June 2006 Archives

On Thursday, my husband took a PTO so I was left to drive to work alone on the worst day for driving in LA. Instead of going home after work, I decided to check out the women at the LA WeHO Stitch n' Bitch for a change.

What fun! It was Wig Night, and even though I didn't know that in advance, Faith had brought a few extras, so I was able to wear a Lavender Bob for a few hours.

I got to see lots of folk that I used to see at the Tuesday night @ Talking Stick. I saw Faith, Sara, another Sara, Ellen and her cutie hubby Larry who was wearing Ellen's "everyday" wig. He set up a backdrop and took photos of us which you can see over here.

Here's Faith. She looks faboo in this red wig! I love it. She is the one who loaned me the lavender lovely that my husband wishes I could have brought home! :/

Here's Ellen. At first, she didn't recognize me, since it's been a while since I saw her in Feb at Stitches West.

I met Laurie, as in, oh, you're That Laurie, I hope I didn't scare her too much. It was her birthday, and I guess she was being a little shy? What with the (not really a) stalker incident, she was maybe wondering who the hell I am. She had brought presents for her own birthday! I was given a CD of great songs you love to hate, or hate to love? Or maybe it's the summer songs you hate to admit you sing out loud in the car when you're alone and they come on the radio?

Unfortunately, I had overdone it at work that day, so I wasn't in the mood for all the cakes and cookies (someone brought homemade ginger snaps that smelled soooo good) and I only had a couple bites of a strawberry cake that was pink inside (I had never had pink cake so I had to try it). Since it was the day after the solstice, it was light almost the whole time I was there, which was a perfect night to usher in the summer.

One girl showed up for the first time and ended up leaving after only a short time. I hope we didn't scare her off, I can imagine it would have been a hard night to get in with the in crowd, who were all wearing wigs and acting goofy. Everyone was vamping it up and hardly doing any stitching at all! I hope she will give the group another try on a "normal" night, because it really is a great group of women; generous, silly, fun, and talented, and that's what it's all about.

Japanese craft books are everywhere, including my house. I picked up a book a few months ago dedicated to sock and glove projects, and immediately stopped by Target to pick up some socks to make sock monkeys for my niece and nephew. This one is for my niece, Ava.

Here she is on her first birthday, back on June 3rd. She's sitting with her Daddy opening presents. It was a terribly hot day, and she wasn't feeling well, hence the teary looking eyes, but what a sweetheart! I think she like the monkey, and for Mommy and Daddy, I got Ava a CD called Songs from the Street: 35 Years of Music - The Ultimate Sesame Street Music Collection. That way, there were songs that they could sing along with that they know from when they were kids, instead of all the Barney/Raffie/Wiggles stuff that kids get into today. She is already turning into a punk rocker anyway with her parent's taste in music, but as soon as she starts understanding the lyrics, they're going to be in trouble!

And I've finished the clogs except for the felting, so I can get back to putting the Knitting Bag Jacket together. After that I think I'll show the progress I've made on the Barbara Walker Afgan in Den-M-Knit that I've been working on between projects. I'm not sure what to work on next! I've got some Debbie Bliss Wool Cottonin Navy to maybe make a classic tunic length cardigan. I'm thinking Rowan or Debbie Bliss style, with seed stitch borders and stockinette body. I dunno.

I have also been swatching a ball of Debbie Bliss Cathay in this great purple (#11) that I just love. It's cotton/silk/microfiber and really yummy. It doesn't have enough silk in it to have that stink of silk, and is I guess a DK weight. I have been turning around ideas in my head, but I may end up making something from Big Girl Knits with the yarn, once I buy some more. I just bought it because I had some free time while waiting to pick up my husband after work and had nothing to do, so I went and bought some yarn for swatching! I keep it in the car so I can try stuff out with it when I am stuck somewhere. Doesn't everyone do that? Please explain that to my husband who is so helpful and cleans out my car periodically (we use my car for our weekly commute together) and doesn't understand that I want to leave the ball of yarn in the car.

I love me some new Barenaked Ladies tunes! The single (do they call them that anymore) is an Ed tune. Drool!

And 3 songs for only .99, such a deal!

Tuesday was always my favorite day from about 1984 when I got my first car, til about 1998 when I left my job at the "record" store. When I first got my car, I would drive to the Strawberries in Nashua, NH every Tuesday after school to see what new records were in. I even remember making my mother drive me down that Tuesday in 1983 when the Police's Synchronicity was released, before I had my licence.

After high school, I quit my job at the local supermarket when a new mall opened and I got offered a job at the record store. The manager was a wonderful guy who taught me so much about music and introduced me to artists that are still my favorites today, like Kate Bush and the Jam, and was filled will all the useless liner notes and other trivia that only a music geek would know.

When I went off to college, my boss had me transferred to the store in downtown Boston, and the manager there was almost as cool as the previous one, but was so stressed out he was thrilled to have me there so he could finally have a day off. He left the store in my hands and went away for the weekend, and the next night the store was robbed and I was held up at gunpoint and tied up in the back of the store with some of the other employees. Quite an adventure! I kept working at the store throughout college, then moved to California and the chain didn't have any stores close to where I was living, so I went to work at the rival chain. I didn't last there long - their style wasn't like mine so I didn't fit in. A few months later, I had a day job, but decided to apply at another local chain for my music fix. I worked there for 6 years until I met my soon to be husband and needed more free time than cash and left that job.

I loved Tuesdays. It was like you got a Christmas or Birthday every week. Each Monday night or Tuesday morning you would open all the boxes full of new releases, prepare the end caps for the new releases, and sticker everything to put out first thing the next morning, or depending on the workload during the day, we could start putting stuff out after closing the store. I loved walking the aisles with a pile of CDs on my arm sliding them into their slots, getting out the DYMO for creating new cards for new artists or artists that hadn't had anything in the store for a while.

Even if there wasn't anything in the boxes that appealed to me, I still learned so much about artists or bands that I didn't know, which makes me a killer player on any kind of music trivia game, as long as it's 1999 or earlier, that is. I guess there's a musical stunting when we reach the end of the time when we are psyched about music and just become regular normal consumers. After I stopped working at the store, I lost track of what's new and only began to hear about music from other bands, web sites, newsgroups, listservs, etc.

I get the iTunes new music Tuesday emails. It's not the same as cracking the tape on the box of CDs on Monday and putting aside the CD to be bought on Tuesday, opening the jewel box and pulling out the liner notes and looking for people you know, the inside jokes that you wonder if you know the meaning of, the guest artists who have shown up. Nothing has been able to replace that yet.

On a related note, anyone out there remember looking for secret messages around the label on LPs? The Clash had some good ones, and Adam and the Ants. Any others you can think of?

It's Thursday night. Here she floats, soaking out all the spinning oils or whatever are in there that make the yarn so crunchy while you are knitting it and leave it so soft when you are done. Soaking in a mix of hot water and good ole Dr. Bronners in Lavender, to maybe keep the moths away, if they should find their way here.

I left her to soak overnight, and changed the water in the morning, pouring off the bluey soapy water and replacing with cold water this time, since I don't want to end up with a bunch of felt when I am done! Came home after work and changed the water one more time, it's starting to run clear finally, although with a bit of a blue tint still, which surprises me since neither the soap nor much of the wool is blue, but whatever!

After dinner, I pour off the water one more time, and place the pieces in a colander sitting over the dishpan to let the water drain off. Just before bed Friday night, I start spreading it all out to block. I end up needing three of my foam blocking boards to get everything spread out. I don't have enough floor to leave the stuff blocking on the floor, so stick some extra pins in one of the foam boards and double deck.

I check on Saturday morning, and every thing's still damp. Of course, it's only been 8 hours, and the weather has turned quite humid in the past few days, not like it's August or something. I pack up some stuff to work on and head out to a local park for World Wide Knit In Public Day, and meet a few of my Long Beach SnB buddies for a few hours of picnic, knit and basking in the sun for some of us. I managed to only sunburn a small patch on one ear, and my back in the places around my armholes that I missed hitting with sunscreen. I got one of the promised slipper/clogs done for my huz, so he can have his own and not wear mine. I'll try and knock out the other this Wednesday at our regular Stitch n' Bitch.

Now it's Sunday, and every thing's dry except the stuff that was on the bottom of the double decker. I've flipped them so the damp one is on top and wait so I can join the fronts to the back and pickup for the button bands. Perhaps I'll start the finishing Monday night. My huz has asked me to hem three pairs of pants for him, and I said yes. Two will be easy, but the third? They are cuffed, so I will have to do the "cut off the cuff and reattach it" thing, which I have needed to do for a while with 2 pair of my own slacks, but have been curiously avoiding. I told him same, and he volunteered his pants for the trial, since he isn't able to wear them as is, so he won't be missing anything if I royally fuck them up. So, I guess I'll try it. If I can find a free bobbin for the black thread on the sewing machine... I think I'll stick with the hand sewing easy shortening.

Oooh, I am hearing a good oldie - No Promises from Icehouse. Not on iTunes, darn. I hate that I have all this great vinyl in my office, and no turntable, or way to get it onto my iPod. So much stuff that was never even released on CD and probably never will be. I wonder if I have the song on a compilation CD somewhere? Thank goodness for XM on DirecTV, I can at least hear some of my faves from the past. I especially enjoy Fred and Lucy channels. Oooh, now it's This Corrosion from the Sisters of Mercy. One I like, but not enough to buy it. Wanna see my current CD collection? See those holes? There's stuff that belongs in those holes, except for the ones on the far right. They are in a pile, ready to be loaded onto my iPod. I'm am starting to get selective on the syncing now, since not everything will fit. I've discovered that not everyone has as much of an attachment to music as I do. I'm not sure what it is, but it's so closely tied to my memories, I know exactly what I was doing when I heard a song for the first time, or when I listened to it a lot, in the case of songs that I bought.

Smells do that too. Last night, as the huz was rubbing some lotion into my sunburn, I was totally brought back to 1998, when we were dating. He had bought me some lotion from the L'Occitane store in San Diego. Being a dorky tourist, I bought more when we were in Paris because I loved it. Of course, when we got home, I looked online and found out there are about a dozen L'Occitane stores in Southern California. Since I don't go to the mall, I never thought about it. At least when this batch runs out, I'll have an easier way to replace it.

Now I'm hearing Under the Milky Way by the Church. That's the first summer I visited San Diego while I was a freshman in college. No car, summer job at Target, laundromat laundry, burritos from Fins, 1989. Oh, and it's Shrimp
Sunday, I could totally go for a La Jolla, or a Del Mar, I wonder if they still do that?

OK, that was quite a topic drift, and now I've got those pants to hem.

So, I finished the fronts and really like the way they came out. I really got the hang of the intarsia/weaving as you go technique by the top of the back piece, so the fronts came out well. I even have some yarn left if, after washing and blocking the back, I decide to frog and re-do. Here are the fronts, pinned but not washed or blocked yet. I love how subtle the green and brown are.

By the end of last week, I had finished the first sleeve, and my husband and I went to Hearst Castle for my birthday, which happened to fall on a national holiday this year, which is always cool. It was interesting... I can't say that I liked it or hated it.. it was just interesting. I like things a little more plain, I guess. The land was beautiful, but I was bummed that I didn't get to see any zebras by the freeway.

So, in the car I knitted like crazy and got most of the second sleeve done. I even took it on the bus up the hill in San Simeon, since what else was there to do on a bus? But, about an hour from home, I ran out of yarn!

What you see here is my swatch! I started to unravel it when I got home so I could keep going, until I ran out of the green too. I knew I would need to use my swatch since I knitted the whole ball of yarn to make it, but I didn't think I'd use the whole thing!

Two Swans to the rescue! On Sunday, I sent an email to Two Swans saying Help! She got back to me on Tuesday to let me know she still had a ball of each color in my dye lots and dropped them in the mail that day. They arrived yesterday, and now I am thinking I will frog out the last few rows of brown and join in the new ball instead, since the swatch has been washed already and I don't want to change my gauge.

So now I am watching the end of Jesus Christ Superstar, about the only musical I like besides Tommy and West Side Story. I laughed so hard at the overture, as everyone is piling off the bus. Barry Dennen wraps his purple velvet around himself and turns around to face the camera and has on these ridiculous glasses, which are totally back in style today! His were sort of chrome colored, but now all the young chicks at work are wearing them in black. I am sure I'll see them on at least one sister this weekend.

It's pretty cool with the HDTV... when you watch a standard def picture, you get the black border around the image, with plenty of room to turn on the captioning and have the lyrics across the bottom of the screen so you can sing along! Not that I need them, I know the whole thing end to end, except for the two songs that were in the movie but not on the Brown version. ...Don't you get me wrong, Don't you get me wrong, now, Don't you get me wrong, Don't you get me wrong, now...I only wanna know, only wanna know...

I'll be in San Diego this weekend, to celebrate my niece's first birthday (Happy Birthday, Ava!) and her Daddy's graduation from college. He's been working on it for so long, taking one or two classes a semester and working full time. We are really proud of him!!