This one goes out to all my knittin' ladies

For Robin

This doesn't have a lot of patterns with handspun, but it does have some.

Maybe give ya some inspiration...

For Ivy

Something for Burning Man?

For Ms. Transientmusket

Its this or Happy Hooker.

Too bad there isn't a library out there that believes in buying lots of knitting and crochet books....

I'll be sleeping with a smile on my face

Project Runway's Jay has a line coming out at Urban Outfitters.

You'll have to get through all the drama to get to the clothes. *sigh*

'night

blocking blocking blocking

I swatched the alpaca in st st and 2 x 2 ribbing. It is blocking in the bathroom as we speak.

Hubby : "What is that smell?"

Me: "Wet alpaca."

Hubby : "Ah, ok."

Me: *smile*

Yummy yummy alpaca

This is the alpaca I bought at Wildfiber. There is info on the new owner on their webpage too. Also, when I looked them up on Google.com they had a link to a review site where Wildfiber gets slaughtered regarding customer service.

*sigh* I have had horrible service in the past and I've also found great deals in the clearance section. Saturday, when I bought the alpaca I experienced a little good and bad. Overall, when people ask me about Wildfiber, I say that you should go once, just to see the great selection, but don't be surprised at the mark-up (hefty) and sometimes rude service.

That being said, I fell in love with this 100 percent Peruvian tweed alpaca from Henry's Attic. I've known about this manufacturer for a while, but they hardly ever keep any stock on their on-line site. I felt like the price was somewhat reasonable; I a little over 600 yards for 66.50 and I am currently swatching it up on 9 needles. (The other two huge balls are still in the bag.) Feel free to let me know if I got shafted on price though, since that will teach me a lesson about giving in to temptation.

Because of the texture I was thinking of doing something really simple. I've been starting sweaters off and on for about two years, but I've always lost interest and gone back to hats and scarfs (and mainly as gifts). But this fiber feels so good!

Oh, I also figured out what I am going to do about my dyed yarn; more on that later.

Back to swatching.....

Just some links for today

http://www.brooklyngeneral.com/classes.htm

This is one of the more reasonable prices I've seen for beginning knitting. 100 bucks for four 1.5 hour sessions. That is about six hours of instruction in class sizes limited to six. It seems like the material might be included too. That being said, I think knitting stores should offer free classes, with the caveat that you buy the materials in the store. That way if the person hates it, it isn't a huge waste of time, and if they really get into it, then they'll keep coming back to your store.

I took a four hour nap after church today. Feel a lot better; got up and made Cornish Game Hens with Garlic Aoli and brown rice and broccoli with red flakes. I will definitely do it again. Now that I know that my local public library lets you check out old magazines, I've been trying out more recipes from Gourmet magazine and Cook's.

I taught a co-worker how to knit awhile ago, and she asked me to go along to help her pick some yarn to help finish off her scarf. The story on her scarf is that she went to the Taos Sheep Festival a couple of years ago to support another co-worker's partner that entered the weaving contest. (Yes Robin, the dyeing teacher - he took second place). Anyway, while she was there she bought a hank of pretty orange/pink chunky handspun (you would have loved it Ivy). Anyway she only bought one skein....... so I helped her find some coordinating colors for some longish fringe. I'll take a picture once she adds it on.

Anyway, it took us six hours and four yarn stores to find the right colors. We met the new owner of Wildfiber and she was very nice. She just took over ownership about two weeks ago, and there are already some changes. She is stocking more organic/natural stuff, more than just the usual Blue Sky Alpacas and .... *sigh* that is where I fell of the wagon big time. I'll post pics tomorrow, (yay for holidays!) but let me just say I fell in love with some alpaca..... some yummy yummy alpaca.

Here is at least one pic:
This is a felted cupcake pincushion from

http://www.betzwhite.com/

and this is her blog: http://www.betzwhite.com/blog/betzblog.html

she takes wool sweaters, cuts and stitches them up, and then felts them. Very cute.

More tomorrow, promise.

Final Draft Title

Not Quite Google: An Analysis of the UCLA Library Online Catalogue

off to sleep.....

Current title of my midterm

A Database Only a Mother Could Love: An Analysis of the UCLA Library Online Catalogue

Enjoythishistoricalcostumelink.

and they are mistaken about the "analysis" portion being for university access only. I clicked on them and they worked. There are some pretty cool pics there as well.

More later. Life crazy.

Feeling like crap today

Called in sick to work and am going back to bed. Hubby has had a massive nasty cold/sinus infection for the past week, and there is a nasty stomach bug going around at school. This sucks.

Wadda think? Big or small?

waiting for the swatch to dry

last night I was tired, but not tired enough to be fully asleep... I feel like, with this crazy quarter system, that everything is just non-stop, which it is, as all the coursework is packed into a ten-week sprint, and then you get like three weeks off for the holidays, and I think something like two weeks off between quarters.

I miss the semester system, but at the same time I can't deny that there is this tremendous synergy that goes on within my brain once I realise how interconnected everything can be. This quarter I am taking Information Structures, Issues in Information Technology, and Descriptive Cataloguing. I actually jumped the gun and took Metadata before Information Structures, and while that was a struggle, now I feel kinda ahead of the game concerning the whole metadata issue. Someone asked me today what a controlled vocabulary was and I was off and running.

I was ready to tear my hair out last night because I couldn't find the AARC2 rule for two publishers on a title page, where neither was given prominence. I finally I catalogued them both as equal publishers. We'll see what my prof says.

Anyway, back to last night. I had that tired but cranky thing going when you've been working hard all day, and you know you should go to bed, but darnit, you haven't done anything fun all day, and don't you deserve some fun? So I started swatching the yarn I dyed, first as one strand, and then as a doubled strand. I'm blocking in right now, and it should be all nice and flat for its portrait tomorrow.

I showed up for an 8 am study group today to discover that the person who asked for the meeting to be that early couldn't make it. *sigh* Well, the rest of us still discussed the upcoming midterm. My group then dragged me to a videoconference at the graduate library. It was all about the generational issues going on in the library world. This woman was the main speaker. She's made a career out of writing books about librarian issues, and is the founder of LISjobs.com.

Basically her argument is that there tension because Gen Xers think that Boomers should retire and free up jobs, and Boomers don't want to retire and entrust their libraries to techno-hungry youngsters that don't respect their authority. She says that managers should make all generations work together on committees and in their daily jobs so that everyone can learn and appreciate everyone else's strengths.

I think that there is something to be said for generational issues in any field, but what I found interesting, and what she didn't address, is that isn't just the librarians that are changing, the field itself is in flux. The next version of AARC2 is coming out next year with its big Dublin Core/digital material bent, libraries are competing with Google and the Internet in general in terms of the way users now want their information, digitazation is really booming (and grabbing a lot of the funding) and overall a lot of things are changing because the nature of information is changing.

*sigh* Yes, a lot of it is academic, since the world isn't going to end with these questions, but these are the things I think about.

There was a really funny bit where they showed a "vignette" where a Gen Xer goes into a job interview and to make her seem "young" the costume designer put her in a hot pink jacket, frosted pink lipstick, and permed blond hair. Hmmm.... seems kinda 80s to me.

Picturepalooza

Some of the dye washed out a little, so it is a little more faded than this, but still nice.

Also, the found needle roll.

I need to find a way to downsize all my photos so that I can post a bunch at one... *sigh* gotta run.

So, now that I think about it

the Walker project is antithetical to what Barbara Walker was all about. In her introduction she says that everyone should have a box full of swatches that they make themselves, so that they can learn how the stitches work, and eventually, I guess that would lend itself to would-be knitwear designers. So make your own swatches!

Any feedback on the new color scheme for the blog? I was going for some color....

I got the new IK Spring '07 yesterday, and I am in love. Anyone else feelin' it?

Walker Treasury Project

http://thewalkertreasury.wordpress.com/

I am super busy, but will post more tomorrow.

Robin, you put me to shame!

Ivy, I used the Fairchild's Dictionary for the backbone of the thesauri that I had to design for the slide project, so I know what you are talking about.

Cheers.

Computer issues

Husband has a sinus infection, to he is stuck at home, sick sick sick. Yesterday he decided to run a diagnostic check on my laptop, and what was supposed to take three hours took the whole day. So there was no posting for me.

I have some actual knitting to report, so I will try to post some pics tomorrow. I knit Husband a ribbed cap for Christmas, and my brother and sister both want one. We went to a yarn store and they picked yarn and I've gotten around to swatching it up.

how would I make this anthropologie sweater, I wonder...

Knit Bloggers who have published or are about to be published

www.glampyre.com Fitted Knits

http://wendyknits.net Wendy Knits

http://www.domiknitrix.com/ Domiknitrix

http://thriftyknitter.com/ Naughty Needles

These two have books in development:

http://knitandtonic.typepad.com/
http://www.eunnyjang.com/knit/

and finally, she doesn't have a blog, but she runs her own pattern and yarn business online, and she has a book coming out:

her business http://www.whiteliesdesigns.com/
and her book http://www.whiteliesdesigns.com/books/kls.html

beautiful yarn, great prices, from a women's co-op in Uruguay

check it out:

www.handpaintedyarn.com

Virtual craftyness

I'm becoming a big fan of virtual exhibitions. So are the people at the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They have a quilt of the month virtual exhibition where you can sign up and they will let you know when their next quilt is on "exhibit." I often think that I could be a quilter, and more accurately, I wish I could be, since I am in love with the use of color and patterns that go into quilts. I first fell in love with quilts when I ran across an article about the Gee's Bend Quilts. I love the USPS for making some of them into stamps. I used them on all my Christmas cards.

And not to leave out the fiber crowd, the Yarn Museum has handspun skeins on display. It is a quick yarn fix, unless of course you are like me, and link back to the spinners' website and get mesmerized by all the fun.