Car Knitting and Impish Gnomes

I've been working on a secret project that has an early July deadline for publication in a knitting magazine. Since I currently have about 6 secret projects going, I'm going to give this one a pseudonym of "Leaf Pelfriffs."(Sorry I can't reveal more info at this time). Anyway, the hubby and I were on our way to my BIL's house to welcome my in-laws who had just flown in from overseas.

In my infinite and ambitious wisdom, I decided to work on my project during the dark 40 minute drive (9:30 p.m.). "Leaf Pelfriffs" is designed with cables and some stitch patterns in it, so I was really proud that I didn't drop any stitches in the car (or so I thought), so I continued working. This morning, and about 12 inches later, I discovered that I was missing a stitch. I apparently dropped it while knitting in the car in the dark. Ai-yah! It was far down enough and in a weird spot that it was not an easy fix with some unraveling and a crochet hook. I had to riiiiiiiiiiipppit. ::sigh::

"Leaf Pelfriffs" calls for buttons. I have some fantastic chunky buttons, which includes this chunky bone button at left. But alas, I cannot find my awesome buttons because apparently Impish Gnomes have decided to have a wild party in my craft room.

Luckily, my small jar of various buttons, including some vintage ones were not affected. However, I don't think any of them are exactly right for the this project. (see photos at the top)

I would try to look for my nice bone and tree nut buttons, but as I mentioned, the darn Impish Gnomes partied in my craft room. They must be tiny short gnomes because they don't seem to mess up anything stored above 4'.

I don't have any photos of the floor, because frankly, I'm embarrassed at all the fabric and yarn scraps that got strewn around like confetti by the partying Impish Gnomes.

Ugh, I really hate my white walls. I couldn't decide on a color when we moved into the house, so I thought I'd at least paint it white to cover the original puke-colored paint. I also thought that I could easily re-paint when I do decide on a color. Um, does anyone know how to exterminate Impish Gnomes and hire me some House Fairies?

These two photos above show my bags of knitting UFOs. If you go to the set in my flickr, you can see the notes to identify the baggies.

I swear that once in a while my craft room is organized. You can see the hints of organization behind the labels on my containers. I guess I'll have to find a way to banish those Gnomes once and for all.

The BEST WWKIP Day Ever

Clockwise: 1. Marie, Melyssa and Abraham with Christine grilling corn with her hubby in the back; 2. Seven our new alpaca friend; 3. (l-r) Holly's pooch, Holly, Michelle and Denise L. from the Anaheim Hills group photographing me photographing her; (l-r): Gloria, Victoria, Renata and Rachel chatting in front of the prize table.

This past Saturday was World Wide Knit in Public Day! Many groups in and around Southern California held WWKIP events. Of course this year, my knitting group held our annual picnic to coincide with WWKIP. We invited other knit and crochet clubs from Orange County, Long Beach, Los Angeles and anyone else to join us in the festivities. I think we had the very best WWKIP event. In fact, I think we may have had the best event all around! Okay, so I may be a little biased, but I don't know if the other groups say the following about their WWKIP events:

• We had jugglers and spear throwers who brought juggling and a unicycle. I didn't get photos of the jugglers, but Christine from Long Beach SnB did here!
  

• We had vivacious knitters that tried to knit while hula-hooping!

Above: Zona trying very hard not to drop her hoop and her stitches!


Above: Rachel also trying to keep up her hoop and stitches.

• We had animals at our picnic, including an alpaca! People brought their dogs, some kids brought their surprisingly cute rats and new ATS members Amanda and Margo brought their alpaca Seven, named so for his 7-7-07 birth date. I was really resisting stealing him away in my car, and since he's small, I was thinking that I may be able to pass him off as a rare dog breed or something. ;) Zona snapped a photo of the kids playing with the rat right above my head - eek!.
  

Clockwise: 1. Some kids playing with a pet rat. Rat is on the long-haired girl's shoulder; 2, 3. Seven the alpaca showing off his cute face and new haircut for the camera; 4. Seven smiling for the camera.

• We had musicians singing for us with their guitars. Zona also has a picture of Jeff and his guitar.
  

Jonathan and the kilt-wearing Jeff singing some tunes for us.

• We had several games and contests including a speed knitting war and a mystery fiber game! I didn't snap photos of the finished war fish, but Denise L. did here and here. Zona has a photo of the prize table.
  

Clockwise 1. Robert and 2. Chia working on their Knitting War projects, trying to kill each other off; 3. & 4. Courtney, Shawn, curious boy and Zona check out the Mystery Fibers.

• We had lots of spinners too, including a few very handy and crafty kids who got the hang of spinning in no time!

Clockwise: 1. Kristi spinning some luscious green wool ; 2. Jamie gets the cutest apprentice to help him spin some undyed wool from a small mill; 3. Me spinning some silk; 4. Aliza wanted to learn to spin, so I let her try out my wheel as her brothers watched.

• We had customized name tags! I made about 30-35 name tags for the folks that I knew from ATS and the Anaheim Hills Knit Night. I'm just a little bummed that I forgot to take photos of two of my favorite tags that I made. I made a "King Snark" for Robert, who is undoubtedly the bitchiest and snarkiest member of our group. (Robert wore his tag with pride, btw.) I also made one for Zona's very understanding hubby (Jeff the guitar-playing kilt dude). I gave Jeff a club of his own: S.P.O.O.F. (Supportive Partners Of Out-of-control Fiberholics)

All in all, we all had all the ingredients for a stupendous WWKIP event. We had good food, great people, fiber, prizes, laughs, good weather and an alpaca. Really, what can one ask for? I have more pics uploaded in my Flickr (lots more of Seven).

All this fun would not be possible without our group's fearless leader, Renata who did most of the arrangements, from the park permit to the pop-ups, tables, banner, jugglers and spear throwers!



Clockwise: 1. Karen and Debbie ; 2. Me, Rachel and Zona; 3. Abraham working on his needlepoint while Jamie knits.

I Don't Have A Penis!

To the obviously-phallically-obsessed that keep sending me cleverly disguised spams and ads that sneak past my spam filters:

I don't have a penis, have never had one, nor do I want want one (especially since it seems so prone to dysfunction). So, your ads about penile enlargements and viagra or psuedo-viagra miracles will likely be better received by people who have or want a penis. Your ads are wasted on me and my non-existent penis. Seriously!



Oh, and as for your breast enlargement spams and ads... well, erm, the running joke with my friends is that I stole my girls from other Asian women, hence left others flat. I definitely don't need or want any more boobage. In fact, I have more than enough to spare and may topple over at the slightest zephyr if I get even a smidgen more.

Ah, and don't misinterpret this and start sending me ads about weight loss either - my voluptuousness is not due to my weight. My weight falls into the average weight range for my height, and I am comfortable with my body because I also have a healthy body image. Thus, I have no need or desire to lose any excess weight, and you certainly cannot convince me otherwise.

Now, if you have a miracle cure about how to shrink my girls naturally, then I may not be as mad at you for sending me crap.

Sincerely,
Boobalicious Penisless Healthy Gal

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Guess who I called me??? Read on as I keep you in suspense a little longer with my verboseness. :)

Though I have nothing I have been able to show or share publicly, I have been keeping myself very busy over the past 3-4 months with knitting. The reason is because all the things keeping me busy are knitting designs that I submitted to various publications. All that good stuff has to stay a secret until either (a) I get rejected and decide to self-publish or (b) I get accepted and the pattern gets published.

Since I started knitting not so long ago, I toyed with about 3 patterns that I randomly submitted to e-zines. Recently, I decided to take things to the next level and submit for real. I began reading public forums and researching how to submit designs.

My first attempt at a book submission occurred in December 2007 and it proved well, since 2 of my designs were selected to be in the follow-up to the successful Sensual Knits book. Currently, there is some delay with the publisher, but all the contributing designers are hopeful that all goes well. With any luck, I will resume work for this project soon.

More recently in the past few months, I submitted designs for 2 other books, 2 traditional print magazines, 1 e-zine, and a yarn company. I don't mean to be vague about to whom and what I submitted, but typically, one cannot and should not be divulging any specific or juicy details about pending projects unless thus granted by the companies or publishers.

• The yarn company wanted 4 of my designs. I've completed and was paid for one, and the yarn company is holding off the others for a later date as they work on additional things for their company.

• Two weeks ago, I received news about my submission for a book about summery knitting -- 2 of my 3 design submissions were selected for the book. I have since received the yummy yarns and am nearly halfway done on the first of the projects, due in June. The other project is due in July. The yarns and colorways for these projects are truly divine! I really wish I could post photos of the yarns.

• This past Monday, I received a voice mail message and an email from the editor of a superb knitting magazine saying that she wants to publish one of my designs. Woohoo! I was so excited from jumping up and down that I think my cats might have thought we were having an earthquake. It was my first "real" submission to this magazine. I just received the yarns for it (so lucious!), but I still haven't talked to the editor about the details of the project, which makes me just slightly nervous especially since the deadline is rather tight. -- I have less than 30 days to finish it. I know I will definitely meet it, but I think I'm just being a little more neurotic on this one because I want to make sure that I plan my time well in order to anticipate any unforeseen snafoos when working on multiple knitting design projects with overlapping deadlines.

Wait, I have more good news!

• Just 3 days ago, I received a packet from the publisher of the 2nd book containing news about 2 of 3 designs I submitted. The packet contained 1 rejection letter for the lace beanie shown in the photos, and 1 acceptance letter for the other project. The best part of this bit of news is that I already did the work so other than signing the contract, I don't have any deadlines to meet! I am now eagerly awaiting news on the 3rd submission for this book.

The "reject" hat is called Geode. In all honesty, I was not happy with it, but I didn't have time to rework it for the book submission, so I am not at all surprised that it was rejected. As for the fate of this design, I will definitely be self-publishing it though I have not decided whether to offer it as a free pattern or to rework it a bit and sell it.

Googling Myself

It's been a while since I tried to Google myself. Then today, I read an email from my friend Jean, who apparently found out a bunch of stuff about my crafty stuff when when googled me.

I hadn't really googled my name before. I have googled "crafty diversions", "homemade yarn swift" and some of my other patterns before just to see what people were writing and blogging about them.

So, curiosity got the best of me and I googled myself. There's still a lot about what I did in my former job, where I did a lot of public speaking. There are some blog mentions and apparently a previous post by another yarn shop.

Then I happily discovered that the editor of Craftzine had posted about my Buccaneer's Booty pattern in a post way back in October 2007. I had NO idea!