a little late, but...

Happy Easter!

yummy sock yarn and matching eggs...


and a visit from Uncle Jesse!

snow snow snow

This is what rolled in last Thursday...

This is what it left...

This is what I did while it happened...

Not exactly one of our top ten storms, but a pretty good one nonetheless. I had to close up the store early and drive home in 2nd gear. It's mostly gone now, as is typical of Colorado. What I don't understand is why this happens every year promptly after the trees and our lilacs bud...now we won't see flowers til June I suppose.

Another kids knitting class! Good times...

And last but not least, here's my little love Zev, with fresh ink :) Isn't he a little heartbreaker?

it's what i do

Just realized it's been, like, a whole month. Wow.

I've been sorta busy...

gift baskets for the store

tea towels for Isaac

spring dress for Zoe

been drum carding like crazy...

been spinning like crazy too...

behold, the alpaca.
it's even softer than it looks...

i spun some other stuff too


taught Zoe how to shoot her gun,
scary how good she is at it...


knitting at the gun range


went to the St. Patrick's Day parade...


look what I found!

Grandpa teaching my daughter bad habits, but wearing the sweater I knit him for Christmas :)


Mary and I went to the Twilight DVD release party at Borders...no need to say it. I'm a dork.


as a testament to the dorkiness, well, isn't this just precious?

Yeah, been busy. In an old lady in her rocking chair knitting sort of way I guess...

If anyone wants to help me card some of this 10lbs of alpaca, let me know. I'm pulling double shifts as it is and I can offer delusional conversation, strawberry margaritas and a little bit o crazy in return :)

"Have you ever..."

"Yes I have, twice."
"And you still have all your teeth?"

My quotable lines of the night aren't usually this long, but I made an exception. Went out for drinks with Mary last night, and I sat between drunk Mary and drunk anonymous dude (who insisted he was a sheriff, but didn't look a day over 16 years old) listening to the funniest exchange of words I've heard in a long time...ok, so maybe you don't think it's that funny, but I did and that's what counts.

Anywho...


Guess who I met the week before last? Wow, good guess.

Yup, that's Cheryl Oberle of Folk Shawls, Folk Vests and Knitted Jackets. I had asked a lady to take a picture of us together, and she thought she did. Zoe had the foresight to snap one of her too, so that's all I have. She is so nice!

Aside from that, Zoe has pinkeye. It's kinda cute really, mostly because it's funny to look at and hasn't started to bug her yet. She was at the store with me today and I didn't have anything to cover her eye with so I taped a folded up tissue to her face (so she wouldn't infect anyone else). It was awesome, pirate jokes and yarrrrn.

Work continues on the ridiculous amount of yarn to spin, and I've knitted up a nice swatch which now keeps me motivated. Also keeping me motivated is the equally ridiculous commitment I've made by signing up 2 skeins of yarn and a knitted item for the Great Alpaca Show competition in May. I'm starting to freak. I know it seems like a couple of months away to the rest of you, but lest you forget I have a store to reorganize, a kid to raise and two volunteer positions to maintain. Oh yeah, and a couple of births coming up. Oh my God, I need a paper bag...

baby back

Meet Macel and Bruce! They run a small alpaca farm in Kansas, Kaw Valley Alpacas. Zoe and I had the pleasure of visiting them on Monday, and they were oh so wonderful. They even let me walk away with 3 bags of fleece in return for handspun yarn :)

Zoe scaring even the most loved of alpacas...

I think (hard to keep track) this lovely black beauty below is the contributor of some fleece I get to spin...Ebony

I didn't really get a chance to go yarn shopping while I was out this time, but I did get a chance to stop in to the Yarn Barn in Lawrence. They were great, and had a stellar selection of spinning supplies and fibers. I walked away with some beautiful hand-dyed merino (among other things), and lost about a day of my life spinning this when I got back...

Truly, madly, deeply. I'm in love :)

Aside from the travel adventures, I am delighted to have my baby back. I missed her so...

the hurrier i go, the behinder i get

First and foremost, happy birthday baby Grey!

I had the upmost pleasure of being the doula for a very good friend Thursday night. Labor started at 6:30 and baby was born at 10:30! Wow! Go mom... I had a sneaking suspicion she would be a fast birth, and I guess it speaks to how hurriedly I made my way to the hospital when grandma said the next day upon my visit "You clean up well". Oh my... It was one of the more beautiful births I've attended lately, and for that I'm thankful. Midwives simply rock :)
My week got even better with my kid's knitting class on Saturday. These kids cracked me up. It was heartwarming to see all these wee ones with yarn and sticks, making scarves! Hey, if 5 year old Norwegian girls can do it...
It did make me miss my own wee one that much more though...If you can believe it, I even miss her messes around the house.

Aside from work, sleep deprivation, births and yarn making parties...well, I've been battling a closet unit. Yup, you heard me. I rocked my drunken self asleep in the fetal position last night in a pile of clothes on my bed after trying fruitlessly for 5 hours to install the easiest shelving units on the market. To be fair, it wasn't all the fault of the shelving (though they did cut my pieces wrong, making me think I was even more inept than I thought I was). It started early with the spackle I bought being dried into a vinyl brick in the tub (one extra trip to the hardware store), a defective stud-finder (big surprise there, I AM a defective stud-finder) and two more trips out to buy things I already thought I had. So today, I finally finished what should have been an hour's worth of work, finally, and here is my triumphant proof (note the glass of wine in foreground, empty, one of at least 6 glasses emptied last night)

So alas, I'm off to bed. In a house that's arguably messier than when Zoe left and more to do than I care to think about...

goodnight :)

knitters rock my socks!

The official count is in, and I just dropped off 49 hats for our troops! Go knitters!

This past weekend String (the shop I work at) hosted a knitting for our troops marathon. Unfortunately, I was only able to be there on Friday. Here are some photos of some of the fabulous ladies that came in to support our troops...

and the ever lovely Chloe, Kemie's granddaughter, 6 months old and already smitten with fiber

I also want to give a well deserved shout-out to Highlands Ranch Tattered Cover and their wonderful staff for providing free coffee and tea for the event. The management and baristas over there are nothing short of wonderful, and we are blessed to be working right next door.