Kiss My Knits!

Monitoring treasure distribution in Dragonrealms, I see a player find a goblet of Dalesian white wine on a low-level creature.

[Tvini] How did an entire goblet of Dalesian white wine survive a battle intact to be found full on the ground?
[Arnimas] Those Dalesians are reknowned for their durable glass-blowing methods?
[Adera] The critter used to be a waiter?
[Tvini] Hee! Both good answers.

Personally, I like the idea that our goblins moonlight as busboys at the Viper’s Nest Bar. Great visual image.

Off to get the kiddo from school.

I got a call back from my local yarn store, Charlotte Yarn, who had placed the order for the orange cones for me. Apparently there was a mixup with the order. When I ordered the orange, the store ordered the orange with the mill, and they have a written record of that, but the mill wrote down yellow. So when I got two big cones of yellow a couple of weeks ago, I assumed that since it was my correct yellow shade, it was from an earlier order, and the orange would still be forthcoming.

Wrong! The mill shipped the incorrect color, and – here’s the kicker – they won’t be spinning more of the orange for three months. Cue anguished screaming here.

Well, God bless Remy at Charlotte Yarn, after we talked about how I had 25 orders in line and the four skeins I was picking up in Davidson was just not going to cut it, she got back on the horn to the mill. They’re shipping 16 skeins and pricing them at the same level as they would for a mondo cone. Yay!

A terrible misunderstanding, but thanks to Remy’s persistence and the mill’s willingness to fix their mistake, things are back on track. I’d still rather have the cones, but under the circumstances, I’m happy with the resolution. I went from “crap, I’m going to have to start turning orders away, and doing a lot of legwork to fill the ones I’ve got” to “yay! Jayne hats for everyone!” in the space of about a half hour this morning.

Unfortunately, this all happened at the same time as a meeting with a potential new speech therapist for my daughter, and it drove thoughts of that meeting right out of my head. I’ve left a very apologetic message for the lady. I have a feeling I’m going to be on my cell phone a lot today.

But you know what? I like crisis mode. I really function well with the extra adrenalin. I miss that about TV. I don’t like drama in my personal life, but a little crisis now and then keeps the old blood pumping.

And NOW it’s time to head up to Davidson!

This morning I logged into Dragonrealms to document a new kind of flower that had been added, and got to poking around Theren. I hadn’t been to Gealeranendae College before, so I hadn’t seen the blackboard with the notes on how to create a gerbil launcher. I love finding those little touches that you really have to look for.

On the Jayne hat front, I would have sworn that I had two more large cones of orange yarn, but I do not. I’ve put a call in to my supplier to find out when my next order will arrive. It’s always tough to tell, since basically I have to wait for the mill to spin more of that color, and they only do that every six weeks or so. I have enough to fill my kit orders, but nonetheless, I’m probably going to be trekking up to Davidson to snag a couple of individual skeins as a safety net. It’s not an issue with finished hats right now, since I’ve got a few non-Jayne hat orders currently at #1 in the queue.

When I started this, I never thought I’d be in a position where I’d get nervous if I was down to less than a thousand yards of any given color left, but by my rough estimate I’ve used about 70,000 yards of yarn on the Jaynes, or about 40 miles if you want to think about it that way. Atsa lotta naked sheep.

I’m off to eat breakfast and hit the road!

Dear husband,

Today after my shower, I found myself covered with tiny little bristly hairs. It was itchy and unattractive.

In the future, please do not accumulate a week’s worth of beard, shave it off, then use MY TOWEL to wipe/dry your face.

Thank you for your consideration.

Love,

Your wife

The clip from Shall We Dance that cracked me up a couple of nights ago. It’s just over two minutes long.

I’m feeling rather proud of myself for actually getting this to upload, even if I did have to get it onto the computer using the husband’s Windows machine and then bring it to the Mac to edit it down. It’s such a long way around the barn to get this done. I think it’s my outdated DVD drive that won’t read DVDs that’s causing the problem. The frame rate on this is only 15 frames per second, but I figured that since it’s not a very action-intensive clip, that’d be good enough. YouTube uploaders are welcome to pass along any tips.

While poking around, I accidentally discovered Les Loken‘s videos. Les is a 94 year old WWII vet who’s telling his stories on YouTube. Cool stuff!

Side note: what jerk took “Tvini” as a name on YouTube? ARGH!

Today was the 50th anniversary celebration for Park Road Shopping Center, which was marked by a little carnival in the parking lot with free games, snacks, music, and attractions. Since it was less than two miles from our house, of course we went. It also gave me a good background to photograph a roll brim beanie that a client requested for a six-year-old girl. I just happen to have a seven-year-old girl to model, so that worked right out.

The kid’s roll brim beanie on wearwithstyle is in a colorway of Noro Silk Garden that has been discontinued, which breaks my heart because it was GREAT for kid knits. My daughter loves hers and chooses it whenever I ask her to put on a hat.

Speaking of hats, there are now enough dinosaur hats in the queue to make it more cost-effective to purchase an entire cone of Christmas Green yarn.

Eiffel Tower for scale.*
The spines on the dino hats are a little tedious to do, but the result is so worth it. People order a wide range of sizes in this, from toddler to adult. Nothing says “I’m having fun and I don’t give a flying flip what you think” like a vivid green hat with orange spines running down the back.

I’ve been on a Fred Astaire kick lately, having watched The Gay Divorcee, Swing Time, andShall We Dance this week. The latter had a sequence in it that made me laugh so hard that I literally had to stop the movie to catch my breath and get a drink of water. I’m trying to see if I can’t dig up the sequence, or maybe even make a YouTube out of it. Holy moly, it cracked me up. I’m marking down Eric Blore and Edward Everett Horton as two of my new favorite character actors. By the way, check out the last paragraph of Eric Blore’s wikipedia entry. I think that fits the definition of “ironic.”

Up next on the needles: CA, CA, and CA.

*Note: Eiffel Tower statuette may be smaller than actual Eiffel Tower.

As cribbed from and , I present the following:

http://www.likebetter.com/doyouknow/Tvini

Wherein you look at pics and try to decide which I would have picked. I can’t vouch for the reliability of this. Based on my preferences, the site guessed that I was a teenage male, astrological sign Leo, who liked to get up early and spent no time with his family. Maybe I’ve got a split personality. Hm, I’d better find a mirror…

Overnight two Brazilian reporters are kidnapped and killed in Iraq. The president’s advisors decide not to wake him, but rather tell him over breakfast, as part of his daily briefing.

However the president did not take the news well. He sat stock still for about 10 minutes, then curled up under the table and started shaking, crying, and murmuring to himself.

This alarmed the advisors. The president had taken news of US soldier deaths, Madrid, London, Katrina, and countless other briefings in his stride. Panicked, they asked if he was all right.

The president looked up and asked: “Exactly how many is a brazillion?”

Our mail server has gone down. Since it’s more than seven years old and we got it used from a friend, this is no great surprise. Fortunately, the data on it is mirrored. Unfortunately, the mirror is also very old, so things are running slow as molasses, and I can’t access my mail anyway. I can still get to wearwithstyle at gmail period com of course, but not to the booboomonkey mail.

I really, really hope no clients are trying to contact me through the links on wearwithstyle.com.

We’ve ordered a new computer to replace the dead server. I hope it gets here soon.

Apparently my courage in battling the monstera has inspired illiane to present me with some “yummy” “goodness” from Malaysia. illiane said that she thought the rambutan was “rude-looking,” which just shows you what a gutter mind she has. I’ll tell you this – no matter how sweet and delicious they are purported to be, I will not be opening the can of alien balls without full hazmat gear. Take “alien balls” how you will. I think we all know how illiane will be taking it.

I’ll report back when I sample these. Until then, they’ll be safely stored in a lead-lined bunker in the back yard.


Whipped up another little something, which I cannot show you in its finished form because it is a gift. These are the bits of it, though. I just need to put a finishing touch on it, then it’s off to its destination.

There are actually a fair number of non-Jayne items in the queue right now, which is always fun. I ran a reproduction of a felted purse past the client who asked for it, and she was very pleased, although it needs to be a hair wider. I need to knock another one or two of those out for her – she’s gifting her sisters with them for Christmas. There are a couple of Jayne hats that need to be ready by Flanvention II, but aside from that, most stuff is for Christmas. At this point, it’s too late to order a finished hat and have it guaranteed by the holidays. Kits are no problem, but if you’re not already in line for a knitted item, it may be January.


For Halloween, Emily said all season that she did NOT want a pumpkin. Next year, she’d want a pumpkin but definitely not this year. No sir, no pumpkin for her. Until 3pm on Halloween day. Great.

So we went to two grocery stores with no luck, then I thought I’d try a pumpkin stand I knew, and they had a few left. A few small, lumpy pumpkins. Emily quickly pointed to what we shall not call the worst, but instead “the one with the most character.” If there was a Halloween equivalent to the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, this was it. It was two dollars, but the guy took pity on us and only charged us a buck. We were very grateful.

We took it back home, and because I am one of Those Moms who sucks the fun out of everything, I had Emily draw me a picture of how she wanted the pumpkin to look so that she could work those fine motor skills. Actually, it was still fun, since it was part of the process of carving. “Triangle eyes, circle nose, squiggle mouth.” I’d never done squiggle before, but I gave it a shot. It may not be art, but it is, as my father would say, “good enough for newspaper work.”

Behold! The tiniest pumpkin! If ever the Great Pumpkin were going to visit a house instead of a pumpkin patch, he would surely choose ours, as our pumpkin was the most sincere in the neighborhood. The opening was barely big enough to fit a little tea candle inside.

I leave you with this belated image of Halloween. May your candy last exactly as long as you want it to.