hi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wsa today?
THATS 1DERFUL! yea man ok tootles

-lily

Earnest

Jessamy and I saw the Importance of Being Earnest at the Ahmonson yesterday. I had seen the play one other time at the Mills College drama department (which, sadly, the administration killed... "Hmmm, we don't have enough money at our college, should we cut back on expenses, perhaps paying back the money the college spent on my Lexus? No, lets get rid of a department, preferably one of the staples of a liberal arts education." "What about the drama department? There isn't any tenured professers in the drama department, they all quit out of frustration and anger." "Brilliant! we have enough drama in our life anyway." That has been a dramatic reinactment of the sh*t that happened my senior year at Mills).

My favorite quote from the play:
"To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."

All the acting was superb, particularly Robert Petkoff who played an adorable Algy (but only got 6th billing! the nerve). Petkoff reminded me a little of Eddie Izzard (one of the funniest people on the planet, and now "available" on iTunes).

In June the Ahmonson will be showing Black Rider, which I saw in San Francisco. It was written by someone who's name I should remember, and music my Tom Waits. Very cool. I buying my sister tickets for her birthday, I suggest you see it.

TNNA

Jessamy, and Frannie, and I just got back from The National NeedleArts Association trade show. We learned a lot, have a bunch of ideas about how to make our store better, and met a lot of great yarn manufacturers. Highlights of the show included a funny fashion show (not intentionally funny) and getting to say hi to all our wonderful reps.

The fashion show was sad but funny. The majority of the clothes looked prety bad, they obviously spent more time writing their "descriptions" (ads) of the garments than they did making the garments. The presenters were literally yelling at the models because they were leaving the stage too soon. The camera man also did a pretty sad job, and often was taking pictures (which were projected next to the stage) of the wrong garment.

We took a few business classes and some technical classes. I took Knitting Andean Style, Jessamy took tapestry beaded crochet, and Frannie took a button class.

We said hi to most of our reps, all of which were very nice. We also said hi to some of the people who run the yarn companies that we currently purchase from. The Fibre Company, Rio de la Plata, Louet, Sweater Kits, and Skacel were all great people and great companies.

We also have a list of yarns we want to carry, these include:
Southwest Trading Co.
Bag Smith
Misti Alpaca
Brown Sheep
Knit One, Crochet Too
ChiaoGoo Needles

That all for now.

Here's the sock I made for my mom's birthday. The lozenge pattern is from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks.

And this is an arm warmer I started about two years ago. It will probably be another year until I finish the other one.

habag

Here's the pics of me with my habag (it can't make up it's mind whether it's a bag or a hat... identity crisis)

Felt!

So I made my first foray into felting this week.
Here's the before and after pictures:



Tomorrow I'll post pictures of me wearing my creation. I was really worried when I put it into the washing machine, kind of an "it's out of my hands now" worried, cuz I'm that sort of person... And it did turn out shorter than I wanted, despite the fact that I had prevously done a swatch, but oh well, I still think it's nice.
Angie came in last week and gave us felting swatches. The one on the left is Mohair, The one on the right is Suri Merino. We had read that Mohair often felted funky, but the Outback Mohair turned of well.

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays!
Everyone here at That Yarn Store had a wonderful holiday season (despite relatives calling a certain someone effite).
The shop got into the Christmas season with a few homemade yarn-ball ornaments and this lovely little tree



We also had this not so unobtrusive window display. It was taken off
our window Friday, much to the delight of a certain family member.





I actually knitted only one Christmas present this year, a pair of
socks. Or rather I made only one sock because I wanted to make sure
that it fit my mother before I went to the trouble to make another one.
I did get a surprising number of people asking whether mom had more
than 3 limbs. When both socks are finished I'll post the pics (our
camera is up and running now, but we lost our Music to Knit to
pictures, boo).