Bulletts: Tuesday edition

• The cold isn’t going away. I managed two days trudging over ice glazed sidewalks without, I repeat, without, falling on my ass. Beauty. My time is coming, I know.
• I have a wardrobe problem (insert tragic fashion sense joke here). I mostly wear skirts and dresses, and with 20 degree temperatures all week…umm, no. I only have two pairs of jeans, one “not great but okay” pair, and one ugly pair I only wear when desperate. I’m desperate. The okay ones have been worn and worn this week, and I can’t drive to Brother’s house this week (ice + inexperience = Stacey dead in a ditch) to do my laundry like I normally do. I had to wear the ugly jeans today, and it looks like I’ll have to again tomorrow. Should I risk frostbite and wear a dress for the sake of fashion? Or continue to wear the ugliest, most uncomfortable, ill fitting jeans known to mankind? They accentuate the belly, for the love! And give me bulgy hips. Take that into consideration before you tell me frostbite horror stories.
• I wore Le Slouch again today, all day. I want to get my new hat done tonight so I can get hat hair from a different accessory.
• When did I become so concerned with my appearance? This from the girl who wore blue and pink plaid old man golf pants  and a Dukes of Hazzard t-shirt in high school. (Loved that shirt and still have those pants.)
• I figured out how to use the ancient radiator. Turn the knob until heat comes out.
• Another after work outing, this time to Dublin Bay, with my lovely coworkers. I’ve designed mittens for a beloved coworker and needed to pick up the yarn before spring. I got some Dale Bably Ull, the same I used for the Squirrel and Oak mittens, for her mittens, and grabbed some Jamison Double Knitting for the Druid Mittens from this fall’s VK. Those ones are for me. I’m in danger of being mittened out, but I’m on the crest of the wave right now, and those things happen. And how lucky am I to work with people remotely interested in a yarn shopping excursion after work?
• I may have been born 30+ years late to be “true” Bob Dylan fan, but I woke up today with “Mr. Tambourine Man” in my head and listened to it innumerable times at work. (I can work with an earbud in one ear with no adverse side effects and the boss doesn’t care.) I’m a late to the party with love for this song, but that’s fine when each time I hear the line “but for the sky there are no fences facing” my heart feels a little lighter than it did the moment before. Also on the Bob-love rotation today, “The Girl from the North Country” off Nashville Skyline.  Bob, Johnny Cash and the song for which the phrase “heartbreakingly beautiful” was coined.
• Forgive my impertinence, but is it worse to be have no one interested in you (providing one wants someone to be interested) or to have only the socially inept and all around weird interested? I’m thinking the latter, but that’s just me. I don’t want just anyone checking me out, I want someone good. There’s your daily dose of honesty. (And yes, C, I am that disturbed by it.) And I worry over the implications. What does it say about me that I only attract weirdos?
• I have a wee amount of Christmas knitting to do and I’m stalling on it, just as I’m stalling on sewing up the last of my felt ornaments. Is anything else expected?

Since last we spoke…

Am I in danger of becoming a once-weekly blogger? Never!

Not that much crafting has been going on lately. I have a feeling that’s going to be the refrain here in Chez Laundry Room for quite some time. It just that having my stash in the attic crawl space, half of my supplies and all of my books packed up in my best friend’s mother’s garage one thousand miles away, and getting adjusted to a new job and work schedule, really isn’t that conducive to crafting of any kind. Much less anything inspirational. I have been working on the Hidcote Garden Shawl quite diligently, but it currently hates me and there is fresh pain in that project, so I will not speak of it now.

Last weekend, I realized I hadn’t been to the greatest yarn store on the planet (in my humble, not biased at all opinion) Abundant Yarn and Dyeworks in Sellwood. It’s the largest yarn store I have ever been in, and the sheer volume and magnitude of the yarn will disorient for a minute, then thrill. The staff is friendly, and the atmosphere is welcoming. I don’t know how many yarn stores I’ve walked into and felt like the geek girl crashing the cool kids party, but that’s not the case at Abundant Yarn. And you have to love a yarn store where the staff reaches over the counter to squeeze your yarn for themselves.

I’m not much of a yarn photographer, or one who posts a picture of every yarn-y thing they buy, but that’s all I got for show-and-tell today, so here it is. (In kindergarten I brought the family dog, Duchess, to show-and -tell and she was a hit. Keeshonden always are.)

First up is Neighborhood Fiber Co.‘s Studio Sock in Grant Circle. (Coincidence, I swear, H!) It’s 100% superwash merino, like buttah, I kid you not. Very smooshy, that intangible quality I always search for in a sock yarn, and I can’t wait to knit this up. I’m thinking more stockinette socks in my basic toe up pattern, which isn’t very exciting, but I hate to detract from colors like that with a stitch pattern. I hear the argument, find the right stitch pattern, blah blah blah. The point is I like solid colors yarns for patterned socks and multi color yarns for plain socks. So sue me.

And I finally have some Malabrigo of my own! Mallaabreeegoooo ahhhhh (insert Homer Simpson-esque drooling here). Just like I’m not big on posting yarn photos, unless I’m bankrupt for any other content like I am right now, I’m not big on the Yarn of the Moment, unless it’s Malabrigo. So soft, so pretty. Unfortunately, the store only had two skeins of laceweight in this … thinking of appropriate adjective… okay, fine… totally freaking awesome peacock blue. I think this is destined to become my Print o’ the Wave stole, maybe sooner than I’d want, if the Hidcote Garden Shawl doesn’t start behaving soon.

And Baby D (almost 4) would like you to know that Lil L (13 months), is not a hot dog, he is a brother.