Monday, June 25, 2007

Winding a tangled web

I'm in the middle of winding countless skeins of yarn. Ok. I have counted. I have 240 skeins of yarn to wind before Saturday. 180 of them need to be done by Wednesday - they're going to The Loopy Ewe. I had better get busy! Very, very busy.

While I've been winding (There are so many things to think about while watching your power winder spin around and around and around...) I've been thinking of ways to improve the content of the blog. A way to offer you some morsels of interesting, entertaining and useful information about yarn, knitting and life in general. So I'm going to be making more of a concentrated effort to bring you tips and news from the knitting and yarn world. I always like it when I stumble upon fun things on blogs and podcasts, and I want to "pay it forward" so to speak. (I've never seen the movie, btw.)

But before I get to the interesting tid bits, I have a question. Please help me! When I insert a picture, Blogger feels it's necessary to add carriage returns into the post. The more pictures, the more carriage returns. When I delete them manually, it dorks with the spacing of the text. Any tips or clues on how to stop that from happening? It usually feels free to not make the entire spacing of the post uniform and it's starting to drive me batty. I'm thinking of moving the blog to WordPress, but we'll see as that will be a significant amount of work.

Fun for you
www.Ravelry.com - a great new knitting community site that is coming online. It's more than a forum, and more than a blog. It's a wonderful conglomeration of flicker, forum and blog. They're adding people slowly, so if you haven't heard about this amazing site, jump on their wait list!

www.StumbleUpon.com - I heard about this site on a non-knitting podcast. (Oh the horror! Don't tell my knitting friends....oh wait, you are my knitting friends.) This is a rating system for websites. You tell it your interests, and use the toolbar to rate the sites you've been to. StumbleUpon keeps track of your interests and tailors it's suggestions based on your ratings. It's like the rating features of Amazon or Netflix for the internet. You know you want to. Think of all the knitting sites you could Stumble Upon!

Nicholas Nickleby - this movie was released in 2002 and is based on Dicken's book of the same title. I loved it. Of course, I love both the new and the old Pride and Prejudice. I highly recommend it if you're into that sort of movie. Even my lovely DH enjoyed the film. Dickens' characters are so great and interesting.... I found it via a Netflix rec.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Knitter's Connection Fun!

I thought you'd all like to see what fun Knitter's Connection was. Ok, in truth some of these photos are a little on the bland side, because you can't hear all the fun conversations and bustle going on around you. And it was serious Knitting Rockstar Land. I kid you not. How often do you sit there laughing while Shannon Okey and Miss Violet chat it up in your booth? Or go out to dinner with a huge group of knitters including Miss Lime, Miss Violet and Side Show Husband? Or for that matter see Cat Bordhi winding her way through the displays of yarn on several occasions while smiling and nodding to all the people around? That is not an ordinary vacation, let me tell you. Oh, and I didn't even mention the indie dyer contingent that was perpetually in motion from booth to booth chatting with customers and sharing tips....before I get carried away, don't let me forget the sweet, wonderful, lovely customers. I talked so much during this weekend that I was hoarse for 3 days. My mother would call every day afterward because she was afraid that I was going to get a terrible cold any minute....but no, not so much that as Katie talked more in 5 days than she usually does in a year. About knitting. It was nirvana. The only thing missing was my family. I didn't sleep much at night because every time I rolled over in bed and my darling husband wasn't there I would wake up. So next time, he's coming with! Oh, yeah!




I promise that I haven't forgotten you. The past three weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. Dh and I spent 10 days in Tuscany....drool.....I am in love with Italy. We spent our time in a villa in the countryside and touring around Florence. Lucca was my all time favorite town. I'm going to retire in a knitting commune there as soon as I have the money to fix up a villa. Then 10 days at home to prepare for the show. 5 days gone - including two 11 1/2 hour road trips with the time jam packed with non-stop knitting and yarn action....And now I'm on a strict dyeing regime to get my orders for this month done and out to you! The Loopy Ewe is getting our first big order which will go out before month's end, but you'll need to check out Sheri's blog for an idea of when it will actually post. It's 2/3 brand new, never been seen colorways. You won't want to miss out.


The next order is for Purls the Yarn Studio, here in Des Moines. They've been a little lacking on the Love lately, so we'll be sending lots more their way!


I think my favorite part of the show was sitting in the Cider Moon booth before the floor opened, in a huge pile of yarn....just feeling it and trying to decide what to take home. I ended up with two skeins of sock yarn and 24 mini skeins for some amazing Endy-Bits-Swatch Socks. One pair is done and I'll post pics as soon as I've got some. The gals over at Cider Moon are amazing, and it was wonderful to meet them. We had the privilege of going out to dinner with them the last night of the show, and it was just perfect. Karida of Neighborhood Co. was also with us, and a more talented dyer you won't find. If you're looking for a new fiber friend, be sure to check them out!


More yarn on the website as soon as it's back from the photographer. Of course, I still have to take it to her, but that should be soon!

Photo Key - for those of you who want to know!
Photo 1: the Yarn Love Booth
Photo 2: Indie Dyer Line Up L to R: Cassie (Yarn Love Helper), Me, Jackie of Cider Moon, Gail of Cider Moon, Karida from Neighborhood Co.
Photo 3: Knitters at Dinner including: Gerry, David, Lizzie, Violet and Miss Lime
Photo 4: Looking down the row toward Cider Moon