See you next year Balloon Fiesta.

This was one of the last balloons T. and the kids saw on Sunday.

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Have I told everyone that Village Wools has been closed all week to move into the new space. It’s unbelievable. Seriously. We have gone to a space more than twice the size of the old space. We have a whole corner of the shop for the books. There are four classrooms. The dye room has a PURPLE floor! There are 16 skylights. We open up on Monday at 10:00am. I’ve been there everyday since Sunday whenever I can to help. Yesterday I opened up the first box and put the first ball of yarn on the shelf. Pretty cool stuff. Here are the details of where the store is if you don’t know already. All of our new yarns will be on the shelves. It’s just absolutely amazing. Just wait until you see for yourselves. Maybe I’ll get some pictures today. Who’s going to be there on Monday when we open back up?

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And Flat Scout says, “See y’all at Rhinebeck! Come find me and take a picture with me!”

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Here’s the deal. On Saturday, Stephanie aka Yarn Harlot will get Flat Scout to Bev. She will have Flat Scout all day on Saturday. Flat Scout is a square, and Beverly is a Player and a square on Saturday. At the end of the day she will hand Flat Scout off to Lucia & Ruth. They are players and squares for both days. Flat Scout is also a square on Sunday too.  The two of them will be Flat Scout’s bodyguard on Sunday. At the end of the day on Sunday, Flat Scout totally lucked out and gets to go home with Margene to Salt Lake City! This just might be her first plane ride. Margene is also a square both days like Flat Scout. In order to help you out a bit I created a little Bingo cheat sheet so you know who you’re looking for next weekend.

Even if you’re not playing Bingo I hope you can find Flat Scout and get a picture with her. We’ll add them all to the Flat Scout Flickr group. Have fun and may the best Bingo player win! Keep an eye on Bev’s blog to see what she has planned to make it easier for you to spot Flat Scout. Can’t wait to see pictures and hear all about it.

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I am! Well kind of. Did you all see where Flat Scout has been for the past few months? She got to hang out with Stephanie aka Yarn Harlot up in Toronto. I laughed so hard reading through that post. Scout was there to help Stephanie write a book and get married so she needed a little bit extra time with the Harlot family.

So yeah. Flat Scout will be in the hizzaous next weekend! I do wish I could be there for reals though. But not only is she going to be at Rhinebeck but she’s going to play Bingo too. She will have a few different bodyguards throughout the weekend so check back here for the details so you know who to look for. I’m pretty sure she’ll be a square both days. How many of you are going? I want to know who she should look for when she’s there. I’m really glad she doesn’t have any pockets because then she can’t spend any of my money.

Also, let me know if you might want to be her bodyguard. I’m pretty sure I have it set right now but just in case I’d like to know who might want to have her on Sunday and get pictures of all of the people she gets to meet.

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Can I just tell you all that this makes me SO nervous. I’m trying not to think about this but I know that out of 35 people who get these packages there’s just no way every single person will love what they get. You know what I mean? I’m trying to prepare myself for this but it’s hard.  I’m used to dyeing yarn for people who want what they’re ordering. This is a whole different thing. And since I help run the Blue Moon Sock Club Blog I get to see first hand when people don’t like what’s sent to them. So if you don’t like it? Just talk about me behind my back so I don’t have to stumble upon it on someone’s blog. HA!!! Everyone should get their swag on Monday/Tuesday. ACK.

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The latest Spin-Off magazine has a super cool article about creating self-striped sock yarn with a variegated stripe as one of the stripes. Has anyone else seen it? The article is called Dyeing for Socks by Paula Egbert. I decided to try it out and I love how it looks. Want to know a secret? This is the first skein of yarn that I’m keeping that I’ve done. I don’t have one single skein of anything I’ve made. I know. Crazy. I did this one with my Orchid colors with an added skinny white stripe. This is definitely something I’ll offer as a custom job. I recommend reading the article if you want to learn how to do it. I actually taught my first Dyeing class over the past two weeks and a number of my students tried this technique on their self-striping sock. I found out yesterday one of my students has a blog! Go over and check out the yarn she dyed in class. She did a really good job.

See. Knitting! From me. Socks out of my own yarn. There will also be some yarn up in the shop within the next day or two as well.

In other news. If you have been reading the Flat Scout Blog you’ve seen how much fun she’s been having with her hostess with the mostest Cynthia. Go see her blog. The pictures are so funny. She goes to Estonia next!

And I’ll leave you with a few pictures. Supergirl insisted I take a picture of her saying “Word to your MUTHA!”

And finally, I’m not sure if Gus is really comfortable living here with us yet.

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So go to Flat Scout ASAP if you want her to visit you….

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Last year we hosted a Shaliach (an emissary from Israel) named Hait. We really loved having her so we signed up to do it again and now we have the beautiful Adi living with us for the next 3 weeks. Here she is with the kids. They are in love with her and won’t leave her alone. If you have a local JCC I really recommend doing it. It’s such a great experience.

She got out of the Army in January and will eventually go to Law School. She’s a total sweetheart and is going to come to Stitch ‘n’ Bitch tonight and learn how to knit! The other Israeli who came already knows how to knit and I’m helping her learn how to make socks. Her name is Yafit.

I had them over for dinner last week before Adi moved in with us and Yafit asked me about knitting and told me she was a knitter! I showed her all of my yarn, bags, socks, etc and she just looked at it all and kept saying she didn’t know you could DO all of those things. I told her to just wait until she sees Village Wools. She told me how she had been making socks and wanted to learn the proper way. I think she said she was making the cuff and then the foot part and then just sewing them together? No clue. It was fun to go through my stash, throw about 6 skeins of yarn on the bed and let her pick whatever she wanted to make herself a pair of socks. (She picked the Opal-#5 in this picture)

I’ve had to help her a few times already and then yesterday when I went to pick up Superboy and Adi, she ran up to my car and was all freaked out because she has to do the heel flap and doesn’t know what to do. This morning at Supergirl’s swim lesson I’m helping her with that. I love that I get to teach someone a skill they’ll bring all the way back to Israel! The cool thing is that I know that Flat Scout has a place in Israel to visit too if we want her to go there.

Yikes. Swim lesson time!

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She goes off today! I also created a Frappr Map for us so we can see where everyone is.

And just for those visual people? This is the best way to ship her internationally. It’s the Global Priority Mail and it’s a flat rate of $7.50. I know I made it a rule that you’d have to be willing to ship internationally but I’ll also give some of you the the choice to comment and let me know if you would be one of the few selected to do this. I’ll make a note of it in my files so I know who I could really count on to ship this way.

Thank you! (Still looking for our African host!)

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I wanted to dye something special for Cynthia for always having my back and hooking me up with the most kick-ass Scout graphics. I might just have to make this one for the shop. It’s totally funky just like Cynthia in all of her favorite colors. Pinks, bright green, black & brown. It’s hula-la!

This goes off with Flat Scout tomorrow off to Vancouver! Bye-bye pretty yarn and a big thank you to Cynthia once again. You rock!

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Sign-ups are on for the next few days. I’m going to see how many are signing up and by tomorrow or Monday I’ll decide when to close the sign ups. The main rule of this is that you are willing to ship Internationally (and I’ve been informed that it should be sent priority mail or it takes forever which is about $7.50 - and only a few of you will really have to do this) and that you won’t flake out or lose me! So go sign up. My kids are so excited to see all of the places she’ll visit. She will be mailed out on Monday to Vancouver to Cynthia and it begins. Here’s the button too.

All hail the mighty Bruce of Sermon Zone for helping me set up the list.

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A number of you asked about the puppy and as of about an hour ago he’s ours. My friend gave us the final word and she’s willing to give her older two dogs a permanent break from their rambunctious younger brother. The kids are ecstatic to say the least. He’s so dang cute isn’t he? Say hey to Gus our new baby. And let me tell you…. he really IS a baby. He cries when he can’t see me! (He’s only 10 months old)

So far today he’s been to the farmer’s market, Flying Star, Village Wools and Lowe’s. He told me he needs a nap and is passed out on the tile floor as I type this. Little does he know I’m going to make him go for a little run with me and then he can sleep. A big thank you to each and every one of you who has been there for me this week. I apreciate it so much.

Flat Scout news coming soon!  While setting up Scout’s Hand Painted Swag I was lucky enough to befriend a fellow New Mexican, Bruce of Sermon Zone, on a help forum and now he’s helping me set up a database for the Flat Scout Project. This way I don’t have to worry about the number of people signing up and it will save me the hours of entering all of your information in by hand into a spreadsheet.  We’re hoping that within a day or two we’ll have it up and I can start the sign up process!

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