Miss T's Mystery House of Yarn & Horrors

The Kindness Of...

...Strangers Friends

Every now and then, I have a Bad Week.  You know.  Dark boiling skies, monsters attacking from every corner, plagues, creepy emails, and people calling on the phone.  Last week was one of those weeks, and pouting seemed the only reasonable option.  Then, mid-pout, some surprising and wonderful things happened.

I won a contest on Lorette’s blog, and she sent me the most amazing yarn.  Seriously, it’s stunning.  So stunning that its stunningness defies photography.  Blue Moon Fiber Arts Silk Thread II, in Grawk.



Thank you so very much, Lorette!  I see some gorgeous lace in my future.  And this could not be a more perfect gift, because ravens have been popping up in my work lately.

I don’t have a picture of this because it hasn’t happened yet, but Amy (the only one of these lovely gift-giving women who actually knew I was having a bad week) promised me a very spicy new cookbook that’s all about Indian food.  A huge advance thank you to you, Amy!  This will be big fun for some future Friday Food.  I do love Indian food, but I don’t know enough about cooking it.

Thinking that a little knitting in good company might cheer me up, I went to my Friday afternoon knitting group, where I got a wonderful, totally out of the blue surprise.  Setembrina (who is pretending not to be knitting lace and thinks I don’t know how deeply that lace needle has sunk in already) gave me some incredibly cool stitchmarkers.

She’d seen me wearing a bracelet made from vintage bakelite mahjong tiles, and knew I’d love them.  And I really do.  If you’ve never played mahjong, it’s a lot more fun than you probably think it is, and part of what makes it so much fun is the aesthetic of the tiles.  It’s very much a game for people, like me, who have a jones for cool objets.  Thank you very much, Setembrina!

And then there was a small gift, of sorts, from Madame Anonymous Bunny.  Every year, little cute flowers come up in the front yard.  They have the most delicate blue color, and they typically don’t last long.  I mean, one afternoon.  That’s because in years past, Madame Anonymous Bunny has appeared on the scene immediately, as if alerted on her iPhone, and chomped off their little heads.  But this year, she’s left them alone, and they’ve been spreading their pale blue cheer for several days.  Anybody know what these are?  Lookie:

I am grateful, Madame Bunny.  I am grateful to you all, friends old and new.  Because while it was a Bad Week, and monsters were everywhere, I can look back now from the distant vantage point that is Monday with the realization that, um...I should say something profound here, shouldn’t I?  It’s Monday.  I’m not up to profundity.  I’m just sipping tea, hanging on, and feeling lucky.  Thanks, y’all.

A Beautiful Day

Photo from Wikipedia

“In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. . . . . As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. . . . . And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.”

I’m thrilled that my mother is here to see this incredible, beautiful day.  And sorry that my father, my uncle, my grandfather and grandmother, my great-aunt and great-uncle are not.  Because they worked for it, too.

Yes we can.

Was There Yarn?

Yes, there was yarn!

Sandwiched between the deep blue laceweight and the lilac bulky merino from Handpainted Yarn (both courtesy of the M.E.) is some beautiful Vesper sock yarn given to me by Amy.  Mmm...Neapolitan ice cream feet coming up!  I’ve got lace projects in mind for both of the others.  Shoot, I’ve got lace projects in mind for these, too:

   

I loved working with Schaefer Laurel so much that I may have hinted a wee bit that I might possibly sorta want more for Christmas.  Oh happy day, I’ve now got enough for a shawl, in the Billie Holiday color.  And on the right is STR Laci in Oregon Red Clover Honey, because I’ve been dying--dying, I say--to make this.

Knitting is very much on my mind as 2008--2008, isn’t that crazy?  Remember when that sounded all far away and sci-fi and everything?--begins.  I have such an embarrassment of riches to work with (on top of the embarrassment I already had), and I’m excited about every one of these projects.  Huge thanks to Amy and to my incredibly wonderful husband!  You guys know how to keep me off the streets.   

Luck

I’ve been unusually lucky with blog contests lately; really, this doesn’t happen to me all the time.  But the loot has just been flying in the door. 

KitKatKnit sent me an incredible package of goodies after drawing my name in her Wayback Machine contest.

That great card she made is definitely going in my T collection!  There were Almond Rocas (the bag is no longer as full as it appears), coffee, a terrific pair of snippin’ scissors, and some of the softest, most lush alpaca ever.  It’s even purple!  Thank you so much, KitKatKnit!

From Rhonda the Stitchingnut, when I correctly guessed that she’s making an Einstein coat, came this lovely package:

Pretty sock yarn, soft cotton chenille that I’m guessing will make a nice scarf, and a fun book filled with great vintage photos of knitwear.  I love vintage knitwear!  Thank you very much, Rhonda!  Knitters are incredibly generous, aren’t they?

I’ve had one more bit of luck this week.  A big one.  You may recall that back in September, my computer crashed.  Permanently, spectacularly and traumatically.  All indications were that I’d never be able to retrieve some of my files, at least not without shelling out a heinous amount of money (which should probably go to better use than retrieving old email). 

Well.  Never say die.

The M.E. related my tale of woe to some of his colleagues at work (make a note:  being married to a geek who works with even more geeks is a good thing), one of whom happened to have a buddy who’s apparently a Mac genius to end all Mac geniuses.  There was a trick, a $20 trick which would fix everything, and he willingly, kindly shared the details with us.  Good folks, geeks.  Even people who are not knitters can be incredibly helpful and generous.

You start up the sick Mac while pressing a special, magical key that nobody knows about except certain Mac Gurus.  The coolest thing about this magical key is that it’s the “T” key!  Who knew?

Then the sick Mac starts doing this:

See that magical blue cable?  That’s a firewire.  You hook it up to both the ailing Mac and the healthy one.  Bodily fluids are about to be shared, but hang on, it’ll be okay. 

The magical blue light and the special magical key somehow trick the dying Mac into thinking it’s a hard drive which has one more critical mission to perform before expiring.  It comes to life and allows you to transfer its entire contents onto the healthy Mac in about fifteen minutes, without any drama.  Twenty dollars for a cable = problem solved.

I. Have. My. Stuff. Back!!

Huge thanks to Craig for asking the the right guy the right questions, and enormous thanks to Brenton for sharing the secret!  I feel like we made it past the Sphinx and found the treasure.  Thanksgiving continues into this week, for sure.  I'm very, very grateful for so much good luck!

Happy Mailbox Tales

That’s the yarn I’ll be packing up soon to send to knittingnovice.  Two skeins of Karaoke wool/soy silk, and two skeins of hand dyed Mystical Creations rayon.  I hope she'll like her loot. 

My mailbox is happy because of the marvelous packages that have recently arrived; one I expected and one which was a complete surprise.  I’ll have to come up with extra special projects for both of these gifts.

I knew that some lovely yarn would arrive courtesy of Quiddity, because I won a contest on her blog. 

And lucky me, it’s just beautiful.  Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Jeans, which perfectly suits me since I’m nearly always in jeans when I leave the house.  She threw in some cute notecards, too.  Thanks very much, Quiddity!  I love it.

Here’s what I wasn’t expecting, another gorgeous skein of blue which went a long way towards banishing the blues.

From my dear friend Amy, gorgeous Malabrigo laceweight in Alpine Pearl, with a Day of the Dead card that’s a work of art.  I intend to frame it.

Inside the card was this:

Could that be any cuter?

Amy’s intention was to give me a thank you gift for something I did to help her out, but when she heard I was having a rough time last week she was sweet enough to send it early.  It arrived exactly at the right moment and was a beautiful reminder of how important it is to have a good friend in your corner.  Yarn can be a nice reminder of friendship, can’t it?  Thanks so much, Amy!

Things in the Mail

I love days when the mailbox has good things in it.  Things which are not bills.  Things which are in no way drama.  Things like...



Yarn Addicts Pink Dream, the gorgeous yarn I won in the August Sockamania drawing.  It’s such a perfect color, I’m torn between socks and lace.  It would make the prettiest socks, wouldn’t it?  But the color’s so good on me, I’d love to have it wrapped around my shoulders.  Hmm.  I’ll leave it out where I can look at it, until I decide.  Thank you, Anni, for such a fabulous gift!  I’m thrilled.

In my email box this morning was another nice thing.  My Ravelry invitation!  There’s one problem, though.  Someone seems to have run off with the name Miss T already.  This will not do.  I’m Miss T.  I can’t sign up until I come up with another name!

Still Here

Last night could have gone very differently.  At exactly 6:00pm, we popped Dr. Evil in his crate and headed out the door to meet friends for dinner.  Thanks to our lucky star, or to our guardian angel or to who knows what protective forces, we’d chosen a spot none of us had been to before, a Thai restaurant in a far-flung suburb.  Not our neighborhood, not theirs either.  But it had great reviews, and the oddity of the location somehow added to its charm.

Everybody arrived as planned at 6:30 and sat down to some truly excellent food in the mostly-empty strip mall storefront.  The large-screen TV across the room was flashing an Asian hootchie mama music video, “I Will Survive” creatively mixed with “Fly Me To the Moon.”  It was a hoot, and we were prepared to spend the evening happily catching up on a year’s worth of conversation.

The proprietor brought frightening news with our entrees:  a major freeway bridge had collapsed  into the Mississippi River.  Highway 35W, right near downtown, a bridge we’ve driven countless times.

He flipped the TV away from gyrating booties to a local news station, and we watched the surreal scene in horror.  Fifty cars in the river.  Twenty highway workers on the bridge when it fell.  At 6:05, the peak of rush hour.  The time we would have been on that freeway, nearing that very spot, had we chosen any one of a hundred other restaurants for dinner.

This was the kind of scene that doesn’t happen in Minnesota.  None of us could remember anything remotely like it.  We don’t get earthquakes or mudslides or hurricanes or any of those sorts of disasters that typically cause bridges to fall.  Snow and the occasional tornado are about it.  It was shocking for us, from the safety of our cozy vantage point, and I spent much of the evening imagining how people must have felt as they sensed the bridge vibrating and the road underneath them giving way, the road that had always promised to be solid and to carry them home to hugs and dinners and the pleasant, mundane comfort of watching the evening news--not being in it.  Not dying in Old Man River’s watery, muddy clutches.

As much as we enjoyed each other’s company last night, and the good food and our friends’s charming and previously-unseen-by-us-baby, every one of us was shaken.  By the time the fortune cookies arrived bearing good wishes, we all wanted to be home, to check in with family and friends and make sure everybody was all right.  To make sure they knew we were all right.  We said our goodbyes and departed in torrential rain, the first good rain we’ve seen here in weeks.  A sky’s worth of tears for everyone who didn’t make it home.