The Stitch Poet

I was on the phone today catching up with one of my favorite designers, Champagne Maker. Yes, that is really her name. Her first name is "Champagne" and she married a man with the last name "Maker". Truthfully. We had tried to get her at Purl Jam, but by the time I had to go to print and open registration, we still had not been able to nail anything down definitively. So we will have her Trunk Show with patterns and yarn to buy in the vendor room during the Retreat. Best I could do, alas. Since chatting with her, I've been overcome with a burning desire to make two of her bags...This Southend Hobo, cute!



And this one for obvious reasons...OBAMA Key to change Bag!





I'll start as soon as I get the patterns. Love! Who can have too many handbags? Not I!

Waiting For Our Casserole

My favorite new sandals, Tory Burch.








House guests buying their dinner...

Who Is This Woman?

Last night I received an email from an X-boyfriend who lives in Paris (his picture with his son was in my Happy Father's Day entry). He said he had picked up an old book of his that he had not looked at in years, and some old pictures fell out of it. So he sent me some. This one of me I have never seen before. I assume he took it, but I do not remember. It's been 18 or so years. It is a strange sensation to say the least when you see a picture of yourself you've never seen before. Nonetheless, as I stare at the woman in the picture and at her eyes, I do not recognize anything about this face. The expression is so unlike any I see when I look in the mirror. My life has been so full of extremes, betrayals, motherhood, deaths of friends, wealth, the opposite, real love, horror in my little town... I never know what is around the next corner. But I'm not afraid. I do know that this woman in the picture is long gone. I wasn't aware, at the time of the photo, that I would have been a great backup singer for Cher singing "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves".

What A Perfect Gift!

Go See This Now

What is this? How is this possible? What are the implications of this? Go Here.

THE MAN

Change Of Plans

Rav's Knitnsticks has kindly pointed out that this is the project for me. I shall get started right away!

Oh, and PS...another change of plans! Since Senator John McCain has so brilliantly played the best game of chess move on the Obama Campaign, I have no choice but to vote for him since he put a Vagina on the ticket. Sure, she is a hunter. She wants to shoot wolves from helicopters. She wants polar bears to get off the Endangered list. She is against abortion, even under the most serious cases like rape and incest (get rid of legal abortion and we'll have possibly 40 million unwanted or neglected children every year). She chose to have her Down Syndrome baby. Isn't having a choice nice? Oh, and you can forget Gay Marriage! Not on her watch! She has virtually no experience, no foreign policy experience, has only been abroad like twice...but she has a vagina. How will she stand up to Russia? Yes, she stands against everything I believe in. But John McCain thinks that doesn't matter. What matters is that she's a woman. So we need to elect a man who would put us into harms way even more, by putting a radical conservative, with no experience and 5 children, a heart beat away from being Commander in Chief!

To Throw Or To Pick? That's The Question.

I have a confession to make. Deep Breath. I feel awful about this. The picture of me knitting in the last blog entry is fake. I'm holding my yarn in my left hand. And, much my chagrin, I am a Thrower. There I said it. And you say to yourself, who gives a rat's a#$? Throwing or Picking (and I don't mean the nose). They are both acceptable, as long as you're knitting, right? And if I have some sort of Knitter's shame and embarrissment about Throwing, why don't I just Pick? I learned to knit by Throwing the yarn. But I know in my heart that Picking is faster. oh, this is just an insane monologue. If you were to read this paragraph out loud to a friend, what would they say? Anyway, I've tried to Pick, but it feels so wierd, unnatural...I guess because I learned the other way, I don't know. But I wonder, how many people Throw and how many Pick? And does it matter? Do Pickers look down on Throwers? Only one thing is going to make me feel better about this issue. I must go buy some shoes. Many shoes.

Purl Asleep On A Clapotis

Iron Lung Alert

Yesterday, my Boo was still running a 104 degree temperature on day 7 of his cold. So we took him to the doctor and they ordered a blood test and a chest X-ray to make sure he doesn't have something more serious. May I just say...holding your very sick child in your lap while they draw his blood, squirt water up his nose to check for flu, and then holding him in place for an X-ray is no picnic!!!! Turns out he does have Pneumonia! Fun times! Poor little sickly Oliver Twist. He won't eat anything. He cries all the time, and won't let me go. He clings to me like a baby monkey does to his Mommy. Well, I need to get off the computer now and give him some more kisses and hugs.

New Knitty Summer!

I want to make these...minus the poms poms! That black vest looks like something I would wear 3 days out of the week! Roll! High Five!

Warning: not for our children!

A Moo-ving Tale

20 years ago, my friend Karen and I ate multiple hamburgers a day. Each and everyday. I'm sure we were sowing the seeds to Coronary Artery Disease, but we were young and careless and in love with the Bovine. I still eat hamburgers. But now as I eat them, I see the big dark eyes staring at me and detect soft mooing in the background of my mind...




Had I crocheted at the time, I would have made this dress designed by Joy Kampia. Or put it on my parent's credit card and bought the thing at asking price. That sucker would have been mine. I would have worn it with 5 inch heeled snake skin pumps called "New Moods". We had a pair in every color. I would have picked green to match the lettuce. I was a fashion stickler for details back then in my teens...

Ingenuity or Insanity?

Hair...?



From the mind of Sandra Backlund...



Designer on crack or right on track?

Be Careful What You Wish For

I really hate giving you another picture-less blog entry. But, alas, here it is.
I would define my mood as bordering on insanity. I went to see a therapist, who I hadn't gone to talk to since my x-husband walked out on me on Christmas eve. During that time 5 years ago, she gave me some excellent advice. If you are feeling depressed and hopeless...go volunteer your time to the less fortunate. Go work in a soup kitchen, help out at a woman's shelter, etc. Fantastic way to heal the soul.

This time around her advice is as follows:

1. Shut up. Only talk to the closest friends and confidantes. This issue is so controversial and sensitive, that I'm setting myself up for someone to unintentionally make me feel worse, guilty, uncomfortable, unsure.

2. Walk. So I've been walking. Rain. Sleet. Snow. Cold. I walk an hour to work every day.

3. Play more with the child. I have made a huge effort to spend as much time with him as possible. And he loves extra attention and kisses from Mommy...

Waiting these 4 more weeks before I'll know whether I'll be having a healthy baby in June or not, is a curious and painful trip.

Bump Watch

The Road Less Travelled

You know, I've been talking to alot of people lately about why I quit my job as a Yarn Road Rep. I guess it's been a couple months now since I resigned and my head is just now starting to clear. That job...travelling miles and miles, getting to go into 2 yarn shops each day, eating in fantastic restaurants in big cities, endless, I mean endless skeins of yarn and sample sweaters. I was swimming in fiber, glorious fiber. I have to tell you, I had never been happier. If you are alone, no boyfriend or girlfriend, no husband or lover, no babies, no animals, no plants...the road is so exciting! You meet people when you are out to dinner, sitting at the bar, you can schedule your appointments for 11am and then party all night...it is a very social experience by and large. But, strangely enough, add a lover, baby, plants, pugs...and suddenly that very social life becomes a horrid, isolating existance where you pine for your home every moment... except when you've finally fallen asleep in your Hampton Inn bed (and your 'to go' Carabas meal left overs stink'in up the room).


ok. Got it? Alone = road life is social and exciting.
Not alone = road life is barren and bone chillingly sad...lonely.

So, I quit. And let's just say for the record, that I cracked. I cried every night in my hotel room. I was losing patience with my customers. Say I had driven 6 hours early Monday morning for an appointment with a yarn shop owner. She makes me wait for hours while she helps her customers because she didn't properly staff her store, then she hardly buys anything. I would become silently enraged! And outwardly, bossy and too aggressive with her. Here is an example..."This Noro kureyon sells really well." and she says " Ok. I'll take 1 bag of these 2 colors." Then I'd retort "No, buying that way doesnt make any sense. Buying only one bag means no one will have enough for a sweater in the same dye lot. You should buy at least 2 bags of all 28 colors." Then she comes back with "This yarn is too scratchy, nobody makes sweaters out of Kureyon." And I would groan and shake my head in disgust. Ok. She can buy as little or as much as she wants from me and it shouldn't freak me out so much. But when you've left your Bfriend and your 9 month old behind and won't see them for 5 days...you start to resent the people that are wasting your time. I know that's messed up! But that is what the road did to me. So I quit before I burned even more bridges than just the company bridge I resigned from. There were other reasons why I quit but I'll leave it at that.


You know, I felt like my mother was very concerned and focused on her career when I was growing up. (This is not whining. I don't blame her) And I really didn't want my son to feel like I chose money over time spent with him. Honestly. I've wanted to be a mother for so long...why miss it?

If you love the Caveman commercials like I do, you...

If you love the Caveman commercials like I do, you can actually tour the caveman's crib and even look in his drawers. Pretty funny, but sip a Martini while you do it.

Waist Not!

Well, the beach trip, all you all well know, was a bust. Ah, I've been daydreaming about the last real beach trip I wen't on about 4 years ago. Becky and I went to Cancun to celebrate my depression from Husband #2 leaving me. What a magical trip that was! When Becky sent me her pictures from the trip, I was amazed at how good I looked! How widdled my waist was. (This was Pre-baby) How glowingly tan!


Besides being freakishly short-legged, I thought the pics looked good!



Then Becky let me on a secret. A secret called Photoshop. A girl can dream...

Clothes Minded

You know how knitters every so often philosophize about how we could never really get paid by the hour for knitting a sweater, and if we did, we'd make about 5 cents/hour or we'd never sell a thing?? Some how these knitters figured it out.

Neiman Marcus Fall 2007

$698


$1545


$1398

The Sex

Do you want to know the sex of my June baby? Let me give you some hints....


1. pink
2. dolls
3. dresses
4. bows
5. ponies

Can you guess? Could a knitter be any happier?

When I'm not knitting...

And check out the shop's blog to see scenes from the first day of the sale!

I Need Adult Daycare.

Day...from...hell. I've had this teensy weensy problem since Baby was born...no daycare. I've been on most, if not all the Blacksburg daycare waiting lists since he was born 18 months go. Every week I call them and ask where he is on the list.
"Not till next year."
"Couldn't even begin to tell you."
"4 years from now"
"Next December, thats 2009"
"12 years from now..."
"Maybe his child might have a chance"
What was I supposed to do? When I had my third martini one fateful night, call and register my zygote with the center? Geez!
I am weekly, running crying out of the Director's office, whimpering to her and her beehive hair, how hard it's been and how we've struggled, how I've had to quit a very lucrative job, how even my parents have had to go above and beyond and take him to their work...to no avail. Shrugged shoulders and consiliatory faces. So...hear me... To anyone that is listening and lives in Blacksburg...open a Daycare center, charge $300/week and make it fabulous, you'll clean up. Trust me on this one. I'm sure its not easy money (like being a Yarn Rep for the Knitting Mafia) but eeeewww-weeee you'll make the cash. I've bargained with these Directors,
"I'll pay double! Triple! Cash up front for the year! My ovaries! (not sure a 40 year ovary is worth much). I'll make the staff cookies everyday! "
Nothing. I did go to one place today that did actually have an opening.(Bad sign!) And for good reason! As I walked into the kitchen, the cook was losing a phlegmed diseased lung all over the Tator Tots heading into the oven. I've never seen so many runny noses. I've never smelled such poopy diapers. I've never seen so many adults without front teeth.



So today hasn't been fun. But tomorrow will be. We are going somewhere super fun and I'm bringing my camera...so I'll be taking pics of yarn, yarn, yarn! Now I must sign off. I need to get a good few hours in knitting on my sweaters. American Idol on tonight. Yes, indeed.

Can't We All Get Along?

Sniff sniff...ya'll need to read the comments page from the "Bikini Wax..."entry that button pusher, "Funbuttons", has uncovered a deep dark secret of mine. I was abused as a child. Old crusty Nuns with moustaches, chased me thru the streets with rusty purple Boye knitting needles chanting "Knit! Knit! You must knit forever, and bash your future husbands in a future knitting blog!" Well, frankly, I've never really recovered and vowed to the Hairy Nuns that I would start a knitting blog when I grew up and carry out their wishes. Only one demand they made, knitting only with Red Heart Yarn, I refused...could Funbuttons be one of those Hairy Nuns out there to verbally slap my knuckles with the "ruler" ? It looks that way. So you see, Iam really just the victim here and I need your pity (and a hug) more than anything else. My negativity in my blog stems from the abuse I suffered at the hands of those cold blooded needle wielding Funbuttons of Death.

Beets Me!

Sorry I haven't posted since last saturday...life was bloglessly, boringly, dull. I was waiting for Phabulous Phyl to get here for the partying to commence! We knitted, we pedicured, she had Martinis, I had Gin and Tonics, we gossiped, we watched Idol, we laughed, we cried, we refused carbs!



Last night, the Knitt'in Gals all met at Kabuki and caught shrimp in our mouths then raced home to see my favorite Idol, Chris, get sent home. I guess he really wasn't exactly Idol material, but I loved him, nonetheless...why can't an American Idol be overweight, frizzy haired, not classically beautiful, but rich with character?




The only picture I have of the Kabuki experience, half of us look forlore, saddened, and in mourning (hence, the black and white photo). I'm hoping Phyl and Mimi and Bel have better pics of the night on their blog...I can't remember now, Debbie, did you have your camera with you?







Completely pathetic picture. Sorry everybody, I know I've let ya'll down with that. We actually had so much fun and at one point, most of us were knitting around the table. Hilariously enough, we were ignoring the cook setting things on fire and putting on a show, we were more interested in the other person's knitting! Thanks, Knit Sibs for a sake-filled carbless funfest!. And kiss kiss, Phyl, for making the drive and blessing us with your presence! Come visit again soon!