Her blog is here. This swap was formed in my favorite group on Ravelry called the Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Group Group. It is the most wonderful waste of time. There is much talk of cake and other inane subjects. Makes work a lot more fun. When I opened the HUGE box, this is what greeted me. I realized I am the worst package wrapper ever, and Miss Gossamer is the cats meow! Let's see...I'll list what I received:

• A huge grow frog. He's real cute
• gummy peaches
• LIP SMACKERS!!!
• Magnet martini and note pad
• Mini plants. I already planted..
• A bath kit, with my favorite color bath puff (mauve..I really don't like the color, but hey that's the CPaAGG way) that has a bird head coming out of the top.
• A cupcake towel!!!!
• Green microfiber towel
• Flashing crazy rave ball!!
  

I took some really cool pictures of the flashy flashback ball that I'll post at the end for some eye candy!

Last, but not least, my third box is from my Ravelry Scarf Exchange partner. The scarf is beautiful and I have been wearing it so often. When Homer fell ill lately I was wearing it and since my sweet boy would have to spend so much time at the vets, I thought I would leave it for him so he had something that smelled like home. I felt a bit guilty about leaving such a pretty scarf that was a gift in a kennel at the vets with my VERY slobbery dog, but the scarf is no worse for the wear!

She also sent me a really cool independent magazine that is from the graphic design company she works for. I love the images in it! Reindeer baretts, some buttons, a lavender sachet, some pretty green stone stitch markers, herbs for pasta (nearly gone and muy delicioso) and Opal sock yarn that was inspired by a painting by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. It looks like a stained glass window!

And now for some crazy, squishy goodness! The flashing tentacle of DOOM!! I love this silly thing!

Sunday morning coming down....

TIMBER!!! For quite some time now there has been a willow tree off of my deck that always looks dangerously close to falling on my humble little (I stress little) home. Well, the tree has been banished to the creek below my house! I have so much more light now, which I will appreciate until the middle of summer when it will be hotter than the bowels of hell in my house. I guess now I have to get a better air conditioner. The man who cut down my tree was like a monkey. He jumped from limb to limb like some sort of chainsaw wielding trapeze artist. Very impressive!

Onto knitting news, and also lack there of.

I frogged my Rusted Root. (Insert sad clown face here) The reason is that I picked a dark yarn and it hid the beautiful lace panel on the front of the shirt. I cast on for the Tree Jacket with the same black yarn and ordered some lambs pride in gold dust for the Rusted Root.

This is where my acclaim for Ravelry comes in. I spied the gold dust Rusted Root on a fellow Ravelers projects page and promptly messaged to ask her if I could bite her style on the color choice. She replied yes!! Thank you Caribou!! Then I used the Ravelry yarn pages to search for the color in other members stash. There is an option that allows you to offer your stashed yarns for sale or trade. I located a member offering the exact amount of skeins I need in the gold dust color. A short while later I paid her by paypal and the skeins will be on their way to me!! Another thank you to Knittergirl for her wonderful yarn!

I remember once upon a time when there wasn't this wonderful website called Ravelry. I was lost in a forest of internet web pages searching for peoples different interpretation of published patters. I would find a little information, but no even close to what is at my fingertips on Ravelry. (How many times have I said Ravelry in this post?! Not enough? Once more for the fans out there RAVELRY!!)

I've been a bad swap pal lately! I have all of the packages ready for the three swaps I am currently participating in, but I haven't made it to the Post Office. There is something about that place that repels me like a very strong magnet of the opposite polarity. (Wow...that was a very nerdy sentence.) I will take my day off this Tuesday and brave the powers that be at the post and send all three packages at one. If any of my pals are reading this (stellify, herow, and dpalme) I haven't flaked or forgotten about you, I have just been procrastinating on going to the post.

Well, I am going to go enjoy my Sunday by doing laundry! YIPEE. At least I'll get some knitting time in.

I never published this on Sunday due to lack of computer cooperation. So I have a wonderful story about my laundry. I smelt something, uummmm, bad coming from the bottom of my laundry sack so I started being really careful about pulling things out. I pulled a washcloth out and....plop plop, MAGGOTS!! I scream, grab my laundry sac, and run out the door onto my pop's deck. I dump the sac out and MORE MAGGOTS AND A DEAD MOUSE fall out. Icky poo!! I am not in a battle royale with the mice inside and outside of my home.

New Camera, so I can take pictures!!

As I mentioned in a previous post I received my Punk Rock Gift Exchange box from ShadKitty and it is wonderful! She sent me the coolest stitch markers which I had been ogling over at Sunne's etsy store!! I also got two skeins of Cascade 220 in black and BRIGHT green. I love the green color and I think I will use it with the black to make a skull purse or skull fair isle hat. I can't decide. I am leaning toward the purse however, so I don't have to learn to double strand. I've had enough problems with intarsia (so many that I have never been able to do it successfully), to know better than try fair isle. She also got me this sweet little leather bound book. I'm going to figure out a special use for it, I'm thinking along the lines of a Haiku book. I also received Elizabeth Zimmermans Knitting Without Tears which is a great brick and mortar knitting book. EZ teaches the basics and not-so-basics with such ease. She's basically amazing.

I went down to Solvang on Thursday to see my uncle receive Vaquero Artist of the Year! Uncle Jack is such an amazing person. He is so interesting to me and to just sit and hear his stories is sure to be an evening of fun. This is a picture of my Uncle and most of our group. On the far left is my cousin Wendy, then Uncle Jack, then Sam Elliot and his wife Katherine Ross. The night was well worth the VERY long drive to get there. Solvang is a cute little town, but is located in the center of nowhere.




After leaving Solvang, I headed north to Santa Cruz to visit my friends A & J. We went to a hip hop show at the Catalyst. Not that good. The people we wanted to see only played for 20 minutes and before they came on were the most ridiculous line up of goof balls. Many laughs were had at the expense of the sorry folks on stage. The next day we took the dogs out to the beach. Of course we brought our knitting along!!

On the way back to Sac, I got a phone call from my friend KB. She had her baby girl after THREE hours of labor! I stopped by on my way home and she looked absolutely beautiful! I couldn't believe that she had given birth merely hours before. The nerve of some people. Funny thing about my pal KB is that a trip to an airport seems to be far more unsettling than giving birth. Go figure. Her baby is so gorgeous! She and her hubby J are going to be the best parents!

He he he.....

This is a search on google that sent someone to my blog:

your mother knit smelly socks monty python

I love it!

I also got my second package from Miss ShadKitty, but since I don't have a camera I'm going to wait to blog on it until I get some photos! But it is wonderful! More detail coming....

My credit card needs to be taken away.

I just ordered the KnitPicks Gloss in Burgundy to make the Thermal from Knitty.com and I blame this all on Ravelry!!

The pattern browser over there is the bane of existence to my checking account! I can find at least 100 things that I want to knit right now. Not to mention I never seem to find things to knit with the stash I have at home....CURSE YOU RAVELRY!!

In other news, Franklin from The Panopticon is going to be in Sacramento this weekend for his 1000 knitters book. I was reading his blog when he first mentioned it and offered him wine and fun on the ranch if he came to Sacramento. So, let me take credit for him coming out here...HA. Kidding. I am so incredibly excited for him to come to Sacramento!! I will be there with bells on. Maybe I'll even see some of my fellow Ravelers there. One can only hope.