um, holy crap.

Well, Wednesday was a fun day, eh? We went live after spending months getting the brand new, super-powerful server ready for you all and BOOM, she sploded.

[If you had any idea of the difference between what we had been running on for 6 years and the exponential improvement in hardware, capacity and pipeline with the new server, you'd be as frustrated as we were when it still wasn't enough to handle you all!]

Hub spent yesterday/yesterevening further tweaking the server settings, trying to make sure everyone could get in and by 11pm eastern time last night, we'd solved most of it. The server seems to be running smoothly now, and I find the download super-fast compared to an average day on the old server.

Thanks to 99% of you who understood we were doing our best to get it right! We'll be doing more prep behind the scenes before we go live with the surprise in 2009 and hopefully this won't happen again. But hey -- there are worse things than being so popular no one can get at your site, right?

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Guess what I'm going to do today? I'm going to a small PJ sewing party with my friend Jen. I'm going to pull out my Featherweight and dig into my stash of quilting fabric and make as many pairs of ridiculous PJ bottoms as I can.

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I've also got something to show you:

What's the yarn? Dudes. It's silk. From Briar Rose.

But Briar Rose doesn't do silk? They do now! Thanks to gentle persuasion from my friend, Jennie and yours truly, Chris at Briar Rose has finally added silk to her previously all-wool lineup! She gave me a gift of some of this gorgeousness at Rhinebeck and I wouldn't stop browbeating her until she agreed to put it in the shop, because I knew you'd want it too.

What's the pattern? It's a little something I've worked up for y'all. The whole thing will be available shortly, but I thought you might want a peek at the stitch pattern now. It explains why I'm calling the pattern Broccowli.

You may groan, and I wouldn't blame you.

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Me? I'm going to dig through a bag of fabric. Wheeeeee!

you want beads? i got yer beads right here.

the first FO. these are shimmery delica beads in a pre-mixed assortment i bought at a great bead store in Chicago a few years ago. the contents of one tiny tube JUST made a band long enough.



here's the clasp from the pretty side. it's sterling and was $6 [i think] at Arton Beads on Queen West in Toronto. here's how i attached it:



is that the right way to do it? it's the only way i could think of, and it's very strongly attached to the band, so i'm leaving it as it is.

the clasp is rather brilliant. easy enough to get on but a bugger to get off, which means i don't have to worry about it coming undone like toggles do.

and the peanut is a little thing i've been wearing on a simple chain for a while. i just like it.

before there was dood...

there was this stuff. the tv show it goes along with [Swingtown] is amusing enough, but i really am liking the music. serious flashback time.

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my tour de fleece experience is off the rails. i haven't spun in 3 days, but i have been working hard on Knitty and am cutting myself some slack.

the 2 ounces of tussah is half spun already, so i'm sure i'll finish by the end of the challenge. perhaps that's the problem. set a harder challenge and you can't let it drop without a disaster.

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also, i'm beading again. i am stuck at how to finish the bands of peyote i've completed so they look professional and are functional without being uncomfortable to wear. i'm expecting a few bead books to arrive up here shortly, and i think they'll help significantly.

and in the downtime since i picked it up last, my large-bead peyote has become tidier [or at least i've figured out how to keep it tidier now]. pictures forthcoming shortly.

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really, lots of work going on here. thank heavens i didn't plan any travel this summer. i'd be out of my mind if i had to go anywhere beyond the back yard or one of my two LYSs.