The feats and foibles of a fiber fanatic.
4/12/2006
Firstly, preparations are beginning for the Estes Park Wool Market coming up in June. I know those on the east coast are much more concerned about the bigger and better Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, but those of us here in the heartland are pretty proud of our market too!
I went for the first time last year and had a blast! Snow, Margene and I went and met up with a few others. Well, this year we want to blow last year out of the water. We’d like to have a larger gathering of knit bloggers and there are wonderful people making the trek with Margene this year and a few east coasters are flying out to join in the fun as well. To make it a bit easier to coordinate a meet-up and so everyone can get to know everyone else a little better before June, Snow has started to collect names/blogs of those attending the EPWM. If you are going, please go leave a comment here.
To help her out, I’ve created several buttons you may display on your blog if you so choose. Just be sure to save the graphic to your own server.
I’ve also started a blog roll at Google Reader of those attending. You do not need to use Google Reader to access it. Once you get to the page you can subscribe to an RSS feed of all those blogs (as though it is just one blog) in any of your favorite RSS readers such as Bloglines or Sage etc. If you subscribe to the RSS feed of the combination of all those blogs you’ll automatically get updates to any new blogs that get added to the roll as we hear about others who will be attending the market. My EPWM button in the upper right there will continue to link to that blogroll so you can access it from here any time if you don’t use a news reader. I’m afraid if you don’t have a blog or web site we can’t add you to that list, but if you stay tuned to any of the blogs of the attendees we’ll be sure to post any info about a meet-up!
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Seraphim continues to progress. I’d post a picture, but there isn’t quite enough light coming into the house right now for a good shot. Perhaps I’ll get one added in later today, but no promises! As of last night I was at 85.6% completion aka I have 15 rows remaining! The yarn from Brown Sheep also arrived so I’m all set! I should be done within the week I think.
It’s funny, even though design rows only repeat 2-3 times and then it is onto a new design row I’ve really found my groove on this now and have had *many* design rows that didn’t need to have fudged YOs! Whee!
I may be getting my lace legs and may just have to try my hand at Mountain Peaks! We’ll see though, I really should try to decipher my problem with leaf lace first…
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We found out yesterday afternoon that DIA does not offer assitance to handicapped travelers between the hours of 8pm and 8 am. Mom’s plane is scheduled to arrive at 7:55pm so they will not provide her any assitance to get to baggage claim or get to the shuttle counter to purchase her shuttle ticket and then to the proper location to catch her shuttle. Now, the baggage claim is probably not a big deal, most of the people on the plane will be heading there so surely someone will be kind and help her out. But, she is flying a small charter company (because of thier larger seats and additional leg room to make Gaston more comfortable) so the chances of someone on that flight also needing the same shuttle service is pretty slim.
Mom wasn’t even going to tell me about this hitch in the plans until Dad told her she had to. So I have hemmed and hawed over what to do. I finally decided that even though mom was pretty sure she’d be able to charm her way to get someone to help her out, I’m just going to head down there tonight and pick her up. It does mean she’ll get to the house about 1.5 hours earlier than if she took the shuttle which will hopefully mean that DH can get nearly a full night’s worth of sleep. The dogs will need a bit of time to get reacclimated to each other before we can get everyone settled into bed too. It seemed to make more sense to do that at 10pm rather than 11:30pm. DH may go with me or I may make the drive myself. I don’t much care either way. I think I’m kind of glad to be picking her up because I’m going to be nutzo, crazy hyper and anxious all day as it is and that will give me something to do. It’s going to be one looooooong day!
4/11/2006
Since it is my birthday this week, I decided I’d have another contest this week. Do you know what is casting this shadow? If you do, post your guess in the comments and your name will go in a drawing to win your choice of one of my sock patterns. All guesses will be entered into the drawing! The drawing will be held Thursday morning. My mom will draw the winning name.
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Last night was had SnB once again. It was a pretty good night. Cathy joined us and had her Jacob/German Shepherd yarn with her. I thought it felt pretty soft, but the dog was shedding everywhere. Occassionally I’d look over in her direction and there would a cloud of dog fur drifting through the air, LOL! She also brought me some fiber samples for my birthday! Many of them I haven’t tried before so I’m quite excited to give them a try. Thank you sooooo much, Cathy!
It never fails to amaze me the effect one person can have on the dynamic of a group. One person can make the group awkward and full of long stretches of silence and then suddenly as soon as that person leaves the group perks up and returns to their normal jovial and joking selves. It’s truly amazing! I’m so glad that Cathy got to experience our usual group dynamic for at least part of the evening.
I also cannot understand the purpose of coming to a SnB gathering if you are going to play computer games or read a book. Those are not social activities. What is the point? It seems to me if you feel like doing things other than knitting/crochet that perhaps you shouldn’t come to a SnB group. I have my Mondays where I’m not quite in the mood to knit or I don’t have an appropriate project on the needles for knitting in a public area with lively discussion, but I want to get out of the house and visit with my friends. But I sit there and take an active role in the discussion and sometimes I’m flipping through pattern books or doing something at least remotely related to knitting. I’m also close friends with the majority of the SnB gal regulars - we do things outside of the usual Monday night gatherings and occassionally we do couple things as well. So it really is visiting with good friends who really know me and with whom I have things in common. It isn’t a group of people who have nothing in common with me other than knitting.
Enough ranting from me, it is probably back to house cleaning for me… Mom arrives in T-40 hours or so…
3/17/2006
Okay for those of you who didn’t know where yesterday’s map had us heading, a few of us gals from our SnB group took a road trip to Brown Sheep in Nebraska. Above you can see some of the highlights (more here).
It was one of the best road trips I’ve had. Ashley had the foresight to choose only music with female vocals for the ride and we just bounced along the Interstates and Highways to the Scottsbluff area of Nebraska. It was a much easier and shorter drive than expected. Mapquest gave us an estimate of about 2.75 hours, but we’re prettty sure it is easily done within 2.5 hours with no dangers of a speeding ticket (if you don’t take a bathroom break). We ate at a great greasy spoon called (I’m not kidding here) The Whistle Stop Cafe. It was in an old train depot and they even had a caboose outside. The food was fantastic (in a fat-laden sort of way, you know, sinful)! The onion rings were even battered rather than breaded! Yum!
While I mention Mapquest, I should make a note that their directions are not correct. They forgot a turn and an additional leg in the directions. In order to stay on 92 you do take a left as the directions indicate, but when you get to a 4-way stop you need to take a right and continue what I think is ~2 miles (though keep in mind I wasn’t the one driving). There is a school on the right hand side and if you turn left you’ll see the Brown Sheep sign.
It was wonderful to tour the facilities. We even got to meet Harlan Brown the man who started it all when a packing plant near by shut down. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos in the mill. I’m quite sad as there are hundreds of photos I took in my head of really great artsy yet industrial shots. If you have the chance to be in this area of the country I’d highly recommend taking that side trip. Though do call ahead as they don’t keep a regular schedule for tours.
Despite great temptation I managed to be good and stayed well within my budget I had set for myself. I even came away more or less with what I had planned on - lots of fiber, yarn for a Wobbly Circles tote from the current IK, some undyed yarn, and yarn for Mim’s Seraphim (though I misremembered the weight so I’ll have to rethink what I use that yarn for and choose some other yarn for her shawl). I came in well under $100 (my budget)! Ashely and MC did great too and did a lot of buying of yarn for gifts.
Two of the bags in the photo above are roving. They just take you into the mill and you can pull what you want out of huge boxes of mill ends of the roving and you pay by the pound. There was a box of natural roving (which I really should have gotten some of for playing with dyeing roving, but it isn’t that far of a drive so next time), a box of dyed regular roving (from the heathered yarns) and a box of dyed superwash roving (from the heathered superwash yarns). The two natural colors in the roving bags are regular roving and the bright colors are superwash. Notice that bright yellow? I wasn’t going to take any of that and then I thought about how next month’s Project Spectrum colors are yellow and orange so I put some in. I haven’t taken and weighed stuff yet so I don’t know how much of what I got, but I suspect the yellow will be enough for some fingerless gloves or something maybe. I think these are also from the new colors of yarns they will be releasing in June. We got to see those rovings go into the spinner and I think these are from those colors, just not blended as much yet.
The third bag has the yarns. I chose a lighter almost slate blue for the main body of the tote with accents of a warm and a cool pink, a medium lavender, and a deep plum. I suspect there will be a fair amount of each of those colors left over so I’ll probably make some charity colorwork hats with whatever remains.
I’ll have a bit more about the road trip next week.
2/13/2006
When I was home I did give the slippers to my sister, the hat to grandpa, and the scarf to grandma. All were met with much appreciation and admiration (as they deserved). I have had a few people ask what I ended up doing with the hat dilemma. Well, I pull out the corrugated rib section and just did the i-cord bind off. It looked great. I think the hat is perhaps a little big, but grandpa loves it and couldn’t stop talking about how warm it was.
Unfortunately, whenever we visited with Grandma and Grandpa B it was sort of impromptu and I didn’t have my camera with. I’ve asked my sister to take some modeled shots of the items for me but it could be some time before I get those photos as she currently isn’t on the Internet at her new apartment yet. In fact, knowing her, it could have to wait until my next trip back to MN, LOL!
The day after they had recieved their items grandma couldn’t stop talking about my knitting. It made me blush with pride. She kept saying she never knit anything as fancy as me, LOL! She also kept saying, “Imagine what I would have made if I knew Kristi when I knit!” I love that she can appreciate my efforts and be proud of the results. One day we met them for lunch at a hotel restaurant that had free wi-fi so I could help my mom research some accessibile cell phones options for the visually impaired so I showed grandma my knitting blog and the gallery of hand spun yarns and she was very excited and impressed.
While home Mom and I also tried to go to a yarn/fiber shop in a small town near the farm. There had been a write up in the Willmar Tribune several months ago about this shop but she hadn’t been able to find a phone number for us to find out their hours. So, we drove over there and it ended up they weren’t open at all in the four days I was home. Mom said there was an evening knitting gathering which didn’t match up with the hours on the door to the shop, but with no business phone listing we couldn’t find out if it was a night I was there. But, I’ll definitely have to make the next trip land so that I can visit them. It was called Homespun Studio and it is in Lake Lillian, MN. Their hours as posted on the door are Wednesday - Friday 10am - 4pm and Saturday 9am - noon. It is easy to find as Lake Lillian basically has one street and it is kind of on the north end of the “business district” on the west side of the street. If anyone out there (I know I have some MN readers) have been there I’d be interested in what the shop is like. I decided in such a small town that it would be better to not raise suspicions and window shop, LOL!
Tonight is SnB night! Wheee! I’m gonna need it, I can tell. I heard last week was more like the former gatherings before we doubled our numbers after the new year. I suspect though that it was a fluke because I wasn’t there, LOL! We’ll have to see. As much as I love meeting new knitters and such there has been that missing element of *really* knowing the people there and being able to tease and joke and bitch without second guessing the wiseness of letting something blurt out of your mouth. Most of the newer people seem to be a good fit with the rest of us crazy, liberal, scientific bunch.
P.S. I know this is a monumentally boring post today since there are no pictures. I promise there will be pictures tomorrow! You can hold me to that too!
1/12/2006
So, there has been hoopla from Sew Fast/Sew Easy about tradmark on “Stitch ‘n Bitch” most of which got attention this spring. Then it seems they went on and targeted CafePress over the summer. Now, they’ve gotten Yahoogroups to do their dirty work!
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RE: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stitchnbitch-ftcollins/
Sew Fast/Sew Easy Inc. has notified Yahoo! Inc. (“Yahoo!”) that service and/or trademark(s) proprietary to Sew Fast/Sew Easy Inc. were used in connection with the
Yahoo!® Group Stitchnbitch-ftcollins. Sew Fast/Sew Easy Inc. has further notified Yahoo! that the Stitchnbitch-ftcollins group is not authorized to use the mark(s) in question at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Stitchnbitch-ftcollins/
Yahoo! respects the rights of both its users and the owners and rights holders of intellectual property. Accordingly, Yahoo! intends to expeditiously remove or disable access to the mark(s) in question. PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT UNLESS THE MARK(S) IN QUESTION ARE REMOVED FROM THE GROUP AND GROUP URL, OR ACCESS TO THE MARK(S) IN THE GROUP AND GROUP URL ARE DISABLED, WITHIN FORTY-EIGHT (48) HOURS, YAHOO! INTENDS TO DISABLE ACCESS TO YOUR GROUP.
In order to change your Yahoo! Group URL, please follow the instructions below:
1. In the control panel on the left side, click on the Management link.
2. Under the Group Settings, click the Description & Appearance link.
3. Under the Web Address heading, click edit to update the Web Address
4. Click the Save Changes button when you are done.
Through your participation in Yahoo!® Groups you agree to abide by the Yahoo! Terms of Service, as well as any additional Terms of Service applicable to you. The current Yahoo! Terms of Service may be reviewed at: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms. Pursuant to Section 6 of the Terms of Service, Member Conduct, the use of Yahoo!® services to “upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights (“Rights”) of any party” is prohibited.
As you know, Yahoo! may terminate any and/or all services and accounts without notice. This notice is provided to you as a courtesy. Without waiving or limiting any rights or remedies Yahoo! has or may have, as the listed owner of the Stitchnbitch-ftcollins group you are hereby advised that our receipt of another notification of infringement alleging the infringement of another party’s intellectual property in connection with the Stitchnbitch-ftcollins group may result in not only the suspension of the Stitchnbitch-ftcollins group, but the termination of all of your Yahoo! services as well as the deactivation of your Yahoo! ID.
If you believe that the Stitchnbitch-ftcollins group was designated by Sew Fast/Sew Easy Inc. by mistake or misidentification, or if you believe that the group has not infringed upon Sew Fast/Sew Easy Inc.’s service or trademark rights, you may contact Sew Fast/Sew Easy Inc. directly at:
Address: Sew Fast/Sew Easy, Inc
237 West 35th Street, Suite 603
New York, NY 10001
Phone: (212) 268-4321
Fax: (212) 268-4329
We wish to thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation.
Regards,
Copyright Agent, Yahoo! Inc.
[email protected]
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c/o Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
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This sucks! How is anyone going to find us if we have some generic name?
Anyone recall what became of this in regards to the Chicago group and the CafePress stuff??
