Thank you so much for all your kind comments and good wishes. And thank you to the 99% of you who did not contact me with treatment suggestions or horror stories. I was specifically vague about health issues in my last blog entry to avoid stuff like that and I’m happy that for the most part, such things have been avoided. I realize that emails and messages of this sort are for the most part well-meant, but they do not help.

Onward . . . 

This is the moth repellent herbal mix I got the other day from Simpler Thyme. Boy, does it ever smell nice! I’ve shoveled a bunch of it into smaller muslin bags and stuck them hither and yon about my home and in my stash.

I have never had a problem with moths here, and I’d like to keep it this way!

Speaking of stash, lookie here:

More stash enhancement, this from Dizzy Blonde Studios, a new hand-dyer who happens to be a long time blog-buddy — La of JenLa. As I write this, her shop is sold out because piggies like me bought all her yarn but I advise you to snap it up when she restocks. The yarn is simply delicious!

What does Lucy think is delicious? Hanging with her Daddy on the weekend.

Yet I have purchased more.

This is sock yarn (surprise, surprise) from The YoYo, purchased at The Loopy Ewe. ain’t it purty?

The colors are Carmel Macchiato, Masking Envy, and China Jade. This yarn is new to The Loopy Ewe as of this week’s shop update and I particularly like it because it is semi-solid, making it a good choice for more intricate lace and twisty stitch patterns.

And this is a skein of my beloved Tempted Good Grrl sock yarn, in the “Faded Love” colorway.

Doesn’t it remind you of old, well-loved jeans?

But that ain’t all. When Turtlegirl announced that she was destashing earlier this week, I snapped up 2 skeins of Socks That Rock.

I shall commence oinking any minute now.

Just In Case You Wondered . . .

You might have noticed that I have lately been posting a lot of pictures of my stash and writing lame poetry, but have had very little actual knitting progress to report.

This is because I’ve made little actual knitting progress. (Funny how that works, huh?). I’ve been having some spinal and neurological issues. I was actually told by my primary doctor to stop knitting until they figured out what was going on. While he might as well have told me to stop breathing, I have had to cut down severely on the amount of knitting I can do, not because I am behaving like an adult, but because I simply can not knit a lot of the time.

So I’m in the middle of my Tour of Pain, Summer ’08 edition (I’m thinking of having t-shirts made). I’ve done the testing and diagnosis portion of the programme and hopefully I’ll have some answers in the near future and a plan for repair. Too bad I’m well out of the warranty period.

I’m not telling you this in a bid for sympathy, but to explain the lameness of the blog recently. And the projected lameness of the blog in the near future. Hopefully things will be back to normal sooner rather than later, because I’m running out of lame ideas for blog fodder.

I do realize that this makes my recent piggy behavior with regard to stash enhancement somewhat ironic.

In the meantime, ooh look! A picture of some grapes.

Lucy doesn’t have a care in the world, as long as she gets plenty of scritches!

Oh wondrous shawl, oh gentle gossamer one,
Thou, as I knit from delicate wool
Grow, and catch light from the sun.

Pink and rose and deeper rose,
Subtle hues shimmer in thine depths
A wondrous flowerbed in repose.

Silent and still is the ball of wool,
As one lying fallow, quiet, until
Worked into glorious life by my needle’s pull.

Stitches float off needles and twist,
Lace forms and opens up before my eyes
A fairy wing emerging from the mist.

Gentle lace, thou art a living thing,
Your growth and spirit makes my heart sing!

Lucy sez:

“Don’t quit your day job.”

Yeah, as I figured, there is wisdom on each side of the plastic bag fence.

I’m getting a weird visual here of a fence made entirely from plastic bags. Anyone ever seen a braided rug made entirely from Wonder Bread wrappers? I have. (A quick google image search tells me that my sighting was not a lone one. Go figure.)

A number of you report that is is not a good idea to store wool and other natural fibers in airtight plastic for extended periods of times for the reasons outlined in yesterday’s comments, and that does make sense to me. Apart from the segregating of like yarns for projects, my main purpose in ziplock-bagging my yarn has been moth deterrent.

As I said, I’ve never had any problems with moths, but I prefer to err on the side of caution.  However considering the size of my stash, there is a good chance that some of it might spend years in plastic bags.

So I ordered a whole bunch of some herbal moth deterrent from Simple Thyme, and will place that in liberal amounts in the stash room and in the linen closet. (I didn’t tell you that more than half of my very large linen closet is dedicated to stash storage, did I?) That way, not only will my home stink purty, it will hopefully discourage any little winged b*st*rds that could possibly try to move in.

So I’ll let any new sock yarn bask au naturel, sans ziplock bags. I think the rest of the stash I’ll leave as is — most of it is in non-airtight bags anyhow.

Sock-a-Doodle-Doo!

Speaking of socks, lookie here.

The Fern Fronds socks are done. They are knit from Sanguine Gryphon Eidos sock yarn in the “Socrates” colorway, on 2mm needles.

This was my first sock project completed using the Hiya Hiya needles. I like them very much. Only time will tell if the join remains the same. I’ll be sure and let you know if it doesn’t.

YUM

My work friend who gave me blueberries from her father’s place last week (remember the big-*ss berry pictured in the blog afew days ago?) kindly brought me another bag today:

You can be darn sure I’ll be nom-nom-nom-ing on these in the very near future!

Lucy the Critic

This morning, as is my wont on weekdays, I watch the “OMG What Are You Doing Up At The Hour Seriously Early Morning News” on CBS before leaving for work. And as usual, Lucy was curled up in my lap, dozing. At the very end of the newscast they did a story about the woman who won this year’s hog-calling contest at the Illinois State Fair and showed this video clip:

As soon as the woman started, Lucy snapped her little head around to watch the tv, a look of supreme disgust on her face. She stared at the tv, quivering with annoyance until the “performance” was over.

Quite the little critic, isn’t she?

There were a couple of comments questioning the wisdom of storing yarn in ziplock bags, so I googled around a bit. I couldn’t find anything online cautioning against storing stash in plastic bags. Anyone know of any reliable info on this?

A good reason to store in plastic is to keep yarn dust-free. Not there there is ever any dust in my home. Another reason, is to protect it from any flying varmints that may be around. Now, I definitely don’t have any of those, thankfully.

I’m not sure why exactly I started putting my yarn in plastic bags — I guess it started with the non-sock stash. When you have 10 skeins of a yarn in one colorway, it makes sense to bag it together. I just kept going with the sock yarn.

Thanks, by the way, to CC, who recommending securing the “intersections” of my wire cubes with zip ties — I ordered a bunch of them and will do so forthwith to prevent cube collapse.

Just in case you wondered if I was ever going to knit again, here is an update. The sock:

The shawl:

And here is one bissfully sleeping puddy-tat: