About 2.5 years ago, my husband accidentally broke my $40 plastic ball winder. It had some flaws, the all plastic construction being one of them (there was no way to fix the broken one without causing it to stop turning, which would have rendered it decorative rather than functional). Instead, I decided to upgrade to a Strauch Jumbo Ball Winder because they’re handmade from wood and metal and the price was reasonable for the materials and craftsmanship. Also, it winds up to one pound balls!! So I ordered it, and anxiously anticipated the balls I would wind.

When it arrived, it didn’t work. Yarn would slip off the center post during winding and create a yarn barfy mess. I chalked it up to user error for awhile but after a year I still couldn’t make it work. I emailed Strauch and within twenty-four hours had received support both via email and telephone. The company diagnosed my problem and told me that if I would just ship the winder to them they would repair or replace it and ship it back to me. Fast forward 13 months. I still had not shipped the winder to them, so I sent another email asking if I could still send it off to them. Again, within twenty-four hours they had responded with “Of course! We were wondering what happened to you!”

I packed it and took it to UPS on the evening of January 11th. It arrived in Virginia on January 18th and was repaired and shipped back to me on the 19th. Yes, they fixed it the same day it arrived with them. It arrived back with me yesterday and I am so pleased to report that it works perfectly. I wound a ball and it was a. super fast and b. super easy. No frustrating slippage. I’m so pleased that I chose to spend my money with them, because it’s been an investment well worth making. And now, I need to find a 1 pound skein to wind. Giant yarn balls, here I come!

I know I posted a link to her shop awhile back, but I just wanted to post another link to my friend RachelM’s etsy shop. I have two of these bags from her and I love them to bits. These are perfect for small knitting projects but would also be perfect for organizing any small things, like cosmetics or pens and pencils. I highly recommend them, for knitters and non-knitters alike.

Full disclosure. Rachel is a good friend of mine. I get nothing if you buy something from her, I just really like her products.

The procedure is slightly awkward because you have to point your eye perpendicular to your face and mush into the machine (there’s a nice pad on the machine though!) It takes just a minute or so and the images are ready immediately, no waiting! How does it work?

The instrument uses coherent red-green illumination, enabling it to image pathology throughout the layers of the retina, from the sensory retina and nerve fiber layer, through the RPE and down to the choroid. The ultra-widefield image can be separated to present the distinct retinal sub-structures and the individual red and green laser images can be displayed in grayscale separation for enhanced contrast.

Lasers! Lasers are awesome! And these lasers showed that my retinas and lenses look good, as well as my optic nerves and all so I have no signs of glaucoma or cataracts. I do need stronger vision correction and will be getting new glasses as soon as the lenses come in. I guess I have a very high curve to a prescription that is normally pretty flat and they couldn’t cut them in-house. I’m looking forward to having sharper distance vision, that’s for sure!

My friend Rachel has started a new venture. She’s opened a fabulous etsy shop full of amazing stitch markers and fabulous bags. The markers are beautiful to look at, lightweight and snag free, even when working with laceweight yarns. I highly recommend her, and I would even if she weren’t my friend.

Today I turned 27. I slept late, poked around online and knit while hanging out with the cat. I received a package via FedEx, (more on that later) chatted with rachelm and was generally lazy until my husband came home from work just before 3pm. Then, he gave me presents (The BBC versions of the Narnia books from the late 80s/early 90s and a signed copy of Shepard Fairy’s book.) After taking phone calls from my entire family D and I headed off to a dinner at Ambrosia. Several crab stuffed mushrooms and wonderful lamb chops later we’re home again and I’m gearing down for the night.

Thoughts on being another year older? Not many. I don’t mind getting older, although I really miss my family on my birthday. Besides, I’ve already gotten two AARP cards (I wonder who messed up that paperwork!?) in the mail so hey, discounts galore. You know, in another quarter century or so. I love birthdays and I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a dozen lovely people on Saturday night for cake, hamburgers, a gallon of margaritas (totally worth all the juice squeezing by the way) and some video games. I am noticing that things never get less crazy. 25 was crazy because it was the year just preceding our wedding. We thought 26 would be much calmer but well, it spun away from me just as quickly as 25. I’ve got big plans for 27, things that will be announced as the year zooms by. All I know is that I need to make sure to take the time to enjoy the ride.

Now, my husband, bless his heart, has big feet. Size 13 wide big. So I knew if he was going to get the socks he wanted I’d better find some yarn (and a lot of it) that I’d enjoy knitting miles of sock with. I always seem to get the urge to buy yarn around nine o’clock at night, after everything local is closed so I’ve started buying yarn online from Knit/Purl. It’s semi-local (in Portland) and my orders arrive within 2-3 business days of placing an order. I think this was the third or fourth order I’ve placed with them since October or so and I’ve always been pleased. So while I wholly endorse the yarn shop, let’s talk about the yarn.

Look at the colors! The depth of color is wonderful and their semi-solid nature is fantastic. I’m knitting this into a fairly dense fabric (9 stitches per inch on size 1 crystal palace bamboo double pointed needles) and it’s still sproingy and wonderful as a fabric. The twist is wonderful, it’s a very round yarn which leads me to believe that it would make wonderful tiny cables, although the socks are likely to be far more boring than that. Shibui Knits is a Portland-based company, so I’m doubly supporting my local community (although I believe the yarn is milled elsewhere).

I planned for each sock to use about a skein and a half of yarn, that’s almost 300 yards each. They’ll be primarily seaweed with contrasting toes, heels and a stripe at the top of the cuff. I expect them to take me a fair amount of knitting time, but it’s the kind of knitting that sets my mind on auto-pilot. They’ll be my “knitting with other people” project, or my “knitting and actually paying some attention to the tv” project.

Had a little bit of a rough week, full of sad things. The least of which was the demise of my beloved and trusty plastic Royal brand ball winder. Above is the last cake of yarn it will ever make, an 880 yard skein of lovely olive green merino laceweight yarn that I purchased from the Yarn Chef for a super secret project.

Alas, when one’s husband trips and knocks over the kitchen stool that the ball winder is attached to, the plastic handle may just break right off upon impact. And herein lies the greatest weakness of the plastic ballwinder. The plastic handle and the winding mechanism are all one piece. All plastic. So when the handle breaks off just where it projects from the base of the winder it is impossible to fix. We tried to epoxy it on but the amount of epoxy needed to seal it would have stopped the mechanism being able to turn. Not so handy in a ball winder.

So, I ordered another one. A wooden one, made by the Strauch company, complete with ball bearings. It’s set to ship on or around the 22nd, and hopefully will arrive shortly thereafter. It’s a more expensive ball winder, over twice the cost of the Royal but it’s general sturdiness, better clamping abilities and the ball bearings mean it will last easily twice as long as the Royal, therefore justifying the cost. I’m buying for longevity, baby.

Speaking of buying for longevity, I should officially extend congratulations to T and Mr. T, on the impending purchase of their first home. Coming soon, a product review!

Awhile ago I had the pleasure of meeting Jodie for coffee downtown. What a sweetheart she is!

As a side note to our meeting, the Pumpkin cookies at Palace Bakery are delicious, and should not be missed if you get the chance.

The main purpose of our meeting was to deliver fiber that I had bought from Jodie’s new Etsy Shop. Four ounces of merino in her “Hebrides Overture” colorway:

Note the cute little stitchmarker near the tag. It even coordinates with the fiber!

I love the portrait of the composer on the back of the tag! Cute detail, I’m not sure I would have known what he looked like otherwise. Classical music is certainly not something I know a lot about.

The fiber was dyed so that all of the blue is at one end, all of the brown at the other and the green in the middle. I’m spinning it starting with all of the brown, then I’ll spin the green, then the blue so that when it is knit it will be a really interesting progression of color. Originally it was going to be a hat for TheBoy but we’ll see when it’s all done.

Aside from meeting with Jodie I’m not sure that I’ve done anything of any great interest lately, that I can talk about anyway. We’re waiting on the cd of the professional photos from the wedding and then I’ll post and link to some of my favorites. Overall we’re very happy with them.

TheBoy and I have been spending a lot of time together, and there has been knitting. Gift knitting and charity knitting. I am in dire need to finish up my package for the charity blanket swap and send it off, my downstream pal should have gotten part of my gift to her ages ago, and the blanket is still here. Newlywed life is no less busy than wedding planning life was, I’m not sure why I expected it to be.

“Mangroomer® is the essential do-it-yourself electric back hair shaver for men. The unique design enables a man to remove unwanted back hair by himself in the privacy of his own home or while traveling.”

Yeah. I don’t even know what to say. It kind of says it all. Other than, Dad, be careful or you’ll be getting one for your birthday. Oh, and this is post [or draft] number 666. So maybe that’s a sign about the mangroomer.

My simple knitted bodice body is done. I am done with the lace on one sleeve but boy, are sleeves kind of boring. In other knitting news, I ordered some yarn for mitts for TheBoy. He’s been pulling his sleeves down over his hands to hold the steering wheel in the car in the mornings because we’ve had an unseasonably cold snap for the past week or so. That means he gets mitts to solve that problem. They’ll be black and orange which is perfect since he loves the color combination and it’s the colors of his alma mater; Oregon State. I also want to get started on some tall socks from my natural dyed yarn [more about that soon.] They will be stripey and fun I think. And I need to finish the second sock in the pair for TheBoy.

My wedding dress arrived in the mail the other day, a month and a half earlier than expected. It’s in good condition, no worse for it’s cross-country trek and it’s even more beautiful than I remember it being. There’s something about a dress that no one else has ever tried on that makes it a little fresher if nothing else. The beading also seems shinier and prettier. TheFabulousKristi will be coming over on Saturday to lace me into it and ooh and ahh over it. I’m looking forward to that.

TheFabulousKristi and I are also planning on seeing The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D. I’ve actually never seen the movie, nor have I ever seen a movie in 3D so it should be great fun. TheBoy is likely going to go with us, and then TheBestMan will be over for a visit since he’s got to come partway downstate for a test.

My Christmas shopping is somewhere near 30% done. We started in August and I recently placed a few orders with places like amazon.com and a few different etsy sellers. For those of you that haven’t heard of etsy.com it’s a great place to get some really quality handmade goods. Like everything else online there’s some crap but a lot of quality items as well. I recommend checking it out for your holiday shopping needs.