luxe

well, as you all know, i overdid it a lot this weekend and early this week. so by yesterday, exhausted. last night i read an entire book, cover to cover. mind you, it wasn’t war and peace or anything, but still. so i had read an email from shannon about how she got an intern and then i dreamed about having an intern that cleaned my house and packed orders and went to the post office. although, i could have an intern, right? anyway, i woke up feeling funky and tired and by this evening, i was really really nauseous and headachy. sigh. that said, i feel guilty that i was too tired to blog in the last couple of days, but i can’t see straight, so i just wanted to let you know i was alive, if not feeling so great. blah. i will d a real post to-morrow. i swear it. double vision. pukey. hot. clammy. hold. only one eye open, i think. i can see my eyelashes.

wish me luck. i am on shower number 4 for the day. sigh.

oh, i got my first package from my knitting secret pal. i guess the last one, too. i got this yarn…which is gorgeous, but i don’t do socks in fingering…
and this lovely yarn that i adore, i wish i had more of it…
i had to contact the wonderful sp9 hostesses because she never contacted me and i thought i had been forgotten. i got the package with her card in it (she has a yarn shop) in a plastic bag and that was it. so i guess it was the reveal. anyway, i guess i was disappointed that she didn’t have the time to do a bit more, even to wrap it in tissue or something. most of these secret swaps i have done of late have been a bit of a letdown, although the people i have sent stuff to have been really fantastic and excited (or feigned it well, anyway) i try really hard to get them stuff that i think they will like. i really read their questionaire. my sp9 was going through really hard times with a sick baby and other stuff, and she is a young one, too, so i wanted to make sure that when she got it, it was really great. and thus far, i have had incredible people spoiling me. seriously. thoughtful, sweet, sent me notes and little things and cards and emails. so i have been really lucky. my spin me a treasure pal knew who i was because she reads my blog! and she french! i am famous! (in my own house, anyway) but she sent me a photo of herself and the hat she had made and it was a really similar color of the yarn that i made her. i also sent her some “american stuff” reeses pb cups and sour patch kids. i know it isn’t yummy like euro candy, but it is american. she said it “tasted american” which cracked me up. anyway, i wanted to post photos of the lovely yarn i got from my secret pal, and i did.

also, here is a mixed media piece i am working on for the open heart show that was due in…um, saturday. last saturday. i just am not happy with it. i love the part separately, but due to my issues with seeing the whole picture i have a hard time sometimes with finsihing up. anyway, barbe suggested putting the little boxes on a plain background of some sort, which i had thought of, before i did this background, so i need to dig aorund and see what i have that might work so i can get it in to gabe.
please let me know if you have any suggestions about it. nothing is attached yet and i have multiple versions of it on flickr with things moved around.

i have a lot to tell you but i am sleepy and out of it, so i apologize if anything seems nonsensical. i have to go to sleep and try to sleep this off. grrrrr. miles to go before i sleep. i swear, i need to make a list i have so many things to tell you…

n.

so, i was wondering why i hadn’t sold all of my yarn (it is REALLY good, i am telling you!) and was attempting to look at barbe’s etsy store and the link wouldn’t work. i tried someone else’s, didn’t work. tried my own. no dice. and then, tried just etsy.com. no. dice. grrrrrrr. i don’t know what is up with this shite. my tivo won’t work. etsy won’t work. i have a headache.

just quickly here…i have a few questions for ya…lurkers…delurk yourselves! there might be a little something in it for one of you that answers…savvy?
1. do you listen to podcasts? if yes, which ones, and why.
2. what would you like to hear in a podcast?
3. what sucks? what annoys you? what do you wish people wouldn’t do?
4. any other suggestions?

you know i am a short attention spanned person and i haven’t found any podcasts yet (okay, i have only listened to a few) that weren’t either really really boring to me or really really annoying to me. clearly, it is just me, since loads of people love em. as i have gotten older, i have really gotten to be more and more flakey. i can’t stand seeing movies in the theatre. i used to see them weekly. i can’t sit still. when people cough, i feel like i want to scream and run away (let’s hope that doesn’t get worse. yipes!) i have to pee 5 times, i get bored, i fall asleep, i am fidgety. if i am listening to a cd in the studio, i often have the tv on with the sound off and am spinning or working on a painting or whatever. or talking on the phone. or all of the above. seriously.

i just get bored really easily, so i need it to be really really good, interesting, fun, no stupid voices, bad music…so any suggestions?

if you are a spinner, you might get some handpainted top, if you are a knitter, you might get some handspun yarn. so post an answer and i will pick one or two people. make sure you have a reachable email attached to it. okay?

i am going to sew jump rings(if i can find em) onto my poppies for easy attaching to yarns. and maybe read a bit. oh wait, it is 1:30 already. this photo has my felt poppies on jakie. hee.

mwah!
n.

i updated both luxefibre.com and luxe.etsy.com so go check em out. there are some really really pretty yarns, if i do say so myself. i felt like i was racing the clock. over the past couple of days, i have been spinning my ass off. yesterday i spun from around noon until around 10 i think and was really pooped.

here is one that comes with felt poppies in the color(s) of your choosing. fancy shmancy, eh?

this one has lots of white silk flowers in it. purdy.

after reading a bit (i am reading bodily harm by margaret atwood) i had sucky nightmares (a fun facy about me, i have had bad nightmares since i was a kid and pretty much never have dreams) that an ex told jake that i had slept with him and he wouldn’t look at me or speak to me and i had that horrible feeling of someone turning away from you and realizing that they see you in a different light and will always see you that way. additionally, i was in front of all of the people we know, we were all out of town in pdx (john and diana, see we wanna see you so bad!) and had only a shirt on. no pants. no underwear. in public. and i didn’t seem to notice, i was just torn up over jake. also, lots of our friends were there, and everyone ignored me and then they left without me. i woke up, having to pee, went back to sleep and then had a nightmare about trying to babysit in this horrible craphole of a house. it was really odd. so any insight into what that means. although, i guess for the first one…depressing!

tivo is still not working. basically, i am seeing that they have updated their software in a way that requires you to buy their new adaptor and if you don’t, the one that previously worked just fine will all of a sudden not work anymore. we have tried everything and the shittiest part is that we have no program guide because of it. i will call comcast to-morrow and get a box for their dvr instead. i will miss tivo. i do love him so. sigh.

i got this link from jen of her and her adorable little poppetfrom the paper. too cute! jen is one of my best college friends. i have been horrible at keeping up with everyone from school. it is shameful. i recently got back in touch with nicole, another one of my closest college friends and she is making jewelry full time now! take a peek!

not much else. i need to finish my peice and get it to gabe for the art show. i hope i am not in trouble over it. i am so behind and i forgot about it until he reminded me the other day. i worked with gabe at my tattoo shop and i feel like he is my brother. i miss the hell out of that kid.

don’t wait to order yarn, it has (fortunately) been selling really fast.
xoxoxoxo
n.

firstly, i have some GORGEOUS new yarns that will be listed to-morrow around dinnertime on both luxefibre.com and on luxe.etsy.com. want a little taste? well, okay…

i have some new colors i have been playing with that i really really love. i plan to add some spinning batts, as well. i dyed a bunch of loose tunis fiber in amazing colors that i will card up. purdy! also, i will be doing some fancy yarns that have matching felt poppies. i made up a bunch in different sizes and colors, and when you get one of the yarns, you will get a big poppy pin to match! fancy shmancy.

so, whilst spinning, i watched the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, which was fantastic. i loved it. prior to this movie, i could not stand watching anything at all with jim carrey in it, and after seeing this movie, he really should do more serious acting. he was fantastic. this movie is seriously one of my new favorites. so so good.

i also watched how to kill your neighbor’s dog with one of my fave’s in it, kenneth brannaugh, and it was a really sweet movie.

tivo is not working. i am worried that it is on its way out. it won’t connect to the wireless connection to load the new data, so we ran out of programming and can’t get it to work. the internet connection is obviously working, but it won’t do anything. grrr. jake and i both screwed around with it to no avail. any tivo specialists, feel free to give me advice.

rumour has it that luxe was mentioned on lime and violet’s podcast in the yarn porn section, which is very flattering. i don’t have the attention span for podcasts these days, even if henry rollins were doing it. i just flake out. but thanks so much guys!

so i spilled who i was to my spin to knit secret pal and my tricoter spin me a treasure pal, as well. the french one knew who i was! as in, i am famous in france! (hee hee hee) then it reminds me of tom waits’ song “big in japan”. my spin me a treasure pal is MIA. no idea who she is or what to do about it. i emailed in, but i think there must be things going awry, i know others have had the same problem and i can’t get anyone to email me back, so i wonder if they even get my emails at all. hmph. i got my yarn for spin to knit which was blue 2 ply and some pralines which were really nice.

we are watching the lost room that was recorded ages ago. it is pretty odd. what is stranger? it is supposed to be in pittsburgh! how funny! i told jake that they should make all of the cast talk like yinzers (for anyone not from here, that is what the pittsburgh accented folks are called. they say yinz meaning you guys, as in “yinz should come over tonight…n’at (and that).” ah well.

not much else. i have a piece in an art show at our local coffee shop/gallery, so i need to get it finished to-morrow to hang to-morrow. bad, bad me. i just had to get all of this spinning done. i am bad. i may need to call and see if i can drop it off on monday, instead. i will post the details of the actual opening of the show.

ok. well, off i go to chill out a bit.
xo
n.

hey it’s jake. in my haste to publish my very first post, which you were all so kind about, i forgot to give a big shout out to the fabulous, fantastic, fabulously-fantastic, lovely and… er… famous miss shannon o, who i had the good fortune of meeting at the pgh. handmade to-do. so shannon, HELLO! forgive me my transgressions and when i see you again, please don’t punch me in the throat, knowwhatimean. later, j.

okay, just a short whiney rant. i already ranted to barbe and then had to go. good friend i am. (i sent you a box today though…) okay, so i managed to accidentally used my bank card to pay for a bunch of small purchases at amazon instead of my credit card(i think it automatically used that one) and ended up with about $250 in overdraft charges. yeah. i transferred money from paypal leaving me with no money anywhere, then found out that in the several days it would take to transfer, i would accumulate at least 3 more bounces at $34 bucks each and jake came to my rescue and put cash on his credit card for me until the money comes through. sigh. so, i ranted to jake about how i would rather have flushed the money down the toilet, burned it, etc, etc, etc. this is why i use my credit card instead. no bounces. how am i this many years old and do this?

i swear, i will make a real post later. i swear it. i packed a zillion orders and swaps, etc, and that was all i got done, other than blowing money on nothing. grrrr.

well well well. let me kick the post off by saying that jake would love comments. nuff said.

nextly, i have a bunch of fiber to update on luxe and hope to have a bit of time to spin to-morrow after packing orders and such. i did a few dye batches tonight with the 6 different purples i got recently, so fingers crossed on those. i also chucked in a skein of sock yarn for my dad’s birthday socks.

in other news, i was attempting to catch up on my blogs that i am incredibly behind on. shameful, i tell you. and realized that lisa s had deleted her blog after a nasty bunch of arseholes ANONYMOUS commenters (along with some really good ones, too, that stuck up not only for lisa, but artists and craftspeople in general) made her feel so upset about her work and money, etc, the things that we all hate having to think about. it is on the designsponge blog which i am sure you all aware of, as well as the guest blog they have that rocks as well. the people that run it do a fantastic job of it, the amount of love and work that goes into it is very apparent, and then there are these arseholes just waiting to jump on anyone for anything (in some of the communities on the blogiverse, i have come across similar nastiness) and it just speaks to me of how friggin bored and pathetic they must be to sit around just waiting to pick a fight or hurt someone’s feelings. do they jump up and down clapping their hands with glee? there was a converstation about her work being too expensive (c’mon now, this is art, not milk for your baby) and that ANYONE can do it. this. makes. my. blood. boil. this always makes picasso come to mind and the know-nothings that feel compelled to say that he clearly didn’t know how to draw. and he was considered a master at the age of 12. so lisa…if the same arses would say that about picasso, or even worse, gives value to an artwork based on fame. so back in the old days when van gogh was trying to hock his paintings, this same person would say, “who the hell are you?” i am starting to just drift around frothing at the mouth, but i guess i just wanted to say, again…there are several artists that are so open with all of us via their blogs, emails, etc, and give so much back to the world for free. for the love of art and beauty and all that is good. art should not have to have a price on it. we shouldn’t have to be a waitress in order to be an artist, or musician or whatever, but that isn’t the way it is. we have to eat. and if something someone else makes is out of my price range, that doesn’t mean it is too expensive or not worth that amount of money. it just means i can’t afford it. there is no reason to be mean, and all i can think is that these snarky jackasses have nothing good to contribute to anyone. they don’t have a following. they don’t have a passion. they don’t have a job that they love. and it kills them. so, they just go around trying to pee in everyone else’s cheerios. don’t let them. just don’t. let them go sit with each other and call each other names. they are the epitome of losers and they know it. i have got my eye on you, snarky losers. and you better watch out for us art school girls, we have breathed in poisonous fumes and eaten paint accidentally and we are much tougher than we look. i assure you.

ok. i will cut it out, now. wanna see what i made for my french spin me a treasure partner? i got this roving from someone on etsy, and as usual, decided that i need to stop doing that, cause it isn’t super soft and nice like mine. ah well…the blue and burgundy one was only about 70 yards, so i spun another one in the matching pinky color with about 80 yards…

also, i did a poppy hat for my pal at mohop shoes for our swap (squuuuuueeeeeee!) and the poppy scarfaletta as usual…

and then a hat with a yellow one, with a scarf to match not pictured…

poor pinky fluffadaro never arrived. i fear that i will never see her again. it makes me sad. i haven’t tried to do a claim with the post office before, so hopefully that will go smoothly. that was $60-something bucks lost in space. aaargh.

oh, and one last strange thing…remember how the tornado thingy pulled the siding off of our house almost 2 months ago? well! the disaster repair place said they would schedule a time to fix it and then never did. we talked to someone else that gave us a price almost half of what the other place had said, which would then cover our insurance deductible so i called to let the disaster place that never called me or anything to just nevermind. the guy calls me back and says, “natasha? so i got the message that you are going to have someone else fix the siding?”
me-”yes.”
him-”why?”
me-”it has been 2 months, no call.”
him-”well, the thing is that we have all of the stuff we need, we bought it and it was on the truck ready to go and then it rained, so the boxes got wet and we couldn’t come out and now we can’t return the siding…so could you give me the contracter you are using’s name and i can see if he would want to buy it from us?”
me-”um.”
him-”you could just give me the number…”
me-”i will let them know…”
let me say, this is the place that our insurance company, erie insurance told us to call to patch up the house until it could be fixed and give us the price, etc. they aren’t some fly by night place. i think not, anyway. that was the strangest, most bullshite story i have ever ever heard. it was so odd that i called jake at work and then later in the day was still confounded. you know they never bought nothing. i am guessing they just thought they could make a buck anyway. so shady. i can tell you who not to call in case of an emergency.

so, off i go. gotta wash out the fiber.
xo
n.

hey everyone, jake here. natasha asked me if i wanted to do a post, so i said what the hay. first off, happy new year. i hope everyone’s holidays were swell. ours were nice.
so i know i was told that i could post about anything i wanted, so let me begin by giving all of you who read her blog my heartfelt gratitude. thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you. you guys/gals amaze me. i have to admit to being a bit of a lurker to her blog. i have it marked as a favorite, read it every time i’m online, yet never comment. i know she has made mention of this before, but here is my reason. i don’t like to push myself into every single aspect of her life. she needs to have this thing that she can do with her friends that doesn’t involve me. a little marital elbow room, if you will. and also, wouldn’t it be strange to leave a comment when i can just turn my head and say it directly to her? hmm. what do you think? anywho, back to you, and why you amaze me. all of the kind comments, the swaps, the interaction that she has had with everyone has been incredible. that fact that you have inspired her, made her life that much more awesome, is so so cool. i have rarely seen generosity to the extent that i have seen it with you. i mean honestly, i’m just the schmuck husband, and all natasha has to do is mention candy and my love for it, and you start sending it for me. there is only a few of you that i have ever had any remote interaction with (hi nichole, hiya boo boo xo, hey elizabeth). i’ve only ever heard natasha talk to barbe, and she’s making me a cd of a rockabilly band from her neck of the woods. i frickin love the rockabilly! really, how awesome is that. so honestly, take a bow, give yourself a hand, you are wonderful. you’ve found the thing you love and you’ve found the people who love it, too. yeah there are some people who just try to nay-say, and poo-poo everything. man, fuck them. they’re just pissed that they don’t have a fraction of the supreme coolness you have. besides, if you can inspire the coolest chick in the world (my lovely, beautiful wife), then you are definitely a friend of mine, and are ever welcome in our home. just run it by natasha first. and maybe bring some candy.
so, wanna see some porn?
nice, huh? one of the few things that really make my eyes wander.
i know natasha mentioned i’m a bit of an audio-phile. it’s true. who doesn’t get that feeling, that weird rush, when they here a song, a song from an album from back there somewhere, the one that they listened to all the time whenever they were going through whatever it was they were going through. who doesn’t get blown away by a simple line, or lick, or riff or whatever. soul-less people, thats who. when that 5 seconds of harmonica was absolutely perfect. i have this running mental list of the most perfectly recorded songs. not necessarily my favorite songs ever, but songs that capture something. that if anything was added or removed it would lose that thing. songs with a perfect mix. wanna know a few:
ocean size - jane’s addiction
just like heaven - the cure
no one knows - queens of the stone age
sinners and their repentences - bob mould
johnsburg, illinois - tom waits
bohemian like you - dandy warhols
good good stuff. songs that capture a good feeling. be it love, fun, regret, whatever. what am i listening to now you ask? you don’t? tough. grab a pencil.
howlin wolf,
louis prima,
and the lovable big sandy and his fly-rite boys.
i’m into the rockabilly, blues, swing kind of thing right now. the same blues vein runs through it all, and like the good reverend horton heat says, “if it ain’t got blues, it just ain’t rock n’ roll”. amen. current radio is so dire and disposable right now, and there is so much awesome music from decades ago to catch up on. one thing i am looking forward to, though, is the new shins album this week. heard the new song? really fantastic. i get more and more giddy each time i hear it. was never a huge shins fan. ‘oh inverted world’ never fully grew on me. good album, just never got into it. ‘chutes too narrow’ i really dug. but this new song is great.
well i’m sure you’re sick of me by now, so i shall make my departure. but first, i wanted to show you my new setup.

it’s not much, but it makes me happy.
well, thanks for reading on (if you’ve made it this far). and remember, you gals/guys rock. i can’t thank you enough for being so supportive to my love. you’re the best. i hope everyone has a good 2007 and beyond. later. jake.

guess what! i woke up today and ran to the bathroom! wooo hooo! what could be better than the sweats on the toilet. for those of you with chronic stomach troubles (jen and barbe)i admire you for your poise in the face of…shite. utter shite. man does it suck. especially when you are sitting there sweating unsure if you might puke, too. yay! on the bright side…my eye stopped twitching! it only took a week, i think, but ah well. i feel better now, although i have the sniffles.

in spinning news, i am running late on the secret pal spin me a treasure thingy but got mine done late last night from some roving i got from etsy that left a lot to be desired. i must admit, i am so spoiled. my fiber is so so so soft and fuzzy and this stuff was corriedale i think and really easy and nice to spin but felt gross to me. i am really a sensitive flower that way. i can’t even wear cashmere, it makes me itch like crazy. i took photos, but they look horrible, so i will take them again. also, i had to respin old pinky fluffadaro because she got lost in the mailstrom…i mean mail and has been mia for more than 2 weeks…almost 3 weeks. i will have to wait until it is a month to file a claim. so, chris has been really patiently waiting for her. i feel bad even though i didn’t do anything wrong. goddamned pony express!

also, i had henny penny batts to card up, so jake helped me. it started out with me handing him fiber telling him what to put with what, it ended in him making really gorgeous batts all on his own, all different colors, fibers, textures, sparkle…and saying things like, “this needs something else…something lighter, no, not that…maybe that green would look nice…i like how that bit of purple looks, needs more sparkle…” how cute is that? he helps me tag and weigh fiber, too. it goes a lot faster when he helps me. so i bag the batt and then add extra fiber and sparkle and bits to make at least 4 oz. i have 4 extra that are not yet spoken for (one of the spoken for ones is for you amanda!) so let me know. i am hoping to do a fiber update on sunday. i have to do some dyeing, but i am otherwise caught up, i think so anyway.

the nice thing about the batts is that i save everything from everything. every tiny piece of fluff and thread and yarn and fabric and have a huge tub full of that stuff in addition to my own hand dyed, stuff that i have bought, locks and such and a ton of sparkle, so it was nice to clear some of that out. i don’t need all of it.

i organized the studio a bit and attempted to take photos…bad bad photos. it was dreary. i hung up my dry erase magnetic board on the outside of the studio door, so i look at it on the way in and can update the list of things to do. i think it will be a good thing in helping to not forget to do stuff. i got a couple of reach-in stacking bins which work well, i think i will get a few more at the store to-morrow and get rid of the long flat bins that hold a big mess.

in other news, jake will be doing a post right here soon…i gave him carte blanche, but music is his passion (and motorbikes) so i am sure it will be very informative. and, shirtless pictures…huh? what do you guys think? pretty cute…nah, he would never let me. i would have to trick him while he was showering or sleeping. the cats will let me post nude pics of them, though. this is pavel, under the blankets (he likes to go under the blankets and kick his legs to make a tent. dunno why, he just does it)
i found one of him in the shower…

at long last, here is a picture of my gorgeous diana fayt vase that jakie got me for xmas. i lurve it. seriously, despite my background in clay, most ceramics are really boring to me. her work is so much more lovely than i could have imagined and i loved it online, let alone in person. gorgeous.

i think i am going to get a water plant to put in it to really let it be extra gorgeous!

and now for some linkies…
storage anyone?
an awesome quiz for the art history nerds amongst us (let me know your score!)art or crap?from inspiremethursday.com and also from there, color theory and how it affects us.
wanna do an art project with me…and penelope?

if that doesn’t get you excited, i dunno what will!

i finished the town that forgot how to breathe. not so good. let’s just say that love was the answer and it didn’t really have anything to do with the question. blah. ah well. don’t judge a book by it’s cover.

xo
n.

i woke up and the eye was still twitching. although, i took my meds in the a.m. instead of before bed to see if it helped me to wake up earlier, and this morning it did, even though i was up until about 4ish. not early early, but not 2pm. i feel like i was on a bender when i wake up typically. so crummy that if i had to get up early, i would convince myself that i was ill. seriously. i dunno why i feel so bad in the morning. any other lupus/CFS peeps with the same issues? anyway, i got up and started getting orders ready and went to my doctor’s appointment and forced myself to go get some new bras. none of mine fit because i have gained weight and i had the 4 boob thing going on, and if i bent over they woulf fall out and it wasn’t terribly comfy, i must say. i didn’t find anything too cute (okay, one was hot pink, but it is of questionable structural integrity), but i got a nighty, some more yoga pants (i am attempting to get onto what not to wear, i wore gray yoga pants out of the house today!) some underpants for jakie (on a side note, there were these really cute boy trunks, sort of 50’s style that i almost got, i looked on the box at the model wearing them and i could actually see penis head. clearly. it was a little graphic for the time and place, ya know?) some really cute underpants for maddy (although i later realized that the one pair was low rise bikini…for an almost 4 year old? is that okay? although, it isn’t like they have big bums and hips like a woman that they need big bloomers for…) and that was it.

i really need to clean up the studio before i can do anything in it because it is even worse than it was in the photo, although the orders are gone, but it is MESSY. i can barely move in there. i got some new reach-in bins that stack and i am going to clean stuff up. i need to pack up some swaps, several and i am going to make an effort to get rid of stuff that i have too much of. huge several pound cones of yarn. paper. art supplies. beads. stuff that is just piled up and out of control. my desk is covered in stuff. the floor is covered in stuff. i ruined some yarn that was for an order so i need to dye it again and spin it again. also, the same yarn that got ruined got sold twice, so i need to spin up the other skein of it. and fiber. needs to be organized. driving me craaaaaazy. so that will be to-morrow before anything.

tonight, although i want to do some work, i think i will heed the eye twitch warning and just draw and crochet and maybe read my crummy book

thanks to everyone for you sweet comments about jake and i. i have to say that i think he is the cute one in this couple, and he thinks i am, which cracks me up. i imagine people see us together and wonder what the hell he is thinking, and he thinks the same about me. he thinks that all of you say he is hot to be nice, i tell him that people aren’t like that. it is just as easy…nay, easier to say nothing then to lie. of course i am biased, but even my granny who is brutally honest thinks he is gorgeous. and that is saying something. really.

xo
n.