Gus was shivering this morning. Of course we don’t have a dog sweater. Supergirl’s shirt fit him perfectly! He’s been wearing it all day and seems much warmer. We’re totally going to give him a complex as we keep laughing at him. I mean, with him. Doesn’t he look happy?

Caption this picture. The one that makes me laugh the hardest wins something from the shop. I’ll pick a winner on Friday. I really want to know what is going on in his wee brain. He’s looks so trusting doesn’t he? It even made the Holiday card….. wanna see more? He loved this photo shoot.

112 shots of espresso

Wednesday, 6:45am.

Boooooo!!!!

WTH!? Snow!

Crap! And it was almost dry too. Oh well. I guess I won’t be doing much work today. Maybe it’s a sign to get my ass in gear to go shopping for a few outfits for the show. I’m set in the jeans/shoes/accessory department but just need to get a few different tops. Mona? Want to go shopping? I hate shopping. Really. I know that probably sounds weird but I do. And, no matter what I wear I’ll still look like an Amazon woman standing next to petite Miss Thang, aka Vickie. I wonder if wardrobe could put some gigantic, bulky, sweater with horizontal stripes and cables like this so she looks bigger than she is? Maybe they can at least give her a box to stand on? I guess I don’t really know exactly how tall she is but she looks teeny tiny. I’m 5′8″ and with my clogs I’m almost 5′10″. I’m pretty sure that’s at least 5″ taller than she is. Do you see the things I’m thinking about that are causing me insomnia?

---

Ooooh! Ooooh! I just got the Clover Account! Huzzah! I just ordered a whole bunch of mini kach-kachas, Chibis in different sizes, the Pendant Threadcutter and some other cool things! I hope to have them within the next week. This makes me so happy. Going for a run in the cold snow does not. But I must run. Must. run. Going. On. TV. Must. Run…..

29 shots of espresso

I just got these in last night and am so excited to be able to have them in my shop. Splityarn is so flipping talented. These needlecases are the coolest and I haven’t seen anything like them out there. As soon as I got them I e-mailed and told her to start making some more. Even T. said, “Wow. Those are awesome.” (and proceeded to get a needle to see how it looked inside) She’s going to be on the show Uncommon Threads which is kind of like the Knitty Gritty for the sewing world. She really rocks. I only got six of these for right now but hope to have more soon.

The Sushi Wallets are back in stock too. A few of you had emailed me asking for them so I got a whole bunch. As the holidays approach, I couldn’t pass up the patterns for these.

I just got them in today and they look like such a fun knit. The pattern makes a Pointsettia Wreath that ends up being about 15″ in diameter once it’s felted. There is still some Pippi roving in stock too for the spinners. And look. Snow? That doesn’t really help dry my yarn outside now does it?

8 shots of espresso

I love dyeing yarn. Really, it hit me yesterday when I finished re-skeining this custom order and just looked at how pretty they were. I’ve been so busy trying to play catch up I kind of forgot how much I love the creative aspect all of this. Looking at this order made me fall in love with dyeing yarn all over again. It’s pretty easy to lose sight of things when you’re up to your eyeballs in it. Stepping back and just looking at this sparked my energy and got me really excited to work again. I think catching up a bit helps too.

I think it’s also really cool how some of my earliest colorways like Bluetini and Appletini are still loved by so many people. The other ones in this picture are Fruit Salad, Harlot’s Mums & Snakes on a Skein (the Lime & Violet one). See my new tags? I love how they turned out. With the help of Adam, 3 new colorways are up in the gallery; Hedgehogs, Death Eaters & Cerrillos Mine.

I had to get a better picture of a few of my fingers so you could see what I was talking about. Really, they do not look nice at all. Click on the picture to see what I’m talking about. And dang, that’s only 3 fingers you can see! I pretty much have cuts on all of them. The good news is that the polish is staying on really well. I’m going for the harsh looking hands means I work hard look. Thanks to those of you who said that. Thaaaaat’s the ticket! And these nicks and cuts are not from me biting my cuticles. I’ve been really good over the past week.

I can’t believe I will be in Burbank, CA in two weeks. TWO weeks people. Serenity now. I also completely forgot that I’m teaching a little Hanukkah lesson at Superboy’s school next week so I just paid a ridiculous amount to get the dreidels and chocolate gelt here in 2 days. Oh well, it will be really cool to be able to do this for him and he’ll be happy to be able to give the kids little gift bags. I need to get my arse in gear and get some dyeing done. I guess it’s not even going to be 40′ here on Thursday. WTH?! That might slow down the outside dyeing a bit. Uh yeah. You think?

---

Also, Shobhana is selling a beautiful new scarf pattern on her blog wanted everyone to know about. Through December 31st, she will contribute $1.75 per pattern (the majority of the profits) to F.I.R.E., the non-profit organization that ships all the Dulaan goodies to Mongolia. They need $40,000 for each shipment! So please go over and buy a pattern for a good cause. And heck, you get a pretty scarf out of it too! Thank you in advance if you buy one.

17 shots of espresso

Manicured that is. I was a good girl and listened to everyone and got one. I decided against getting the fake nails though. I think I’m just going to stick with the basics since I can barely handle having polish on my nails. Five minutes after I left the salon I already put a dent in one nail when I tried to get my cellphone. It’s actually stayed on suprisingly well throughout an entire afternoon of dyeing. My plan is to buy the nail-polish (purple of course!) and get it done the day before I leave and I should hopefully be able to keep them from getting too messed up in 48 hours. However, if you know me, I’ll be applying it multiple times before the taping of the show. Do you know that my hands are what have me the most stressed out? Not being on TV. Nope. How my hands will look. I am so hard on my hands and no matter what I do, I always have nicks and cuts. Someone told me that’s a sign of being an Aries? Has anyone else heard that? I’ve really been good about not biting my cuticles but still keep getting cuts all over my fingers.

I was able to get a lot dyed over the past few days which always makes me feel better. My board of custom orders looks much less intimidating than it did yesterday morning. I’m still taking custom orders and getting them out in about 1-2 weeks if there is anything you’d like. You know the drill, just e-mail me and let me know. I’m just happy that I have two full weeks until I leave to go do the show and the kids are in school that whole time. I desperately need that time to get caught up with everything I need to do. My goal is to get the Indie Swag for December dyed before I leave. (notice how I said dyed. Not MAILED.) Speaking of December swag, I’m going to spoil it just a little bit by telling you that the colorway is designed by Stefanie of Glampyre Knits. She’s going to be on Knitty Gritty too and has this beautiful new book that’s yet to be released. You also get a super-cool pattern she designed exclusively for the club as well as the most adorable matching stitch markers from good to be girl! So there. It’s my club and I’m allowed to do whatever I want right? But ohhhhh the colorway is awesome. That’s all I’ll say. If you want to see the November swag you can check out Knitty Otter’s great picture. I had a lot of fun with this colorway and even though they are not usually colors I normally like, I’m in love with how they all look together in this colorway. Vermillion is my new favorite color. Okay. I’m determined to eat dinner before 8:00pm tonight. G’night my friends.

17 shots of espresso

I wish I had brought my camera as we saw a lot of New Mexico over the past 24 hours. I had never driven over the Rio Grande Gorge before or seen the Earthships. Those things are wild. Did you know the Earthship World Headquarters are outside of Taos? Yup. As we were driving by T. said, “What the hell are THOSE things?” and I had remembered Jess posting about them so I was able to tell him what they were. But they really do look strange. The best part was that I got a lot of knitting done. When you have 4+ hours in the car on fairly straight roads it’s amazing what you can accomplish. This is the only picture I have from the whole trip.

This is the project I’m going to be knitting on Knitty Gritty. It’s going to be super basic and is actually something I came up with that’s simple but still tres chic. I might have to keep it a secret I think. I’ll see…

I’m off for a run, then back to dye up some custom orders and I think we’re going out again tonight before our friends go back home. Oh, the shop is really stocked right now too. I’m trying have lots of everything for holiday shopping. I think it’s so cute that a few of your partners/husbands/significant others have been shopping for you. Some of you have some amazingly sweet loved ones!!

Have a great rest of your weekend.

12 shots of espresso

This is going to be for Eye Candy Friday and my Saturday Sky picture because we are out the door and gone until tomorrow afternoon. We are going up to Ojo Caliente for the night for soaks and wraps. T’s best friend’s mom is taking her kids and her surrogate kids (us) up there for the night.

I’ll be offline for the next day! See you on the flip side!

7 shots of espresso

Do you think Supergirl loves her mama’s hand-knit socks?

17 shots of espresso

I never get sick. Very, very rarely. Somehow everything caught up with me and bam! I have a nasty sinus thing going on. Luckily, Nyquil is my friend and I finally got some sleep last night. But man do I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. You know I’m sick when I don’t work out. I might try and get out for a really little run today, but somehow I don’t think I’ll be able to. I keep telling myself that TV ads 10 pounds right? Ack. I need to run. Thank you all for sharing in my excitement about being on Knitty Gritty. Your support means so much to me. The one thing I’m desperately looking for are a pair of finished socks done in the Orchid colorway. Please tell me that someone out there has a pair? Anyone? Make my day will yah?

Speaking of making my day will you take a look at these? I dyed a new colorway called Fetching for the pattern and the amazingly sweet and talented Cookie made these for me in about two seconds. I love them so much. The pattern is Fetching from knitty.com and I want a hundred more pairs of these. Thank you again Cookie. You totally rock sister.

To get back to the show, a number of people have asked what I’m going to actually do on the show. I will be dyeing you silly people. I’m really excited as it’s going to be pretty different than their normal show. The yarn I dyed has already been received by the producer who sent it out to the Knitsters. They will all be knitting with the same colorway that I will be dyeing on the show. (but their skeins are all different from one another) I will show how to use the warping board for self-striping yarn and then will dye a skein to be variegated. Finally, I will show how the yarn knits up with a very simple knitting project. The part I’m most looking forward to is at the end where I will flash all of the things knitted with my yarn.

Needless to say the next few weeks will be filled with getting everything ready for this along with trying to keep up with Scout’s Swag and the Indie Swag. I just want to get through Thanksgiving so I can get back to all of this work. Speaking of Scout’s Swag, I was able to grab the last 6 Haiku bags had in stock. I got 4 Midnight Blue, 1 Bamboo Green and I snagged the last Pink one. She is totally sold out now so I was lucky to get these last few. I won’t have any more of these until after December 4th. I don’t think she’s making the pink one anymore either.

Time to git. Sorry if this is somewhat incoherent as that’s how my brain is currently functioning. I have one more day with the kids in school before they are home for 4 days where I won’t get anything done. We are also going out of town on Friday night with some friends so there’s another day where I can’t work. I just hope I can get away for 24 hours and not worry about all of the stuff I should be doing. I promise to try to get a manicure today to keep from messing with my fingers. I got some of that Burt’s Bees Cuticle stuff as well as using the Heal My Hands Ultra (which totally rocks) before bed and I think I’m doing pretty well. Thanks for all of the advice on the cuticle front. Have a great Thanksgiving if you celebrate it!

27 shots of espresso

Because my hands are really not prepared for close-ups on TV. Yeah. I said TV. Pretty much the most exciting news ever is that I have been chosen to be a guest on Knitty Gritty. Not one of the Knitsters on the couch. An actual guest like Stephanie, Shobhana, Stefanie, Amy, Drew, Cat, Islea, a whole bunch of other people and me. Li’l ole me. I’m trying really hard not to question it. I still don’t really believe it even though I just booked the flight/hotel/car. I don’t know when it will hit me really. Maybe it won’t until I’m standing there on the set seeing the Knitsters knitting with the yarn I dyed and Vickie introduces me? Oh, did I tell you that I’m taping in just a few weeks? I leave in 3 weeks. What the hell am I going to wear? Oy.

I’m really tired but wanted to share the news with all of you so I’ll talk more about this tomorrow. It’s been hard not posting about it but we were just waiting for network approval. I also wanted to see if any of you have Scout’s Swag all knitted up and might be willing to part with it for a few weeks so I could bring it on the set to show off? I’m envisioning a basket full of socks knit with my swag along with a number of other cool things I have in the works. I’ve already talked with a few of you but I really want a good variety if I can so please let me know if you would like to help.

There are a trillion details I need to work out in the next few days. Sleep is first on my list. Did I mention that I got the Indie Swag all out in the mail today? (at 7:00am nonetheless) I’m afraid to think about how I’m going to get the next month done with all of this going on. I know I can do it, but still. Anyone know how to clone a person? Maybe that’s the ticket. Oh, hello. It’s 8:14pm and I haven’t eaten dinner yet. Maybe I should go and do that. More tomorrow.

65 shots of espresso