yarn tootin'

We Don't Root for the Packers in Our Family

     I have a 3-year-old nephew who is fond of telling me about the things we don't do in our family.  When it comes to my nephew, it's usually things he's just been reprimanded for like hitting or being sassy or my personal favorite "We don't tease in our family."  I have two older brothers who have always teased me, so it's nice to have a 3-year-old remind the grown-ups that teasing isn't nice. Bob and I really like  the "We don't... in our family" expression and we often use it to remind one another when we're doing something wrong.
     Today when I got home from knitting group, Bob was watching football.  I gently reminded him that we don't like football in our family and went upstairs to play my viola.  When I came back downstairs, he was still watching football and when I started to complain, he told me that it was the playoffs so he had to watch.  He then said that he was rooting for the Packers.  I know next to nothing about football, but one thing I do know is that we do NOT root for the PACKERS in our family.  I just heard "The Giants are going to the Superbowl!" coming from the T.V. in the other room, so it would seem that no harm was done. 
     Now that the game is finally over, it's time for a little HGTV or maybe some Project Runway.  We had a busy weekend with concerts and a visit from my parents so I'm a little behind on my programming.  I think that the perfect antidote to over four hours of football is an episode or two of Jon & Kate Plus 8.  I meant to show Jon and Kate to my mom yesterday after our visit to the Missions, but Bob and my dad were monopolizing the T.V. with some type of ESPN so we had to watch basketball while we knit.  I suppose it could have been football which would have been much, much worse.

Mom, Dad, and Bob at Mission San Jose

Grasping at Straws

     I've got nothing fun or interesting to say today.  NaBloBleePoo is really starting to be a nuisance.  Instead of the usual charm, wit, and hand knit, I give you pictures of children from my Turkey Trip to the Motherland. 

My nephew, Hardware Hank, wearing a larger man's gloves.

Niece #2 in the hat I knit for her last Christmas.

Hank's big brother and his dad at the indoor water park looking at pictures of themselves on Poppy's iPhone.  17 people, large and small in one house for a long weekend seems to necessitate a trip to the indoor water park (the kind that has big water slide tunnels sticking out of the side of a building).  None of the small people are mine, so fortunately I didn't have to swim.  Bob and I stopped in for a minute though because the indoor water park is right behind the yarn store.  If nothing else, it's conveniently located.

Happpy Thanksgiving from the Motherland

Inside:

Bob and Penny color with a couple of their friends while watching the Macy's parade.

Outside:


The lake.

Fabulous Etsy Finds

     I just taught 8 violin lessons, so I'm afraid I'm too tired to write much tonight.  I do have a picture though.  Look at these dolls...

     I first came across Maritza a.k.a. Cynicthelamb's Etsy shop sometime last year.  I think I saw some of her wares on someone else's blog and I clicked on the link and discovered her pocket squirrels which I posted about earlier this month.  Ever since then, I've checked her shop from time to time for other items I might enjoy.  When I saw one of her dolls, I emailed her and asked her to make two custom dolls for my nieces.  She just sent me this picture of the finished dolls today.  The dolls are supposed to look like my nieces and I think they're pretty good representations.  Hopefully the girls are still too little to be reading Yarn Tootin' and they won't find out about their presents before Christmas.  Now I need to find something fabulous for my nephews.  Any ideas?    

Unbelievable

     It's been awhile since my last post.  Bob and I drove from Boulder to Wyoming and we hung out here for a few days....

     After that, we made our way across North Dakota (a thrilling drive) to the motherland and we hung out here for the rest of the week...

     We had a very nice vacation. Wyoming was quiet and relaxing and I did a lot of knitting while Bob did a lot of fly fishing.  The motherland was considerably noisier, but also more festive.  I have 5 nieces and nephews, the oldest of whom is 6, and my aunt and uncle who lives across the lake have 7 grandchildren, all of whom made their way to our side of the lake for a big party.  While at "the lake" I only knit a little bit while Uncle Bob fished with the oldest of my nephews and ran around outside behaving like a kid himself.

     Today we drove down to the Twin Cities and Bob got on a plane back to Big Texas.  I'm going to drive the car back to San Antonio later this week.  Since I was already almost all of the way to St. Paul when I dropped Bob off at the airport this afternoon, I decided to hit a couple of yarn stores on the other side of the river.  First I went to The Yarnery, and my experience there, much like the last time I was in there was quite pleasant.  I bought one gift item and then moved on to another St. Paul yarn store, not far from The Yarnery and my experience at this store started out okay, and then rapidly deteriorated.  Everything would have been fine if I'd only said "No, thank you"' when they asked me if I'd like my yarn wound into a ball.  If I'd just taken my skein and the book I bought and left, I'd probably be saying that I loved this yarn store.  Everything went downhill when I said "That would be great," instead of "No, thank you."

     How long does it take you to wind a 420 yard skein of sock yarn into a little yarn cake using a ball winder and swift?  How long does it typically take a yarn store employee (someone who should be quite adept at winding yarn) to complete this task?  I'd say on average, it takes no more than 5 minutes for the average human to wind up a skein of yarn.  Even a very pesky, tangly skein can almost always be wound up in 15 minutes or less.  It took two women at this second yarn store more than 45 minutes to wind my yarn.  After about 20 or 25 minutes, I told them that I wanted to leave and could I please just take another identical skein and be on my way.  They rudely told me no.  I was told that the yarn they were trying to wind could no longer be sold and that if I had to leave, they could either send it to me, or I could come back later.  I explained that I live in Texas and that I was in town on vacation and that I was sort of hoping to knit with the yarn right away.  I'd already been patiently waiting for much longer than a person typically waits and at this point, the yarn I'd just paid for was a big tangly mess all over the floor.   

     After watching the yarn store women struggle for another minute or so, I begrudgingly said that I would go next door and get a cup of coffee while they tried to sort out the mess.  At this point, I was more than a little bit miffed that they didn't just give me a new skein.  To make matters worse, they weren't even apologetic about the situation and one of the women suggested that if I didn't have time to wait, I shouldn't have asked them to wind the yarn.  I wanted to tell her that if it was going to take more than 20 minutes to wind one skein, they shouldn't offer to do it, but I kept my snarky comment to myself.  The ruder of the two women told me that they'd have it finished in 7 or 8 minutes, so I got my coffee and called a native knitting friend to bitch about the situation.  When I told her that I was in St. Paul, she was able to name the store in question right away, as she too has had bad experiences there.  About 45-50 minutes after purchasing the yarn, I was finally able to leave with it.  I know it was this long because the time on my receipt is 16:58 and I wasn't in my car and on my way a minute before a ten to 6:00.  Unbelievable.  The yarn is now a sad, slightly fuzzy mess of a ball, and the inept winder told me that it would be best if I worked from the outside.  Who knits a center pull ball from the outside?  Isn't the whole point of using a ball winder to end up with a nice center pull yarn cake?  I think I'll rewind it by hand, and I bet it will take me less than 45 minutes.

      My question now is do I ever go back to this place?  They had an awesome selection of yarn, in particular sock yarn, which as many of you know is my favorite, but I'm not sure I can do business with a store that has such horrendous customer service.  I Googled the name of the store when I got home and everyone else seems to love it.  In fact, the reason I went out of my way to go there in the first place was because I'd read so many rave reviews on other people's blogs and I was really looking forward to visiting this particular store.  Oh well, it was just one skein.  I've definitely learned that no matter what, I will never again agree to have my yarn wound at that store.

40 Years!

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

love,

Courtney

Class of '93

     Today was the first sunny day we've had in this part of Big Texas since the 10th of January.  It was excellent driving weather, so I went up to Austin to have brunch with a few of my old friends from Breck School's Class of 1993. I met all three of these ladies on the first day of 7th grade.  Amanda, the pregnant gal next to me, and I were both new to Breck, were both very small for our age, and we had every single class together that first year.  Throughout 7th and 8th grade, we had very few friends aside from each other, and I think that a significant part of my personality is a direct result of this very close friendship.  Amanda and I can literally go years without seeing or speaking to one another, and then we'll be in the same room and it will be as though no time has passed.  In some essential way, we will always be on the same page.  Coincidentally, we now live little over an hour's drive from each other, so we get together often.                                                         

     Kate, the redhead next to Amanda, used to be called Katie.  I still think of her as Katie, but that's probably because she was one of the most popular girls in our class.  That being said, we went to a small, private school in Minneapolis where there were no cheerleaders, and the coolest sport was theater.  Katie was the queen of the theater crowd.  She and Amanda became friends sometime around junior year and I was always kind of scared of Katie.  The year after we all graduated from college, the four of us lived in Manhattan and I got to know Kate better.  Kate is the only one of the four of us who survived in New York and she still lives there and works as a film editor.  Before today, I hadn't seen her in almost ten years and I was pleased to find that I'm no longer quite so intimidated.  I guess everyone grows up.

     The fourth girl in the picture is Karen.  Like Amanda, Karen lives in Austin.  Karen is great.   We weren't close friends in high school, but we had a lot of classes together and I always liked her.   In fact, on the first day of 7th grade, she came up to me at my locker and asked me to sit with her and some other girls in chapel.  I appreciated this, and even though we didn't end up being great friends back then, I always remembered that gesture.  Karen is exactly the type of person I tend to befriend as an adult, and if I hadn't been such an insecure nerd, we may have been better friends back in the day.

     At one point during our afternoon together, Kate mentioned that she likes hanging out with another of our Breck classmates in New York because he makes her feel like the person she was in high school.  I responded by saying that I'm perfectly happy to forget that version of myself.  I feel as though my essential qualities are very much the same, but I've also come a long way and I'd never want to go back.  Even so, it's good to know that at 31, I can finally handle an afternoon with the cool kids. 

Handknit Holiday

     Now that the holiday has come and gone, I can post some pictures of my knitting.  I didn't overwhelm myself with holiday knitting this year, but I did give a few knitted gifts.  I sent out a couple of these dishcloths from Mason Dixon Knitting to my mother-in-law.  She was here when I was making one of them over Thanksgiving, so I knew she'd know what it was.  Bob also knit her a scarf (his very first F.O.), but I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it before we sent our gifts to California. 

     For baby Henry, my newest nephew, I made my version of the Five Hour Baby Sweater (the pattern can be found in the sidebar).  This is basically just a sized up version of one of the many "Five Hour Baby Sweaters" that can be found via Google.  Needless to say, the sweater takes longer than five hours to knit.  I don't know why everyone calls it a five hour sweater.  Maybe I'm just slow.  In any case, I knit this with Manos del Uruguay in Bramble on US 10 needles.  It took about a skein and a half.  The sweater is still a little too big for Henry (he's three months old), but fortunately, he lives in Minnesota where one is always in need of a sweater.
     For my two nieces, I made tri corner baby hats with Patons Soy Wool Stripes.  I've knit this pattern several times before and it makes a great, quick, easy, and super cute gift.  Unfortunately, my nieces didn't want to have their pictures taken in their new hats, but baby Henry didn't seem to mind modeling more of Aunt Courtney's hand knits.  Thanks, Henry!

     The only other knitted gift that I gave was a scarf that I made for my mom.  I used a pattern for a Diagonal Drop Stitch Scarf  that I got last fall when I was looking for patterns for the Funky Scarf Swap.  I used two balls of Artful Yarns Heavenly that I got in Kansas City.  I'm still working on one more gift that's for a friend I won't see until tomorrow.  It's the type of knitted gift that comes in pairs, so my friend may get one of the items and an IOU for its mate.  Since my friend will be here for a few days, I will no doubt be able to finish the pair before the visit is over. 

     I received a lot of knitting related gifts.  I think that my knitting makes me easy to shop for.  The Amazon whishlist is also a good thing, and I got several additions to my knitting library.  I have yet to photograph or even unpack most of those gifts, so I will wait to report on those until a later date.  Happy Holidays, Y'all!                                                                              

Weird Meme

     I made it to the Motherland safely.  I've been here for less than 24 hours, and I've already been to two yarn stores.  After picking up my rental car this morning (I scored a free upgrade from a boring mid-size sedan to a Jeep Liberty), I went to Yarnzilla in Minnetonka.  I think that Yarnzilla is an excellent name for a yarn store, but the store itself was a little weird.  First of all, the location was really strange.  It's in an office park, and it seems more like the sort of place where you might go to the dentist than an LYS.  I gathered that they do most of their business online, and they do have an impressive array of stuff on their website.  Because their retail space is small, they only have one skein of everything out and you have to ask them to go get you what want.   For some reason, this makes it less fun for me.  There's something more satisfying about a store with skeins and skeins of yarn.  Aside from these small complaints, I enjoyed Yarnzilla very much.  There was a young woman working there who left me to wander around and touch things without bothering me.  She also had the new Regina Spektor album playing and now I'm going to have to get that.

     After Yarnzilla, I decided to stop into Neeldework Unlimited in Minneapolis.  This store is one of my favorites.  It's huge and it has almost everything.  I have a ton of yarn at home in Texas that I need to knit, so instead of buying yarn, I bought a Mountain Colors sock pattern that's meant to be knit with yarn I already have.  Perfect.  I almost bought a second pattern and skein of Mountain Goat to go with it, but I managed to control myself and get out of there with just the one pattern.  I'll be here for several more days, so I may end up back in there.

     At some point during my travels, Janna tagged me for this meme, so here goes...

THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the '6 weird things about you.' People who get tagged need to write a blog post of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says you are tagged in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

There are so many weird things about me that it's hard to know where to begin...

1.  I generally have trouble sleeping the night before a trip, but I really can't sleep if I haven't packed or at least started to pack.  I also find it hard to sleep if I have to get up early for any reason.  I tend to worry that I won't wake up, so I guess my solution is not to sleep.

2. No matter where we are or who we are with,  my husband and I address each other solely as "Bob."  It's really spelled Bab and pronounced in a Minnesota accent so it sounds more like Bob, hence this spelling for the blog.  When we write it out in a note or on a card or something, we spell it Bab.

3.  I have freakishly long arms and legs.  The other night after riding my bike to the drug store and back, Bob came into the house and said "You are a freak!".  I calmly asked him why, and he said that although he is 6'1'' and I'm just shy of 5'8",  he has trouble reaching the pedals on my bike.  My very long legs and my fairly average height mean that my body is teeny, so when I'm sitting down, I'm short.

4.  I tend to feel slightly panicked when I'm without a water bottle.  Bob calls my water my "ounces" because I need to drink many ounces a day or I'll freak out.  The other day I was on my way to a rehearsal when I realized I'd left my water on the kitchen counter.  I promptly pulled into a gas station to amend the situation and all was well.

5.  Most of the people reading this won't find this weird at all, but anyone who doesn't knit finds it very strange that I have a dresser completely full of yarn in my yarn room.  Yes, I have a yarn room, which is sometimes doubles as a viola room, but more often it is a yarn room.  I also have a big plastic storage bin in the closet for the overflow (of yarn, not violas).

6.  This last one is a little embarrassing...Bob and I have seen every episode of 7th Heaven.  It started with Bob's obsession with Jessica Biel and then it somehow took on a life of its own.  Jessica Biel hasn't been on the show in several seasons, yet we continue to watch it even though at times, it's painfully bad.  The WB allegedly canceled the show after 10 seasons last spring, and then changed their minds and ordered an 11th season.  It was recently picked up for all 22 episodes and there are 11 more to go.  Someday we will be free of 7th Heaven.

    I'm supposed to tag 6 people, so I'm tagging Kitty, Charlie, Shalini, Pretty, Allegra, and Dan.    Feel free not to do this if its not your cup of tea, or if you've already done something similar.   I just didn't want to leave this last bit out.  Enjoy!

I Heart Noro

     I think I might have a slight problem with Noro.  I can't stop buying it.  Noro is my favorite yarn right now.  One day last week, I was driving sort of near The Yarn Barn, so I went only slightly out of my way to stop in for a quick fix.  Those of you who have been to my house know that the last thing that I need is more yarn.  What I do need is a nice warm hat for my impending trip to the Motherland.  This is how I justified my purchase of a single skein of Noro Iro.  It is a wool/silk blend and it's quite nice.  I made a hat for myself to match the hat I made for Bob last week out of Big Kureyon.  The Iro has less yardage than Big Kureyon, but that's okay because I have a pea head.
     If I were to knit this hat again, I'd start with the other end of the yarn.  If I'd paid more attention and started with the other end, I wouldn have the barfy brown colors at the part of the hat which is closest to my face.  I generally like the color brown, but there is something about these browns that isn't my favorite.  Also, the pretty purples are kind of lost at the top of the hat.  Oh well.  It fits and the number of days in the year a Big Texan such as myself needs a wool hat are few and far between. 
     I'm off to Minnesota tomorrow.  I haven't packed a thing yet nor have I decided on my travel knitting.  I still have half a sock to finish which should take care of the plane trip, and I have assorted gifts to finish when I get there.  One of the great things about the Motherland is that it's the land of many many yarn stores.  I plan to visit at least one that I've never been to, and then maybe revisit an old favorite .  I'm sure that no matter what happens, I will come home with more yarn than I left with, so it's probably okay just to bring my gift knitting, the sock, and nothing else.  We'll see.  For the moment, I have one more student to teach, one more concert to play, and then I will be free of both concerts and students until after the holiday.  Hooray for that.