luxe

what did i do today? well! i dyed 8 lbs of superwash sock yarn in some awesome colors, i hope to get things photographed and listed to-morrow. i also dyed several pounds of superwash top, and plan to list some of that, as well. and some batts. i am hoping that jake will do the handle for me. hm? hm? i literally was working from around 11:30 until 8ish, i think. i got to talk to katrina for a bit. okay, i think i talked AT katrina. i do that sometimes. it isn’t one of my best attributes. i get excited and start gushing. actually my brother does it too. then, my friend nichole came over and hung out whilst i did work (leslie, i finished your custom yarn!!) i spun up a white snowbride with pink stuff in it and it came out as exactly 100 yards on the bobbin! what? yeah! how cool is that? i got to use my new tags and i will be excited to use my new fancy postcards in them! excited yet?

i know i had a photo of the snowbride already, but i have some of the sequined white snowbride that are just soooo pretty. i have to post them. have to.and they look a fraction as pretty in the photo than they are…

and my new tags…

not so bad, huh? not round, but okay.

i found comment on my flickr from the person that runs a company making super duper duper teeeny weeny bikinis…holy crap! wanna look? indecent!
they are meant to enhance the cameltoe and are so small it is crazy stuff. and there are some nudies on there, so maybe don’t clicky there at work. just saying is all.

ok. off to blow the fiber boogers out of my nose. i feel like i snorted elmer’s glue, i swear. i blew my nose and gummy fiber came out. i fear i am catching fuzzy lung. i thought i was getting a sore throat (i may well be) but then thought again that it could be all of the fiber i have been handling lately, and it is really soft and flies around.

xo
n.

well, i guess everyone knows that the kim family are safe, minus their papa. i guess it is a miracle that everyone else is okay. my heart goes out to them. i was really surprised how much it shook me. i dreamed about him the night before they found him, and i kept seeing the images in my head. not now, though. i think he went somewhere better.

so, i am spinning up some all white snowbride for a custom order. i know it sounds like it should be boring, but it looks so gorgeous. whilst i was spinning it, it started snowing! the first snow of the year. it was oddly magical. i took a photo on the bobbin to show the person who ordered it, she wants sequins, too! i am excited to see it all done…

i have 9 or 10 different yarns spun in, 4 different colors of clear irridescent angelina blended with white loose trilobal nylon which is all over the place and then spun into clumps, in addition to tons of texture, and then plyed with super shiny cream rayon thin yarn and clear nylon with sequins, and sections of sequins, as well. so it is a bit like juggling fire to do this yarn, but you can tell in the finished product. gorgeous!

i got an order from homestead farm for the first time. they are incredibly nice, but some of the fiber is not as soft as i am used to, so i will probably make some batts and list them. i got unusual fibers that i haven’t used before…cheviot, polypay (dreamy!), tunis, and then some gray corriedale (this is my idea of rough wool, are you laughing? i am a baby, i know) that has peacock fronds carded in! it is pindrafted, too, so it will be fun. being that it is gray, i will have to spin it with something brighter. i think white with feathers would be pretty. i bought some feathers to cut off the fluff and spin up. i thought it was such a unique idea and then barbe said she had done it before! whatever. nothing new under the sun, eh? i also got raw creamy suri alpaca that smells hideous, i expected it just to be dusty, but no, it is smelly. i will dye it, i guess, although it is really pretty as is, minus the stank. pavel tried to get into the box to find the sheep.

so, a couple of you have heard this story already. we have space heaters all over the place because our house is cold and the heating doesn’t work that well unless it is cranked over 70 which makes our bill crazy. with the heaters going, sound is really muffled. pavel went into the bathroom sometime after jake left, i think probably to get his friend, socky, and he tends to try to carry him back out and the door shuts and he is trapped. he generally won’t leave without his socky and gets frantic and bangs on the door and cries loudly. due to the heaters, i didn’t hear him. in the morning, i went to use the bathroom, noting that pavel was not with the other cats sleeping, opened the door and he came running out, telling me about his ordeal (a few hours at most in the bathroom) and actually let me cuddle him, which is very rare indeed. while in there, he knocked everything off of the counter, i think maybe to get at the doorknob. this is what i saw when i opened the door…

the orange and brown stuffed sock thing in the upper right side is socky.
“no big deal!” pavel asserts, with all of my makeup, hair clips and medications on the floor…

later, he retired to his loft, nonplussed.

otherwise, all is well. i have been a bit tired, but able to get things done. some things, anyway. i am terribly behind on my blogreading (and writing, really) so if i have seemed absent, please don’t take it personally.

xo
n.

who here has some UFO’s (unfinished objects) that they started to knit eons ago and will NEVER finish? who aspires to be an artist or be a involved in the arts? well! gohere and read about this project that you can be a part of! pretty neat, eh?

when i get upset, i make myself sick. i did that. so. off of the computer. and off to knit.

make sure you tell the people you love and admire how you feel. okay?

xoxox

somehow, i had no idea that this had happened. i haven’t kept up on my blogs, etc, i never watch the news, i had no clue. i just read the newspaper articles and am sniffling. she nursed her two daughters for the whole time they were out there and kept them warm and totally fine, having nothing to eat herself. and her husband is still missing. i am sure that all of you will send good thoughts and prayers to them. it is so crazy to have this network of people you know, or someone you are friends with knows, and something so crazy has happened, random. you could just be driving somewhere and get stuck and something like this happens.

the thing that is so amazing is how many people are showing their support. you can leave a message for the family and see the updates here
i planned to blog more about other stuff, but it seems pretty unimportant now.

xo
n.

well, full-moon fever has made me feel really out of wack. i hate it. i at least got the urgent custom order done, so to-morrow will be all about packing up orders and hopefully getting some spinning in. i am fighting the urge to get up and spin because i know with the recurrent migraines i have been getting, i will be bringing it on myself. so. i will just read “lady oracle” my mag atwood, which is really good so far.

i haven’t been as productive on the artsy side of things as i want to be, and as you know, when i don’t make anything, i feel like poo. plus, i feel like poo anyway. so.

i do have some new knits to show off from roving. really pretty. i will list them this weekend if all goes as planned, the house doesn’t blow away, my head doesn’t cave in, i don’t get the pox…what else? hopefully that is it. and i can feel good again. i think it is going around though. everyone i talk to seems to be having a bad week or two. any astrology peeps out there with knowledge of the situation up there? is there something funny going on. although, 70 degrees in pennsylvania in december is a sign if ever i saw one, eh?

off to read and hopefully sleep. i have cats all snuggled up to me. nice.
xo
n.

so, let me just say that i really planned an update yesterday. what happened? well, over the last week i have been plagued with health issues and headaches and had a bad night on saturday (among other nights). we went to joann’s on sunday to get some of the xmas stuff for xmas yarns that i need to get cracking on (it’s december! did you know?) and other bits n pieces and then went for groceries. i had to stop and get refills on my migraine meds because i felt a bad one coming on. i had the hyper (premigraine) period and planned to do work when we got home. started to feel exhausted by the time we were driving back home, lay down with the bad chills that i get before conking out and conked out. and i mean conked out. i am normally a light sleeper, but jake tried to wake me, even going as far as to bring me a cup of coffee which i think i fell asleep holding and i didn’t wake up until 11p. yeah. totally wasted day. when i woke up earlier, i thought i had slept all day and it was monday. that is how out of it i was. i read for a little while when i woke up on sunday, took a shower and fell back asleep around 2 until this morning. i got up, showered, started to work and the migraine stuff came back. should i be blogging? well, no. but i fear that if i don’t now, i won’t be in any shape to do it later. i have sooooo much work to do and it is incredibly frustrating not to be well enough to do it.

i had crazy dreams that included carrying a sick mouse around in a tiny box and accidentally holding the box so tight as to squish his eye partly out. and as usual, being lost and/or unable to get home and going in the wrong direction. any opinions on what this is all about? additionally, due to guilt over not getting fibre work done, in the dream, there was a giant ball of yarn that the townspeople came to get yarn from and huge amounts of dyed roving that looked like a colorful river on the valleys. so strange. where is that place anyway? in my dream, it was out towards philly. anyone know it?

we should have our house repaired in the next few days and when jake cleaned up outside (did i tell you this already? my brains are a bit scrambled) he found huge nails from the house all over the place. which is what scratched and dinged the car, i guess.

i have tons of fibre to list, plus batts and i really really hope to do it by midweek. i have tons of work i am backed up on, but i really will do my best. it will be worth the wait! i promise!

i am hoping that my health is on the upswing. the combo of the mayhem, the exhaustion, the hives, the steroids (blech!), the headaches, pms (i didn’t know!), etc, etc, has been hard on me, so now that things seem to be letting up, i think i will be able to produce the stuff i imagine. i am also able to put on makeup without it feeling like acid, although my face is so scabby that it doesn’t do a great job of covering stuff up, anyway. but what can ya do? nothing. wait for it to heal and try not to mess with it.

my mom got the knitted stuff i made for her and maddy and the twins. the hats for the twins were too small for their big noggins, so i need to do a couple more for xmas/hannukah. and, the purple one i made for maddy with the little flowers on it lost a flower right out of the gate. good craftsmanship, eh? i have started to put buttons and stuff onto knits with thin wire now. it is coated so it won’t rust or anything, and it should hold better.

my studio looks like a yard sale. bad. we got all of the crap out of the bedroom and it went to the studio (where it belonged) but it is just jam-packed full of crap. and i don’t have the time to sort it. my energy needs to be put only into work.

i got a plastic doorhanging shoe rack thing to put all of the loose bits and pieces for spinning,etc in. i will post pics when everything is organized. i think i have mentioned before that if i can’t see it, it might as well be gone, so it is the best idea to put everything in an organized place that is easy to see. if it works, i may get a couple more. and the fact that it hangs on the door is a good thing, too. i have so much sparkle and nylon and bits and pieces.

ok. i am going to chill. string sequins or something like that and then try to spin. my eye feels like it might pop out of my head. my apologies for non-productive/negative-ish posting. and as usual, thanks for all of the sweet comments and emails. you guys…

xoxoxoxo
n

so, the house is patched up and all is calm(er) poor pavel has been very shaken with all the drama, poor fella. when jake went up to clean up the glass from the storm, he realized that all of the scratches and dings on our (leased) car was from the giant nails that was holding in the siding! so it is pretty crazy that it didn’t do worse. i said to barbe, it was a really lucky thing that no one was outside. the tornado watch came after the storm was calming back down.

i ordered a bunch of cards to use for tags and postcards to put in with my orders rather than handmaking cards (sigh!) from here for practically nothing. they have not only that stuff, but labels, stampers, and super duper cheap. i haven’t gotten the order yet, so they might be crap, but for the price, woah?! i will let ya know.

i have a load of special order spinning to do to-morrow, but i hope to do a bit of an update around 6p, so pop by. the updates have been great, and i thank everyone! it is really exciting for stuff to sell fast. i hope to add spinning batts and fiber to-morrow, so tune in! if anyone wants a similar batt to one they see, just ask, okay?

my rash is cleared, but i have scabby spots and breakouts. it is odd. so my face is really dry and it is hard to cover anything because the makeup stings, but it is better, for sure. the steroids make me feel a bit crazy, but to-morrow is the last day of them, so that is cool. and then monday, i should hear about my bloodwork. fingers crossed.

thanks again for all the kind comments and emails. you guys rock! you hear me?
here is the cutest fat kitty tummy you have ever ever seen as a reward for being sweet!

xo
n.

this was my initial view out the front door this morning:

you know how we have this cute house that is more than 100 years old? well! that is what it looks like at the moment. let me start by saying, thank g-d that i started taking my zoloft last night. i couldn’t sleep, had a headache and was up until around 8 a.m. at around 11a, i hear a really loud explosion and assume that the cats knocked over the antique curios, as they came running upstairs looking alarmed. i look out the window and see siding all over the place. there is a knock on the door and the usually drunken neighbor is freaked out and asking if i am okay. she says that she was drying her hair, heard a bang and saw our attic window coming at her. seriously. two of the windows shot out. otherwise, it is just siding and the tyvek blueboards underneath all over the place. also, it scratched up the car. this is what i saw when i went outside to survey the damage:

i texted the photos to jake at work who replied, aptly enough:”holy shit!”.

anyway, the guy came out to look at it and supposedly some guys will come out to cover the window and do the rest that needs to be done.

in the meantime, jake too my stuff to sugar for me after work. i have had the opportunity to see loads of people dressed in my dyeing overalls with no makeup on and the face full of pox. woooot! it has been a crazy day.

i dyed a lot of fiber in between all of these goings-on, but got only a tiny bit of spinning done because i can’t hear the door in my studio, so that isn’t really an option.

i’ll keep you posted. i am off to scratch myself now. so. itchy.

xo
n.