Call Me Emotional...

I got an email yesterday from WEBS. I was excited thinking it was confirmation that my order had FINALLY shipped. Right after Christmas, having not received anything really personal for myself (a check from Mom, a couple gift cards for the family, and a candleholder with 6 ceramic cats on it), I decided that I needed to cheat and buy myself a gift. What's the first treat I think of when I decide to splurge on myself? Yep, yarn. Obviously.

When I ordered my Shetland Tea Shawl yarn from WEBS, I also noted that they had grab bags of Regia Sock Yarn, 10 skeins for $36. Not bad. A pair of sock requires 2 skeins of this variety, but a pair of socks from decent yarn for under $10 (in this case $7.20) is a bargain any way you slice it. I ordered a grab bag to fill out my order. I nearly ordered more than one, but I wasn't positive they'd offer 2 of each color in the grab bag. With only one skein of each, I'd be stuck making smaller things, like kid socks. I don't like feeling limited, but I risked it.

When the sock yarn arrived, I had 2 of each color, all pretty blues, same dye lots between matching colors. Heaven!

For my belated Christmas present, I decided to order 3 more grab bags. Duplicate colors could be used twice or sold or given as gifts to my knitting friends, so there was no fear. :)

But today's email? Sold out. Not restocking. Have a nice day. I checked their website. It still showed 86 in stock! What?!? I ordered it a week ago and it's still showing as in stock?!? I had to call. Just to check. Just to make sure. *sigh* My call was fruitless, though the customer service rep was nice and apologetic and everything she should have been. Oh well.

So what did I do then? Isn't it obvious? I cried. Yep, cried. I know there's really no sanity in that, but I did. I cried because for a moment (or three) I felt like I shouldn't have to buy myself gifts anyway. Because I felt like someone should know me well enough to buy me yarn or fiber or cool wood or bamboo needles or clothes or cooking stuff or books or yummy smelling lotion or something related to my life. For a moment I felt sorry for myself with my birthday coming up, fairly certain that I'll not be unwrapping any gifts. But really, I think I was crying because I feel alone with Mr. Yarnworks gone and Dad gone and even maybe a little because my best friend has a new boyfriend and I no longer talk to her daily. (lol - just a teeny tiny bit) Well that's insane, isnt' it? As much as I love yarn, I've never cried over it before. And I certainly don't want to make a habit of getting all emotional over stupid stuff. I'm a tough chick and not getting to unwrap a present and feeling alone is not going to get me down. So I picked myself up, brushed myself off, stuck out my tongue at the WEBS website, and logged into Etsy.

I knew exactly where to go. Roxanne of Zen Yarn Garden is a fabulous chick. She's ordered yarn from me before, we've chatted about the ins and outs of yarn dyeing, she's just a really really nice person who happens to have some delicious looking yarn. And sadly, I've never seen it in person. So I ordered some laceweight merino/tussah silk yarn and some merino/seacell sock yarn in "me" colors. Because if anyone knows me, it's me, right? And neither is product I currently dye myself, so it's the perfect treat. These yummy yarns make a box full of plain ole Regia sock yarn look outright boring.

Deep breath. I feel MUCH better. Now I get to seek out the perfect patterns to go with them. That's my favorite part!

Everyone Listen To G Curse

Last night was our much anticipated Knitting New Year.

It began with food. Lots of food. Ten or so pounds on the thighs food. And laughter. I included this photo only because I promised G not to show any more pics of her stuffing her face. Here, she and J are laughing at something. Probably something I said. You know how hilarious I am. They can't stop when I'm around.


My girls thought this was a birthday party, but there was no cake. Poor things. They were really good about it though.

After the girls were snug in their beds, we waited impatiently for midnight and the moment we would cast on the Shetland Tea Shawl found in A Gathering of Lace by Meg Swanson. We were not the only impatient ones. G's new housemate couldn't wait either. His name? C'mere. Yeah. C'mere. That's his name. Get it? Come here? C'mere really seems to have an appreciation for Alpaca, doesn't he?

And finally. Happy New Year! The determined silence was only broken by G's cursing. Her occasional long strings of creative cursing. She switched yarns. She stopped cursing. Amazing how that works sometimes.

J also cursed, but much much less. Good yarn I guess.

And so the big lug doesn't feel left out, here is Buddha, who desperately wants to learn to knit. That or he was hoping for food scraps. Can never tell which. He looked upon us longlingly whichever it was...

And Voila! Three and a half hours later, here is my shawl. Impressive, no?