i am smitten

It started as if a legend. People are talking about a shop you didn't know existed. One that sells yarn. One that is in your city. One that is not like any other. "But there's nothing there for you," people kindly offer. "It's all wool."

You put it out of your mind. Clearly it can only bring heartache.

Weeks later, you go bead shopping. It's holiday week, and the store is unsurprisingly closed. You visit other bead shops on the strip in a fruitless search for the bit of sterling chain you need. And as you walk back to your car, you see these boots in the window of a shop you don't recognize. You stop. You look into this magical store, and see this.

Your body is now on auto-pilot. You open the door and, for a while, lose track of time and have trouble breathing.

People who do not live in Toronto, you have my sympathy. For you do not have what we have: Americo. It is here only. And it is miraculous.

Without question, the store's glory is its selection of woolly products, including a huge range of merino yarns and blends in every possible configuration. With fuzzy bobbles or not. Plied or singles. I'm telling you, beyond words.

I asked the proprietor if there was anything non-woolly, and he said [be still my heart], "yes". And directed me to the cotton section. No bobbly cotton yet, but singles and two-plies and other combinations in rich heartland colors. Oh, I forgot to mention: it's all handspun. The cotton, wool, and all the other fibers they carry. All handspun. Sigh.


I bought three skeins of the two-ply deep pink cotton. No idea how much is in it, but it's a big big skein for $20cdn. See the little ball of Vittadini for comparison.

It will become a big wrap. One to throw around my shoulders on cold days and block out the winter winds which, theoretically, could start any day now. There's a little snow on the ground. I have not given up just yet.

There are other things in the store...the website hints at it. Clothing, leather, woven yardage. And good news: the cotton range is being expanded and they've got plans to make their yarn available to more than just us lucky Torontonians. Their website should get beefier next year, they tell me.

Until then, watch for cheap flights. And leave the pink cotton two-ply for me, will you?

Amy's spinny stash sale

Time to have a wee clear out! The following are items I bought but don't suit my spinning tastes. Payment by paypal only, please [or cash, if you're local and you want to meet to exchange the shwag]. Shipping [your preference...cheapest or fastest or whatever] will be added to the total.

Item one -- Forrester Linum handspindle, 27.49g/.97oz
Yellowheart & Maple
Brand new, used briefly, excellent/like new condition.
$42usdspoken for!



Item two -- Cascade Mount Ranier spindle, 26g/.91oz
The signature spindle from Cascade...brand new, used briefly, excellent/like new condition.
$45usd



Item three -- Hand-dyed silk hankies, 112g/3.9oz
Hand dyed by me! Using Procion H silk dyes, heat-fixed for several hours. Rinsed till the water ran clear [so it shouldn't bleed any further]. The color is a pretty, soft, pale lime and a reddy violet, true to the picture on my monitor. [I had wanted more intense color, so I'm hoping a lover of paleness will want to adopt these.]
$30usd SOLD!




That's everything! Write me at amy A.T amysinger D0T ca if you're interested.

Croooozing is very, very good.

I had no idea what to expect, and really no idea I'd come home all crooz-addicted, but I have. Short form, for those who were curious like me and want to know the deal:

- never once got seasick. used the behind-the-ear patch for the first two days, just in case, but not even a twinge, and the seas were rough on the last two days. i found the motion really comforting, once i got over the feeling that someone was always kicking the bed from underneath.
- our cruise line [Princess] was insanely germ cautious and no one got sick. kudos to them for their precautions and care!
- there is a certain kitsch factor involved with cruising. either you embrace it [the daily newsletter telling you what amusements they've planned for you tomorrow, the morning tv show with the cruise director and key staff people...we actually found ourselves looking forward to both, so clearly we got RIGHT into it] or not, but we found most of it amusing as hell.
- everything [and i mean EVERYTHING] is a photo opportunity for the cruise staff. they put you in situations where they can take your picture so they can sell it to you. without question, these were the WORST pictures ever taken of me, and most shockingly, of my really adorable and photogenic husband. the only picture we bought was the one taken of our whole party just before we got on the boat.

Here are some pictures NOT taken by the cruise line of our trip:

The hotel we stayed at the night before we left [Ft. Lauderdale]. Not cheap, but exceptionally skanky. Avoid.


Hub and I on our balcony while still docked. So excited!


And once we'd gotten underway...it was almost always this beautiful the whole trip.


Look what greeted us at our first stop in Ocho Rios, Jamaica!


My only yarn-related sighting the whole trip. This lovely woman was crocheting hats in the craft market in Ocho Rios. When I took her picture, she got giggly and shy, so I showed it to her and she smiled. Damn, I should have bought one of her hats!


Hub's favorite bartender, Voodoo, in Georgetown, Grand Cayman. They spent some quality time together. :-)


Me and my beloved seester on the last night of the crooz. Hub somehow couldn't get the camera to behave, but I still like this picture.


Damn, that's a big big boat, eh? This is the view from our spot on the beach at Princess Cays in the Bahamas on the last day. Can you say too much sun, despite all precautions? I thought you could.

But what is croozing really like? Have you seen Howl's Moving Castle? Take out the people trying to hurt you and that's what this is like. Unpack, relax, have a drink [very light on the booze, but that suited me fine since i'm quite the amateur drinker] and wake up in another port. Tired of this one? Just wait 12 hours and you'll be somewhere else. Hub and I are fit-in/live-like-locals travellers, so this took some getting used to. But it's great as an introduction to someplace you've never visited before. You'll know after 12 hours if you want to go back.

We want to go back. Maybe not to the touristy parts that we overran, but to the beautiful countries that we got to see little teasy bits of. How Grand Cayman seems overrun with Canadian expats staying for a while. How Jamaica seemed so poor and yet so rich and beautiful. How friendly the people of Cozumel were.

I got no cheap silver. But I snorkelled, people. Really. Hub and dad were off to Tulum. Sis and her hub were off to another set of ruins, and mom was not feeling well. So I found some nice guy in a white polo shirt and clipboard, paid him $40, and was the last body on a boat heading out along the coastline [devastated by hurricane Wilma, so the beach was gone and the coral mostly gone, too. so sad!]. I'd never snorkelled in my life, but what better time to try?


That's me on the right. Horrible picture [don't ask how much I paid for it. I needed proof that I did it!] but it was a fun, fun day. I saw fish. I saw eels! I touched a live starfish [and then the nice men put it back at the bottom of the sea so it wouldn't die. I pulled a shoulder muscle getting out of the ocean onto the wildly moving and slippery boat. But who cares. I snorkelled. On the way back, Corona with lime and I was giddy with my success.

So that's it, then. Croozing is fun and hub and I will definitely do it again, should we ever be able to afford it. [This trip was a ridiculously generous gift from my parents.]

I hope you're all having a wonderfully peaceful, calm and happy holiday and are resting up for the new year to come. Me? I've gotta go rest my shoulder so I can start knitting again one day!

It's like everything is happening NEXT week

I'm missing the Lettuce Knit holiday party, the Naked Sheep's knit for charity event, tickets to a sold out comedy show and now this:

I spoke with a nice lady from CBC Radio Edmonton a few weeks ago about spinning. The piece she produced will be airing on Monday, December 18th, at 8:15Mountain time. She says, "The most reliable way to hear it is by tuning in to our live audio stream on our website. The other option is listening to it on our show website. However, we usually only post the audio for one story a day. While there's a good chance that story might make it, there's no guarantees."

So, if anyone happens to listen to the story [or records it?] let me know! I wanna know what everyone else said about spinning.

---

Me? I'm off on a big big boat. Never done this and I'm a little nervous, but in the good way one gets before a big unknowable trip. I've got anti-puke patches, my folks swear by the wristbands and will have those for all of us, and there's even a little Imodium, just in case.

See you in a week-ish! Stay cool over the holidays and the best to you all!

well, then.

doc is just keeping an eye on me, that's all. ultrasound has been requested but she is not worried in the slightest, and she's very cautious, my doc.

so cautious that she stuck me twice: flu and twinrix [hepatitis vaccination] to make sure i don't get sick on my upcoming [this friday!] vacation south. consequently, i fell asleep on the couch upon returning home and am just now returning to consciousness.

also, when one is feeling melancholy, watching Rent is not necessarily the best choice. i'd never seen it before, and it was on the tivo, so i watched it. i feel like i should hug someone now.

[does anyone but me wonder why some of the lyrics in that musical were so brilliant and anything-but-cliche and some were so nauseatingly predictable that i needed to fast forward past them to keep from screaming? did two different people write the thing? i'm just asking.]

p.s. daniel craig naked, in a chair. oh. my.

What she said

Now that Knitty is out and readers seem to be enjoying it [can you hear the sighs of relief across the canyons and valleys of this great continent?], KG is behind me and all that's coming up before the year ends is a vacation with family, I am starting to reconnect with my life.

Part of this requires a confession: My KG experience was very much like Stephanie's. I hope she won't mind me dittoing her. I won't claim her level of competence, but the stuff about the nerves and the process of production is bang on.

I'm actually quite a confident public speaker, but this experience was tougher than I could imagine. I was nervous, tried to remember everything I was supposed to say, and was heavily coached and rehearsed by my producer [the same one, even!] and treated very nicely by the production staff and Vickie. But I can't honestly say that I'm pleased with my performance. Sure, there were moments when I was *on*, the words flowed in the right order and my personality was in evidence. But it's all a blur, and I mostly remember the messing up and talking too fast more than the doing right and communicating well. I have no idea what the whole picture will look like.

So I will put my faith in the talent of the editor, director and producer who surely said "we're wrapped" only when they were positive they had a show's worth of stuff to work with. I tried really hard and I just hope it all looks okay in the end. It may be a while before I want to do a how-to show again. I'm not sure it's for me.

---

I'm not sure why I've got pollyanna-itis in this blog. Not everything has to be perfect, and it's okay to know my limitations. But I've got a thing about negativity and I often find that writing about something that didn't go as well as I'd hoped can make me feel worse rather than helping. Except that that's not realistic, since life is full of the goods along with the bads. Sometimes you just gots to let it out.

---

What does it mean when your doctor says, "about your mammogram...no worries, but come in and see me." I'm seeing her Monday. No worries my arse.

[See? I'm taking my own advice. No need for calming words and "it's probably nothing"s. I know it's probably nothing serious, or she would have rushed me in. I'm just getting it out because keeping everything in isn't healthy.]

---

Meanwhile, today I had an amazing massage [the best in ages...the RMT was super-attentive to my tendency to bruise and totally understood that I needed to get last week's tension out of my back muscles] to celebrate the Knitty launch. Did I mention that the RMT's office is a block away from my home? How perfect is that?

Then I had a sweet rest to let her work sink in, dinner made by the hub [thick Italian artisinal spaghetti and my good meat sauce from the freezer] and my new favorite beverage: the diet pomegranate soda from President's Choice.

Tonight, more Firefly [I bought the entire series at Best Buy for $25!], more knitting for a peaceful, easy-to-meet deadline [Seasilk!] and sitting with the darling hub. Life is good, and I'm going to concentrate on the goodness as it happens, dammit.

Knitty's winter issue is alive!

And so am I. Huge relief, because planning to go on the tee veeee and fly all over the place and making a big winter issue aren't necessarily compatible. Somehow, it worked though, and I hope you like the issue.

A lot. You could love it and pet it and call it George, if you wanted to.

This issue of Knitty is brought to you by big band radio, Motta espresso and some pilfered granola bars from the craft table at KG. Don't tell.

Me? I'm going to book a massage.

um, wow.

That was a heck of a weekend, let me tell you. I used up all my words doing the show, so I'll let pictures speak for me.


Look! It's my dressing room! The day before, it was Stephen's. I love sharing space with the cool kid. p.s. I think it was haunted. The door kept closing on its own. Freaky.



Delightfully unexpectedly, I got to meet Franklin, and dress him in my knitwear! He's wearing the pattern featured at the end of the show -- a silk scarf called Massimo. I also got to hug John, who always makes me blush every time I see him. Nasty boy!


Look! It's my book, set up for the camera! [Okay, it's a dummy book, but don't tell anyone.]


Look! It's Vickie Howell! And she's got yarn with her name and face on the label! [Lucky girl. It's GREAT yarn.] She was a great host, works harder than you can even imagine and don't even ask about her shoes. [Okay, ask. 4" platform spike heels, peekaboo toe, in faux leopard. Worn with jeans. Way cool.]


Oh, my. Not the best picture of me, but it does prove I was actually there. Me in my Tuscany, getting ready to talk fiber!


I deeply <3 Dave, the man who drew this while we were waiting to tape my segment. Dave is the guy who made my show look so great with his amazing props and visuals.


One last pic -- I got to have dinner at Evan's restaurant -- Angeli Caffe, with Jill [one of the first Knitty supporters], her cool husband and two boys and Cecily. Evan's on the left, Jill on the right. Evan's the woman who runs the amazing trips to Italy [check out the restaurant site for info on those] and the reason hub and I got to go there this past April. We had her beet and ricotta gnocci last night, heavenly bread and delicious pasta. And I'm still dreaming about her pumpkin tiramisu.

There will be more in the Flickr album, but first, back to Knitty. Hugs to everyone at KG who made my show such a great experience, especially my producer, Sonya! [She's the pretty redhead in the first picture in Stephen's post about his show.

[My understanding is that these shows they're taping now -- seasons 7 and 8 won't air for at least *a year*. It'll be interesting to finally see what good editing can do for motormouth me!]

on fairfax with cecily...waiting for coffee and tea.

tv done, relieved! home overnight. stories and pics to come!

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