I have the best Dad ever

My Dad went to the Michael’s up by him. Again. And found a skein of Wool-ease in the appropriate color and dye lot for me. Again! And once again, the long sought-after yarn is winging its way to me in a package. (I’m pretty sure Emily was involved again. Thanks to you, too!)

I swear this should finish the sweater.

I tried looking in yarn stores around here, but they all have the dye lot that was shipped after the one I used. It’s not a good near-match, having a decidedly gray undertone that clashes visibly with the creamy overtones of the lot I’m using. (I think my lot is prettier. ) I will be soooo relieved to have Genevieve completed.

Which brings us to the question, will I ever use dye lotted yarn again?

I’m sure I will, many if not most of the nicer yarns are done in dye lots. I just need to make sure they have enough in one dye lot before I buy any. That’s a little trickier when designing, as I’m not sure how much I’ll need. My initial estimate on Genevieve was 7 3-oz skeins (Michael’s only had 5, I should have held out…) which proved to be just barely inadequate. The wide ruffles consumed more yarn than I had supposed. Still, though, I’m sure there are good uses for one or two extra skeins of various yarns. That sweater in the December Crochetme, for instance, although I don’t plan to make it.

Anyway, I’m so pleased to have this yarn issue (which has been going on for MONTHS) resolved so happily. Although I’m sure that no one will believe me until I post pictures of the FINISHED sweater.

Goblet of Fire and Christmas Stuff

Greg and I left Max with some friends to go see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was nice, we haven’t been out to the movies in months. (Although, my birthday is coming up this month, and I’m plotting to have Greg take me to go see the Chronicles of Narnia – if ever there was a book that deserved more to be memorialized in a major, well-funded feature film, I haven’t met it. Obviously, I mean now that they’ve already taken care of the Lord of the Rings. So, back to Harry Potter…) It was fabulous, a visual confection while still retaining many of the plotline details and nuances that made the book so gripping. (Or as Steven Colbert says…’grippy.’) If you like Harry Potter, wizards, fantasy, or awesome movies – go see it.

And lest you think crocheting is all I do, here is some of my holiday handiwork. Now, I didn’t make this nutcracker, but I painted it. Not the face, though. That was prepainted. Hah.

Here is our treeeeeee…it’s fake. They claim it’s 7 feet tall, but the last foot is the topper-spike. I need to make something to go on top of it.

And here are our merrily decorated stairs. Greg’s the only one whose stocking I’ve finished thus far, but Max and mine are on the way. If I ever dig them out. I’ve sewn on the pattern with felt and embroidered the details. (Click on the pic for a bigger view, then click on that for a BIGGER view – you can see the stocking pretty well. )

Anyway, Merry Christmas! I hope to dig out the many, many projects I need to do – maybe tomorrow! – and get to work!

I’m back, and I’m exhausted

We did it. We moved. It’s a nice place: we’ve upgraded from an apartment to a townhouse, with an upstairs and a downstairs, a front door and a back door, a little yard, a little shed, many more closets than we had before, and some nice neighbors. We’re quite pleased with it.

The move itself was not pretty – two pieces of furniture were damaged, another destroyed (our dresser drawers are even now sitting in two stacks on the bedroom floor), and one of the very polite women who packed our belongings actually stole four of my spoons. It’s a nice set, a wedding present, and I was so angry I cried – I’ve never lost a piece, even though this is our third move, and I’ve always taken good care of them. We’re going to get paid to repair and replace the furniture, of course, and the spoons, but I’m still puzzled as to why someone would steal four spoons. They are nice, solid, hefty pieces – perhaps she thought they were silver (not a very experienced thief?), in which case they would have been worth nearly 175 dollars, instead of less than 50 brand new. (I’m having a hard time finding a replacement estimate by myself, but from what I can tell, less than 50 dollars is a good initial guess.) Perhaps she was expecting to steal some Christmas presents, and was dismayed to find that our easily steal-able valuables had already been packed away (so we thought – who steals stainless steel spoons?) and so took what she could get. Maybe she steals silverware from all her moving jobs, and sells them on ebay as replacement pieces – maybe she just liked them.

All I know is, I’m super-pissed.

In other depressing news, I ran out of yarn for Genevieve again, with only about 6(?) rows left to do on the last cuff. This is ridiculous. I’m never going to be able to find another ball of the dye lot I need, so I get to go yarn-store hopping looking for a near match. Fabulous. Good news for you guys, though, the pattern is complete (at least in my size) so until I can go on that yarn hunt (sometime next week, perhaps?) I’m going to work on altering it for various sizes so that it can move forward to testing, and then selling (I’m excited about the selling). Maybe things will look up a bit.