A Knitting Shop On Cape Cod

We happened across the Ladybug Knitting Shop on Cape Cod & guess what? We stopped in for a bit.

The sales lady was super friendly and said it was OK for me to take some pictures:

Big Knitter picked up (what else?) another blanket project:

And I picked up a couple of new sock projects; pink baby cashmerino for some baby bootees for my soon to arrive great-niece, Tofutsies yarn in green/blue/yellow for some adult socks and Regia Crazy Color in blue/red/white blend for toddler socks.

We're in Boston now, sightseeing with our kids and grandkids. We haven't randomly happened across any knitting stores like I was hoping, but we've had some great seafood!

Knitting on the Road...literally

We've been on the road now for almost a week...heading back East in our little motorhome. Lots of knitting time for me in the navigator's seat while the Big Knitter is driving. Actually, we are in Pennsylvania as I write this. We will be in Connecticut tomorrow and will attend a family wedding this weekend.
I did finish my Favorite Socks knitalong Priscilla's Dream Socks socks(made from Duet Sock Yarn):

And my version of Fetching for my granddaughter (from Noro Cashmere Island):
We also visited Boyd's Bear Country: (had to do it)
I got a bunch of little goodies from BBC and I'm giving them away on my bear store blog at www.mostlybears.blogspot.com; if you feel so inclined, stop on over and leave a little comment to be included in the freebee drawings.
It's so very green and lovely here in the East. It is a bit of an adjustment for us desert dwellers to be in the 40-50% relative humidity, but the payoff is that there are loads of wildflowers and trees around.

Note: Never Hug This Teddy Bear

On a recent beautiful sunny spring desert day, here's what happened. My granddaughter somehow was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time when a 5 inch piece of a teddy bear cactus "jumped" onto her leg.

And it didn't have anything to do with the fact that she was seen poking stuff with an old set of aluminum knitting needles just prior to the 'incident'...(Reeeaally Nana...I didn't poke the cactus with the knitting needles; I was minding my own business and it just jumped across the yard at me!)...But, I digress.

What came next was the really fun part of the incident. After minutes (which felt like hours) of screaming, parental and grandparental hand wringing over how the HECK to get this thing OFF, and then some more screaming, things got even more interesting real quick.

She panicked beyond reason, well, maybe with good reason, when she saw her grandfather coming at her with some scissors. He was intending to cut the thing off so more spikes wouldn't impale her while we were trying to get the spikes out that were already imbedded. Incidentally, these types of cactus spikes look innocuous enough but they actually have little barbs on them so go in really easy and then they hurt a hundred times more coming out.

Well, when the great panic happened, she threw her leg up into the air and most of the cactus flew off her leg and quick as a blink imbedded itself onto her Dad's armpit! And I somehow got a couple of offshoots into my finger. So, now we have three people with spikes in them.

But we were all stunned into submission and no one was crying or screaming or panicking anymore. All that was left was to extract the spikes from Dad's arm and granddaughter's leg and Nana's finger.

That part wasn't pretty and was accompanied by some more crying, which was well deserved and cathartic. After which, granddaughter said to me: "never hug a teddy bear...cactus". Words of wisdom to live by.

Update on Free Yarn Money

Arizona knitter Clarisse is the lucky winner of my Aquarius Resort Laughlin Nevada voucher. Congratulations Clarisse, and enjoy.

A big thank you to everyone who commented on my blog this weekend. I feel like I've had a house full of company...but no clean up...whew!

Quote for the day: "KNITTERS ARE KNICE" (says me)

Free money for yarn

We spent a couple of nights in Laughlin, Nevada in late March for a conference that Big Knitter had to go to. I gotta tell you Laughlin's not my fave place in the world to visit. I think you hafta love to gamble to enjoy that place.

(However, I'm sure the good citizens of Laughlin and their neighbors across the river in Bullhead City are some really nice people. And there might even be some fellow knitters there, which we all know are usually really, really nice people.)

But, that weekend I just wasn't feelin' the slot machine karma. And I tried real hard to pass the time on those slots while Big Knitter was conferring away all day. I guess I just reached a point at which 1.) I didn't want to lose any more money and b.) I didn't want to suck down any more second hand smoke and I just cashed out, put the voucher in my bag and went up to the room for a nap.

Unfortunately (trying to make a long story short here), I forgot I had that voucher and we booked it out of town as fast as we could when the last session ended.

So here I am, with a $40 voucher for the Aquarius resort (formerly the Flamingo) and no way to cash it in and no plans to revisit Laughlin by the time it expires on May 24th, 2007.

So, that's where those really, really nice knitters came into my mind. I thought somebody should be spendin' this cash if they can. Heck, they could just walk into the Aquarius and slip that voucher into the cash machine, walk out and go spend the $40 on yarn somewhere.

So here's my proposition: if anyone lives in Laughlin, near Laughlin or is visiting Laughlin in the next few weeks and would like to have this $40 voucher, just post a comment below.

Assuming I get more than one response, I will pick the lucky recipient at the end of this weekend or early next week using a random number generator.

If I get only one response, then it's your lucky day and maybe, just maybe, you should throw that voucher into the first slot machine you come to and give it a spin.

Short story done. Except this: I'll throw in the first class stamp to get it to you too.

Funny...

... isn't it strange, that more of my adult life has been spent without cell phones and email than with them. How did I ever cope without instant communication? How mysterious and scary! Well, back in the day, we did have a two way radio system with a large antenna attached to the end of our house. The radios had a range of about 40 miles from home. Our vehicles all had these hunky Motorola radios in them like the old police radios, you had to pick up the microphone and press the button to talk into it. While primarily used for our small business, we used them as needed for our own personal communication. We could radio each other about important stuff, like, can you pick up the kids from school on your way home, or we need milk. So, in a way, I guess we were 'cutting edge' communicators of our time. But now, wow, we can call the grandkids, or instant message them, or even video conference with them, from anywhere anytime.

When I got this in a forwarded email this morning, I realized almost all of these apply to me:

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2007 when...

1. You accidentally enter your PIN on the microwave.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't even have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )

12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list. AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself. Go on, forward this to your friends. You know you want to!

~~~~~~~~~~

Here's a WIP for Big Knitter. This is seriously soft alpaca yarn (Baby Alpaca Worsted from Plymouth Yarns)

My Dragonfly and Ladybug Bag

Just received this bag in the mail...from Betriska's etsy shop. I love dragonflies and ladybugs, so the fabric was perfect for me. And the bag's size and square bottom design are perfect to carry a sock project. The bag sits up on its own, the center pull ball sits in the bottom, keeping everything neat and tidy while on the run. Thanks Betriska!