Mossy Cottage Knits

Exposure Therapy

Ack! Yesterday certainly got away from me! I felt like one of those game-show contestants who are locked in a wind-booth so they can humiliate themselves by grabbing for money, only I was grabbing for seconds, minutes, hours. That, and, for the first time in 3.5 years, I had diddly squat to write about. I’d milked the hysterectomy drama for all I could, the Giveaway party was over, Dulaan is “between years,” there are no vacations planned, no Feral meetings for a couple of weeks, no Guild meeting for at least three (althoooough it does occur to me that La Stephanie is supposed to be here this weekend. Score! Who’s going to be at Third Place Books? Speak up!). And then, for some reason, I couldn’t access the Mossy Cottage site and couldn't have posted if I'd wanted ta'. So, you get a Thursday post today, Dear Readers, a first.

First, the answers to a couple of comments followed by a coupla comments of my own:

1. Readers from other states have asked if they can get copies of F.I.R.E.’s “One Steppe at a Time” movie. F.I.R.E. tells me that, in their ongoing efforts to raise the $40,000 they need every year, they are selling the movie for $10. Only 4,000 copies to go, and they’re golden! So, no, unfortunately—but for a good reason—I can’t make copies of the movie and distribute them. (We did show the movie three times at the Giveaway. It was a great success, if you define “success” as having two of our guests became so snurfly and weepy that they had to leave the room. Do I know how to throw a party or whut?)

2. A few readers have asked if they can start mailing Dulaan 2007 items to F.I.R.E. now. Heck, yeah! You can mail items in any time they’re ready to go. However, you might want to wait until I have the 2007 version of the Dulaan Box Inventory Form posted so you can use it. TMK and I have to hunker down and talk about logos and such in preparation for the launch of Dulaan 2007.

3. I am thrilled to see that a lot of out-of-staters are clamoring for the remaining Avalanche yarn. I will need to develop a plan for getting it distributed; as soon as I know what the heck I’m doing, I’ll post info on the blog.

(Speaking of the Avalanche yarn, at one point MaryB casually tossed off a comment about how the Avalanche vest—which I knit in one back and two front pieces and which has laughably bulky seams—could, in fact, be knit seamless up to the armholes. Whuh?! Surely you jest! But, no, she jesteth not. So I’m astonished to find myself knee-deep in a redesign. It’s going well, considering that I have no bloody idea what I’m doing. Thanks to the bulky yarn, though, I am very quickly getting to the part where I will bungle things, then I can frog the vest and, just as rapidly, bungle them all over again. Fun times.)

4. I am working on the new list of suggested patterns for Dulaan because a lot of the existing links have become obsolete (no thanks to Lion Brand, which now requires you to give away your first born before you can access their free patterns. Grrrr.) Suggestions, please! I am looking for warm, straightforward, free and online.

And now, so this entry won’t be all business, long-time readers will remember that I am sock-monkeyphobic. I hate sock monkeys. They give me butterflies—and not the good kind—in my stomach, they make me restless and uneasy, and compel me to look at the ceiling, at the floor, out the window, at my fingernails, anywhere except at the sock monkey. It’s not an extreme phobia like a fear of flying (which I also have) or a fear of heights (which I don’t have); I just find sock monkeys very, very disturbing. So you can imagine how I felt about this. (Watch the video; there’s another dress where two strategically positioned sock monkey heads form the bust of the dress.)

No posting Friday or Monday, Dear Readers. I will be out and about.