Sassy Does It

It’s true that the only fire I really know about at the moment is the flame on my blogiversary candle, but that’ll do.  It’s one year today since I started blogging here.  Happy #1 to me!

And I am in New England, finishing with my business travel and now attempting to unwind from my little coil of stress.

Let’s start with the good news: oh joy, I’ve not only selected my next project, but have managed to decide on and actually purchase the yarn to go with it.  This is big progress for me; at the rate I was obsessing over yarn colors I thought I’d never pull the trigger.

After my kill-me-now meetings ended this afternoon, I was out like a shot toward a surrogate East Coast LYS to get down to some business that was actually interesting.

I’ve decided to make Fifi (downloadable on Ravelry, pattern link) from French Girl Knits.  I just like the look of it - fairly sophisticated as a souped up tee but without too many frills that would keep it in the closet instead of on me this summer.  There’s a time for being practical in choosing projects that I’m supposed to eventually wear, sadly, since most of the time I’m dressed for work and not for play. 

That said, this little number does hug things nicely - yes, I mean in the boob area - so I think that’s a point in the sexy column.  Under a jacket it’ll be fine for work, and should I ever make it to a happy hour again, this will be one of those day-to-night pieces that are always getting featured in magazines like Cosmo (or so they tell me).

I’ve linked to A Little Loopy’s version, as I think hers is fabulous.  Just about all the Fifis on Ravelry look better than the hokey picture of French Girl’s official one on their website.

Given the Ravelry raving over Rowan Calmer, I decided not to sub the yarn but rather to knit it with reckless abandon as designed.  Apparently the soft and slightly stretchy-clinginess is to die for, honey.

So.  Then it came to color picking.

I guess the colorway selection for this fiber is nice enough, but it felt too pastelly for me, or if not too pastelly then too full of colors that just don’t work on the pale-shanks likes of me; I just can’t kick it with bright coral or yellow or turquoise.

After shooting many options down, I had left in contention the Garnet shade (492) and the Tree shade (500).  Those two I liked.  But oh, how to decide?

I hemmed and hawed over this for several days (Googling and Raveling images of Rowan colorways like a banshee, nearly making a decision, then not).  At times like these, common wisdom says to go to your LYS to actually see the colors with your own eyes.

Which I tried to do on Saturday. 

I started out with a glorious midday stroll with Bidie-In through the farmers’ market, where I saw this bike.  

Ah, another reason to love California.

After this, I meandered into the LYS nearby.  Not only did I receive aloof and slightly put-out service in response to a couple of inquiries, but I also got denied in the colorway department because they didn’t have the ones I wanted to see.  Poor selection, sloppy displays, and crappy attitude.  Great.

I exited stage left, harrumphing away like a petulant child until a glass of wine at the German pub down the street made the world right again.

The wine had sparkles in it, which made me even happier.  I know that really this is called sediment, but I told myself they were delicious minerals that made my wine nutritious.

Then this business trip came up.  And then the unexpected early finish today - aha! - an opportunity to try another store today.  I did the finger-walking thing first and after a few stores not picking up the phone in the middle of their business hours (hello? how do you expect to sell things if nobody’s bloody home?), I found one that not only answered the phone, but also had my Calmer in both colors that had made it through to the championship rounds.

So I went to shop.  And oh, did I drool!  What a lovely store:  A Good Yarn.  Super nice people, and the most impressive little collection of fibers I’ve seen in ages.  I lingered for over an hour - so decadent, but I did it…because I could.

Tree beat out Garnet, although it was a squeaker in the end.  I liked both finalists (both slightly less intense than they seemed online, which was good - part of my hesitation with both, based on pics, was too much saturation), but I’ve decided I need to knit more green things.  Tree was just the shade I wanted.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d bite the bullet for full retail price when online discounts are just so rightthere; but, after hanging around like a rash for so long in the shop, my save-the-Local-Yarn-Store conscience kicked in.  A few bucks’ difference isn’t going to kill me, but my ten bucks more-than-I’d-pay-online plus a bunch of other people’s ten bucks more-than-they’d-pay-online could keep that store in business.

But only because it would be a shame if a store like this one weren’t in business.  I’ve been empathizing with Clumsy Knitter’s entertaining and well-written rants (here and here) over the poor quality of LYSes lately; I swear, some of them make it so difficult to love them.

I digress.

In the midst of my decision to buy, I came up a skein short.  The LYS lady (with the help of a few regulars who’d wandered in) rooted around in the back room trying to find one more skein of Tree in the same dye lot. 

Just when I thought my do-good LYS-loyal intentions would come to nothing, the girls came up with the goods.  And I whipped out the credit card.  It felt good.

Then I left, but came back because I realized a few blocks away (already in traffic) that I’d left my bluetooth headset thingy in there (it had fallen out of my purse because, like a dork, I’d left the purse unzipped while knocking it over, multiple times, all over the store; I kept setting it down to free my arms for full range of yarn-groping movement).

Then, I left the shop again, for serious. 

And then.

I got stuck in nightmare gridlock.  Not your average back-up, but indeed a parking lot, a log jam - call it what you will.  Many many cars going absolutely nowhere, with no alternative routes emerging.

Did I know, as they were ringing up my yarn,  that I was two blocks from Fenway when the Red Sox game ended and started spewing fans?

No I did not.

Ninety minutes and many honking horns later, I made it past those few clogged blocks just in time to enjoy - ahhhh, the normal rush hour traffic still remaining between me and my hotel.

Got my knickers in a right twist, but tried to enjoy the pretty sunset lighting as I watched free-swinging non-gridlocked people running along the water (much faster than I was moving) next to the fluttering white sails of little boats.  This scene was easy to observe in detail since I was sitting very still in my car, budging not an inch in any direction for long stretches of time. 

Sigh.

Did I mention I got some soft, beautiful, tree-green yarn today?  Before I can unwind any of it it, I’ll need a cocktail to finish off the unwinding of me.  Let me go on and do that.

I’ll raise a toast to my blog’s birthday while I’m at it.  Ooo, and maybe have some cake.

My parents were big on capturing our childhood for posterity.  As a result, there is plenty of fodder for utter embarrassment as we carry on our perfectly civilized grown-up lives in the now (with or without the posterity).

Dad rocking the video (and its orbiting accessories)

Most of this scene-gathering was done with a ginormous video camera - you know, one of those early models that required the constant entourage of an entire VCR connected by cables.

One fun video is a clip of my sisters and I dancing (solo, in turn) to various Thriller selections whilst adorned in full-on Flashdance gear.  In the course of executing a spectacular array of choreography that could be little other than the genius of tweenage, low-on-coordination white girls, I actually fell down a couple of times during my routine.  I’d made myself dizzy after a flurry of frantic spinning.  Mmm, good times.

When I’m ready for that level of self-humiliation, I’ll post the video.

There’s nothing that got Dad’s movie machine more revved up than our birthdays, in preparation for which my parents would transform our kitchen (i.e., turn the kitchen table longways and shove it back as far as it would go toward one side of the room).  My sisters and I would sit behind the table, the birthday girl in the middle.  As soon as Dad had set up camp at the back of the room with the Larger Than Life camera…action! - he rolled the tape.

Throughout the entire process of cake presenting, birthday singing, gift opening, and treat serving, Dad stayed hunkered down behind the camera.  His trick was to cover the red blinky “you’re on” light with a bit of black electrical tape so that sometimes you forgot he was back there collecting evidence.  The two non-birthday girls would slump down in their seats on either side of the Chosen One, increasingly so as the ordeal played out, laying it on pretty thick with boredom and misery at the injustice of it all as gift after gift was bestowed upon that other girl. 

Because everything was so well-documented, home movies have become like feature films for my family, with lines from various events being quoted with the dedication of groupies that know a cult classic by heart.

Of particular note was Sissy B’s 7th birthday. 

Sissy B at the ripe age of seven; Wee C looking on suspiciously

Sissy B found herself enamored with the phrase “you shouldn’t have” early on in the gift-opening phase, and she decided it was cooler and cooler each time she said it.  Pretty soon she had full-body emphasis going during the lengthy process of unwrapping each gift, her bowl-cut hair swinging to and fro:  “You shouldn’t have.  Really, you shouldn’t have.  Amy, you shouldn’t have.  Why did you?” 

Full disclosure: me at the same party (yeah, that's a hot Heathcliff t-shirt and a crocheted valentine in my hair). Kill me now.

This is the kind of thing that makes me laugh, even now, apparently enough to share with all of you.

I can’t even in jest say the phrase “you shouldn’t have” without L-ingOL at the dorkfest that was my childhood (see Exhibit A, the photo of me on the left).

However, that doesn’t mean these words don’t slip right out of my mouth in all sincerity upon receiving an unexpected gift. 

Such was my reaction to a little surprise that landed on my blog this past week.

Allison, you shouldn’t have, but I’m ever so glad you did!  Thanks so much for my blog award - I post it here proudly, and I love that you’re a regular reader and commenter.

Allison’s blog is fabby doo.  She knits, she writes, she cooks and bakes, she moms, she teaches stuff to people in the deli line.   Thus, it shouldn’t be surprising that she’s considering turning all of this talent into a business.  The Whole Ball of Yarn(s) is a Whole Lotta Inspiration.

In receiving the award, one must follow these steps, without passing Go:

1. post this award on your blog;
2. add a link to the person who sent you the award;
3. nominate at least 4 other bloggers, and add their links as well; and
4. leave a comment at the new recipients’ blogs, so they know they got an award.

Four other bloggers - heavens to Betsy, how does a girl choose?  Here goes:

polkadotmocha. - I like Jane so much.  Even the look of her blog makes me happy.  She’s a med student in London, and she knits cool things in cool fibers and colors.  Lots of interesting patterns.  The very London-ness of her writing and photos makes me feel nostalgic for the time I lived there.  I also enjoy her accounts of other activities, such as a recent visit to the Slow Food Market (which promotes the opposite of fast food:  local food traditions, and knowing where your food comes from).  I’ve lingered on her blog without commenting;  now is my chance to introduce myself!

aasa, elsewhere:  Aasa is a Ravelry knitter I met quite by accident after linking to her post about a trip to the same part of the world I’d traveled in a few (OK, more than a few) years back.  I totally admire her as she takes the road less traveled, exploring life in other places rather than whittling away her 20s in one boring habitat.  I live vicariously through Aasa’s adventures, which are entertainingly blogged and become a refreshing diversion for me on the days she posts.  Her dialogue cracks me up:  my favorite post in recent memory is here.

Shut Up, I’m Counting - Cass makes me laugh.  Her razor-sharp wit combines with her englightened view of most things in life to make her blogging both fun to read and (she would laugh at this part) enriching.  She takes great photos of her busy life and her squeezed-in knitting, and she’s not shy about anything.  Reading about her self-proclaimed klutziness is like reading a page out of my own journal.

angry chicken - Amy Karol is my hero.  Really - she’s so freakin’ out-of-this-world cool.  I assume everyone is already addicted to her blog like I am and that this therefore is a totally obvious choice, but just in case you’re missing her - don’t.  Don’t miss another day.  She knows everything.  She makes it all look easy, but with consistently fabulous results.  She’s not in the business of needing an award from the likes of me, but I don’t care.  I’m hopelessly in like with her.

Oh, ladies - thanks for the smiles. 

You too, seven-year-old Sissy B.