Monday, November 27, 2006
Post 40
Blahs, lots of blahs. Haven't been feeling chirpy this month, I like the spirit of the holidays, I can get all into it, and the the truth of the holidays hit and then I feel blah. I did have a nice 4 day weekend, spent turkey with a neighbor. FYI-nice neighbor had sister over who can't make a pumpkin pie to save her life and didn't know you are to cook the cranberries long enough to pop and turn into yummy mush, but I ate it anyway, good me. I didn't get much knitting done, but I did spin. I need to practice my spinning. I almost made my way through the LOTR trilogy, next time I should netflix the extended version. I got some festivus shopping done, almost finished! next are the cookies. I would have written this weekend but F.I.M.S was down, I have some cool pictures to post. I did alot of reminiscing, I tried to e-mail an old friend only to find that the e-mail is no longer valid, so if you're out there, give me a call.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Post 40
I love it when you write a letter or comment to a corporation big or small and they respond back, with no answer, just a go away generic response.
What I wrote to Interweave Press:
I am writing in regards to the Interweave Knits Holiday
issue that you just released. I want my money back. Many of my knitters friends, me included, feel that you should have put a disclaimer on the cover that a majority of the patterns are recycled from earlier issues and from your books. $7.99 is alot to spend on a magazine that in parts I already own. Most knitters buy their magazines and then archive them, they don't throw them away. I bought the holiday issue because I saw the felted pear in person and thought it was great. When I buy my magazines, I choose to purchase them at the yarn stores to support them, I don't look at it right away, I like to wait until I can get home and get comfortable and
them relax while reading it. I am very upset by this. Sincerely, XXXXX, Knitter and Knit Instructor
What they wrote back:
Dear XXXXX,
Thank you for taking the time to write us with your comments. We intended for the Gifts issue to be an opportunity for some of our readers who are not subscribers or who have not been subscribing for a long time to purchase some of our most popular patterns, many of which are from sold-out back issues. We are currently planning a Gifts issue for next year that is full of brand new patterns.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me!
Sincerely,
Katie Himmelberg
Assistant Editor
What I wrote to Interweave Press:
I am writing in regards to the Interweave Knits Holiday
issue that you just released. I want my money back. Many of my knitters friends, me included, feel that you should have put a disclaimer on the cover that a majority of the patterns are recycled from earlier issues and from your books. $7.99 is alot to spend on a magazine that in parts I already own. Most knitters buy their magazines and then archive them, they don't throw them away. I bought the holiday issue because I saw the felted pear in person and thought it was great. When I buy my magazines, I choose to purchase them at the yarn stores to support them, I don't look at it right away, I like to wait until I can get home and get comfortable and
them relax while reading it. I am very upset by this. Sincerely, XXXXX, Knitter and Knit Instructor
What they wrote back:
Dear XXXXX,
Thank you for taking the time to write us with your comments. We intended for the Gifts issue to be an opportunity for some of our readers who are not subscribers or who have not been subscribing for a long time to purchase some of our most popular patterns, many of which are from sold-out back issues. We are currently planning a Gifts issue for next year that is full of brand new patterns.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me!
Sincerely,
Katie Himmelberg
Assistant Editor
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Post 39
If you don't vote, you don't get to bitch. Once again I voted in the boys locker room at my local field house, litterly around the corner from me. Wow, Chicago is getting techy, we had 8 regular voting machines, no chads here, they use a marker, and one high tech digital one. It was fun, it's over, and for the record, if you don't already know which way I vote, then you're not too smart. I did go for the minimum wage increase, ban on semi-auto assault rifles, and the removal of national guard from Iraq.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Post 38
I am getting ballsy now. When things upset me, I am speaking up, case in point, my yearly x-mas airplane ticket. When I was looking around, I saw a great deal on an airline I always fly, and it was the lowest of them anyway. Well, it took a week for me to get ok'd by work and then when I went to purchase, it went up 25 dollars. Well, no big deal, I expected it to go up slowly as the season gets closer. Whoa, but then, the next day, it goes back down, WTF! Seriously, it feels like they were tracking my usage and when iI went to buy the jacked up the price. As of this day it is still at the original price, and I wrote a letter. Sure it's only 25 dollars, but the public has been taught, get your tickets early, the prices go up. I let you know what happens. So this leads me into my rant about the Interweave Knits holiday issue, DON'T BUY IT!
Chances are you've been knitting for awhile and have bought their magazine more than once and maybe even a book or two of theirs. This issue is made of mostly recycled projects. I don't know a knitter out there who doesn't keep all of their magazines in one way or another. I wrote them and told them I wanted my money back, that they should have written a disclaimer that the projects where not all new. I was talking to some people at the Dulaan Project last night that felt the same way I did. So we'll see what the respond back saying.
Chances are you've been knitting for awhile and have bought their magazine more than once and maybe even a book or two of theirs. This issue is made of mostly recycled projects. I don't know a knitter out there who doesn't keep all of their magazines in one way or another. I wrote them and told them I wanted my money back, that they should have written a disclaimer that the projects where not all new. I was talking to some people at the Dulaan Project last night that felt the same way I did. So we'll see what the respond back saying.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Post 37
The Dulaan knit-in went very well. Franklin was an amazing host, the building/house was fantastic, the room I was knitting in had a great view and lovely knitters to chat with. I shouldn't be amazed at the generosity of the knitting community, wow, people gave so much to the raffle drawing, I even won. Well, my name was drawn and I recieved lovely yarn, but this guy's name was drawn after me and won very pretty hand-dyed green sock yarn, we liked each other's yarn, so we switched. The green sock yarn is a bit brighter and crayola than I normally like, but just the right lacey pattern will make it work.
I've got a bit of a headache now, so I'm going out to hunt for food, I really need to go to the grociery store, maybe alittle Baileys will help. Yum. Oh, and Yarmando, Franklin is mine, he did like your socks though.Franklin is so cute, and very petite, you could just put him in your pocket and take him home with you.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Post 36
Lots to catch up on, I haven't been blogging for awhile. So lets start with the obvious, I AM DEAD, yes, finally my death arrived In a white envelope that beat the odds and actually made it successfully into my mailbox. Yarnmando, if I didn't already have a crush on Franklin....It's been fun emailing people playing this very annoying game. Don, the Yarnmando (really its Yarmando but I like this way better), was so sweet, he upgraded the original yarn the socks were started with to Mountain Colors' Bearfoot(not quite the cashmere I requested, but still very nice and color appropriate to the seasons), they fit perfectly and are going to be great with my red clogs (the red suede clogs have stretched with years of use and water damaged and required thick squishy socks for a proper fit) and will be revealed tomorrow at the Dulaan Knit-In. 
After this post I will make my death known on the Sock War website. So now that I am officially out of the game, time for a little constructive criticism. I never got my victims e-mail or the pattern as promised, I had to dig around myself to figure it out. If you are going to be on vacation during the playing of the game, don't play. If you die, PROMPTLY send on the socks you were knitting, help the next person on. Yes it sucked to send mail to another country, but it added a nice twist. I think the Sock War website could have been set up better, I would like to see all the contestants names in order and when declared dead, make them red. I only got two deaths under my belt, I would have had more if the postal system in Chicago didn't suck, and if my victims socks didn't languish in unknown homes because of the lack of communication. So that's it. Would I play again, hell yea.
So what do you think this is made out of? It's from a little pattern I picked up at a Qiviut both at Stitches, I couldn't afford the $70/oz for the yarn, but got the pattern for free. A little clue, what color is it? Not brown, not quite beige, did you guess Camel?
Yup, double stranded camel knitted together made this lovely lace cap, it really bloomed after I wash the oil out of it. I really liked the pattern, the way the k2tog/YO and YO/SSk alternated made a great wave, an interesting technique I will have to explore later and work up some of my own designs. On the SP9 homefront, I choose to ship out one big box a month and have the first one done for my person, but the person who has me has chosen to tease me. While waiting for the Socks of Doom to come I received a package of sock yarn, was it a joke? How evil I think, and kinda funny at the same time. It turns out my spoiler has the same taste as me and bought the same yarn I sent my person, lovely autumn colors, the next time I see Beth, the Owner of Lorna's Laces I'll have to tell her the story. Sock Yarn Everywhere! I have also received a couple of funny and cute Hallmark e-mails, the first one was a Saturday Morning Post picture of a dog trying on a half knitted sweater, still on DPN's, dejavu, I've done that very thing.
So now a cool thing. Well, if you didn't know now I work for the world's best coffee company, and no, I'm not stupid, it's not Starbucks, duh. Have you ever tasted coffee that cost $30/half pound, I have, and hot damn as they would say in Texas, I've never had coffee like that before, yummy. So anyway we donated some coffee to a customer of ours because they were donated their services to a charity TV show, which has come here. Extreme Home-Maker is doing a house less than 3 miles from where I work and they love our coffee, so we are supplying them with some delicious organic liquid black gold. I volunteered to get up at 6 in the morning to drop off a big batch on Thursday and shmoozed my way to a free t-shirt, yea for me. Unfortunately I did not get to see Ty, not yet....
So tomorrow is the Dulaan project, I volunteered to bring the coffee, not really to be generous, yea well a little, I just really want to meet Franklin, I totally dig his blog.
After this post I will make my death known on the Sock War website. So now that I am officially out of the game, time for a little constructive criticism. I never got my victims e-mail or the pattern as promised, I had to dig around myself to figure it out. If you are going to be on vacation during the playing of the game, don't play. If you die, PROMPTLY send on the socks you were knitting, help the next person on. Yes it sucked to send mail to another country, but it added a nice twist. I think the Sock War website could have been set up better, I would like to see all the contestants names in order and when declared dead, make them red. I only got two deaths under my belt, I would have had more if the postal system in Chicago didn't suck, and if my victims socks didn't languish in unknown homes because of the lack of communication. So that's it. Would I play again, hell yea.So what do you think this is made out of? It's from a little pattern I picked up at a Qiviut both at Stitches, I couldn't afford the $70/oz for the yarn, but got the pattern for free. A little clue, what color is it? Not brown, not quite beige, did you guess Camel?
Yup, double stranded camel knitted together made this lovely lace cap, it really bloomed after I wash the oil out of it. I really liked the pattern, the way the k2tog/YO and YO/SSk alternated made a great wave, an interesting technique I will have to explore later and work up some of my own designs. On the SP9 homefront, I choose to ship out one big box a month and have the first one done for my person, but the person who has me has chosen to tease me. While waiting for the Socks of Doom to come I received a package of sock yarn, was it a joke? How evil I think, and kinda funny at the same time. It turns out my spoiler has the same taste as me and bought the same yarn I sent my person, lovely autumn colors, the next time I see Beth, the Owner of Lorna's Laces I'll have to tell her the story. Sock Yarn Everywhere! I have also received a couple of funny and cute Hallmark e-mails, the first one was a Saturday Morning Post picture of a dog trying on a half knitted sweater, still on DPN's, dejavu, I've done that very thing.
So now a cool thing. Well, if you didn't know now I work for the world's best coffee company, and no, I'm not stupid, it's not Starbucks, duh. Have you ever tasted coffee that cost $30/half pound, I have, and hot damn as they would say in Texas, I've never had coffee like that before, yummy. So anyway we donated some coffee to a customer of ours because they were donated their services to a charity TV show, which has come here. Extreme Home-Maker is doing a house less than 3 miles from where I work and they love our coffee, so we are supplying them with some delicious organic liquid black gold. I volunteered to get up at 6 in the morning to drop off a big batch on Thursday and shmoozed my way to a free t-shirt, yea for me. Unfortunately I did not get to see Ty, not yet....
So tomorrow is the Dulaan project, I volunteered to bring the coffee, not really to be generous, yea well a little, I just really want to meet Franklin, I totally dig his blog.
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