The chart above represents my site hits for this week. You will notice a rather high spike there on the day that Stephanie kindly put my face and a link to my blog on her blog. Holy crap! I usually get around 50 hits a day and I ended up with about 450! Marla was the first to alert me of what had happened and the next thing I knew my inbox was bursting with e-mail and comments! It was really amazing. I don't know if that came from the bit about comments at the end of that Tuesday night post or what, but y'all truly outdid yourselves. And I gotta tell ya, if felt really good to know someone was out there. HWJF (for those who are new here, that stands for "He who juggles Fire" and refers to my boyfriend) says it was the hoochie mama pic, but I tend to think not.

The end result of all this exposure is a feeling as though I need to stand on my head and do something really entertaining. After all, a link like that from someone with such a following is not to be taken lightly (dude, she has over 3,900 bloglines subscribers!). But then I realized, I am me, this is my blog and while it makes me really happy to know you are all out there and reading, that doesn't mean I should change what I've been doing per se. What it really does confirm however, is what I wrote about the other night. It's all about the people! Because of that one little link, I got an e-mail from another music librarian I met at a conference over a year ago and a comment from another Jessica who is also a knitter and a bassoonist! How cool is that? Add to that all the new blogs I have to go have a look at and I just think this whole blogging thing is pretty darn cool.

On to other things....

The Sabres.

I jinxed them. They lost last night and I will not discuss them further until the end of the series. I obviously can't go to SnB and leave them alone for a single night. You all will know where to find me tomorrow night at 7pm. Enough said.

Knitting Emergency Solved!

The nice people at the Yarn Connection made a bit of cash off me yesterday with this:


The color is better represented in the second pic but still not as stunning as it is in person.

I just fell in love with this colorway of Trekking and it fit the bill for an emergency deterrent. The needles, not so much. I didn't want to fork over the cash for addis and I had it in my head that I needed size 3s so I went with these. I managed to get through the ribbing on a jaywalker before I got to SnB where Lauren was kind enough to take me over to her apartment to borrow addis (and see the stash closet. Holy Alchemy Battman!). So I ripped and cast on again only to figure out tonight that I somehow botched the stitch count. Hence the state of the ball in the pic. However, the lesson has been learned. I will never be without a sock in progress again! (Yesterday South Park, today Gone with the Wind. Yeah. I got culture.)

New Webring!

I nearly forgot to include this little bit again. I got the harebrained idea to start a new webring recently and I finally got it set up. So if you are a musician who knits or crochets, go check out the webring blog or tell your musician friends to go check it out. It's getting lonely over there!


Finished object

Yes. There is one. You'll have to wait for pictures and a description though. She needs a bath before her blog debut. Can't have an unbathed finished object parading around on the blog after the hoochie mama shot. People might start to get the wrong idea about what goes on here.

TGIF tomorrow. I'm off to bed!

Knitting emergency!
Originally uploaded by Zarzuelaknits.

This will be the post of updates. There are just so many things I want to tell you!


1. I have finally recovered from the yarn frenzy this Saturday. I was seriously camped out on the couch all day Sunday with what seemed like it might become another nasty head cold. I even opted out of going back to NJ with HWJF. It must have been the wool fumes or something. I'm doing ok now though. I'm trying to fortify my strength for this coming Saturday. (Did I really just type that?)

2. I'm almost afraid to say this as I might jinx them, but my Sabres are so kicking serious Philly ass!!! And for those of you who have been waiting, here is the stuffed Zamboni:



Now if I could only find my Sabretooth...

3. There is a new poll in the sidebar on the left. Go vote!

4. Blue Gable is cranking along. I seem to be in the frame of mind to only knit mindless stockinette in the round. Now if I liked my tummy hanging out:



I'd totally be done. But I don't. And I think that would seriously be against the dress code at work ("Yes boss? This? Oh its just my hoochie-mama music cataloger outfit. I thought if the people on the CDs I catalog get to dress like that I should too! You like?"). So I guess I'll keep going for a bit longer. The sleeve from hell will just have to wait (we will just ignore the fact that May 1st is next week and my bassoon camp deadline is not long after that. De-nile. She is a long river baby).

6. I did a Project Spectrum album update over the weekend (links in the right sidebar). Go check it out and let me know which shots are your favorites. April is almost over!

7. A few words about comments. I listened to Chub Creek #54 (go check out the podcast if you haven't yet. They are quite musically talented, very creative and downright hilarious) this afternoon at work and Dave said some very interesting things about comments. He quoted someone else as saying "Comments and e-mails are the currency for podcasters". He went on to say how podcasting without the feedback was like talking into a void. This really struck me and not only got me to go leave them a comment, but definitely made me consider that the same is true for blogging. Many people will say that they only do this for themselves, or they just want to have a record of their projects. Sure. Ok. I'll buy that to a point. But if you really wanted something like that you could go buy a paper journal, write in it and never let anyone else see it. When you post something on the internet, you are putting it out there for public consumption, like it or not. And that is what makes this medium so cool! Dave's words really touched me and made me think about the fact that although we are using technological means to communicate, it really is the human factor that makes this blogging (or podcasting) thing so much fun. I immediately think of all of you that I get to interact with that I may never have met otherwise if it weren't for blogging. The miles between us don't matter. We can share our triumphs and failures and can learn from each other and we don't have to live next door to each other. Despite the computer as intermediary, the human factor is really what is important. I just thought it was a nice little reminder of what the lady on the right side bar says. It won't kill me to comment, and I think I'll try and remember to do so more often.

Now go leave lots of bloggers and podcasters comments! They'll be happy and so will you!

Saturday could not have been more perfect (well except maybe for the weather, but we won't go there). Lauren and I headed out early to beat the crowd at Webs and get our shopping done before we got to see the Yarn Harlot. This trip doubled as a good excuse to cross off another one of my "things to do before I move to NJ". I can't begin to explain how huge and amazing this place is. You just have to experience it for yourself if you ever get the chance. After walking around and around I started to pick out some yarn for this pattern. When the owner (!) realized that there wasn't enough of the same dyelot on the shelf he took me back to the warehouse:



I nearly had the wind knocked out of me when I saw all this (and people, this ain't the half of it)! After I got that yarn I was able to walk through all this because Webs is having their anniversary sale. It was unreal to see the amount of yarn on the shelves. Lauren and I both found ourselves a little dizzy while taking it all in. I was a bit horrified when I saw this:


Note to Berroco - you are taking the whole "new yoga" thing a *bit* too far.


I nearly passed out when I finally read this sign after walking past it several times:



That's right folks! Half price on some of my favorite sock yarn!! Let's just say that this made my mission to find new sock yarn for HWJF very easy. A little too easy!

And Lauren had a very exciting moment when she opened a pattern binder to find her own creation:



How cool is that?!


After a couple hours it was off to a sushi lunch, a stop at another yarn store (which was a bit of a let down after Webs) and then off to hear the Yarn Harlot speak. While the room was a bit warm (ummm... hello... knitters wear hand knit sweaters... you could save yourself some money by turning down the heat!) the hour just flew by. The stories she told about her adventures with her *cool* husband (Hey Steph, there are a lot of us that think you are pretty cool too!), freakishly thin/tall women at parties who don't quite get knitting, and her dealings with the media and other muggles (I love that someone is using this term for non-knitters) were just hilarious. It was a wonder anyone could knit we were all laughing so hard. The only thing I think was missing is that we should have clicked our needles together instead of clapping. That would have been true knitterly applause!

After the talk it was a quick run back to Webs for the book signing. There were knitters lined up as long as you could see:



So we had a quick time for a pic of me and Lauren:



And me and Sarah who we ran into early in the day and sat near during the talk:


(My hair was apparently suffering the effects of the rain quite a bit at this point.)

I'm still kicking myself for not getting a picture with Katie who I also saw. We were both wearing our Good Bias shrugs!!

One other funny thing happened while waiting on line. We were given post-it notes to put on our books so that we could spell out our names. Part way down the line, one of the people who worked at Webs asked us to put them in the book on the title page sticking out so Steph could just flip them open to the right page. She then proceeded to ask me the question of the day -

"Do you know where that (the title page) is?"

Lauren and I both burst out laughing and I then composed myself enough to explain I was a librarian. Poor women. I probably traumatized her for life. She'll never set foot in a library again.



When I got the front of the line I had a short but amazing conversation with Steph where she not only recognized my blog but remembered that I had left her a comment when she wrote about one of her daughters taking up the french horn! At the end of her talk she had been asked whether she read all the comments on her blog, and she said she did. Every single one. I find that quite impressive. And she certainly proved it to me. And just to make it even more crazy, she even took my picture with the sock!! If I end up on her blog you will probably hear the shriek of joy all the way to Toronto.

I suppose I should show you the final haul:



That's one small bottle of Eucalan, the third Yarn Harlot book, 8 skeins of Cascade Pima Tencel, 6 skeins of Cascade 220 for a yet to be determined sweater, and 6 skeins of Regia sock yarn. And can you believe I have plans to go to the CT Sheep and Wool Festival next Saturday?

After all this it was back home to having dinner with my guy which consisted of pizza, wings and a double-overtime playoff game 1 win for my Sabres!!!


Now I ask you, what more could a girl want???

I am weak
Originally uploaded by Zarzuelaknits.

(with apologies to Simon & Garfunkel for the title)



Yep. Sleeve island for me. Which started out not so bad, and then there were the increases. Oh the increases!! The increases that made me to do this:



After I already had to do this for the rest of the pattern:



I think whoever invented post it notes must have been a knitter. I can't imagine my knitting life without them.

The only major problem with these sleeves so far... my monogamous streak is being tested. But it really isn't my fault! It's spring! This is wool yarn! The temperatures are rising and the cotton is calling.




I may not be able to resist much longer...

This weekend I



Helped my folks with some yard work
(HWJF was a little overly amused by me helping my Dad shovel mulch out of the back of the pick-up)



Watched HWJF devour a whole lot of ham and part of this chocolate bunny

and worked on my project for

Project Spectrum.

So here's my project. Y'all know by now that my cube at the office needs a little more color (ok. A lot more). You may also remember that I got a new digital camera last Christmas. What you may not know is that I've always loved photography and always wanted to take a class or do something cool with it . Well, I can't take a class, but I sure do have a nice camera that I wouldn't mind learning to use a little more.

So here's the plan. I'm going to take LOTS of pictures of things I see all around me that fit into the colors for Project Spectrum. I'm going to try not to delete anything except the most awful ones. I'll upload them all to an album online that is labeled with the color. I'll post the link to each album in the project spectrum part of my sidebar. Now this is where you can help! You can go take a look at the pictures and leave comments to let me know what you think of them. The two photos of each color that get the most positive comments will get printed out and put up in my cube. And if I can figure out a good way to do it, there might even be a prize or two in it for some lucky reader.

So even though I missed Red I have a few pictures there for you to see. I've already got a good start on Yellow and Orange so go have a look and let me know what you think! And if you have any tips for me on photography, please leave a comment!



[P.S. Don't forget to put your pin in my Frapper map over on the left sidebar if you haven't already.]

There! Proof that I really am knitting a crazy ass aran sweater. That's the back, I've managed two pattern repeats on the front so far without too many horrible mistakes. I've been pretty singularly devoted to knitting this sweater now that other items are off the needles. (You can see from the sidebar that they only other thing I have going right now is that damn laceweight sweater from over a year ago now). My vision for this sweater: a cool afternoon in North Carolina in the moutains at bassoon camp, sitting out on the deck with my sweetie and our friends, relaxing, perhaps throwing back a cold one and maybe even playing our bassoons. That just sounds so perfect right now. And there's only 31 work days (because those are the only ones that really are worth counting) until it can be possible! Will I make it by the end of May? I'm sure gonna try...

Despite the fact that I want this sweater ready to wear by camp time, the lack of socks on my needles is making me nervous! Anyone know a good toe up pattern to use with Cascade Fixation? I'm seriously bored with plain stockinette socks but I'm not sure how much texture to give these since the yarn is so bulky. Your input welcome and appreciated!!

Apparently I am:

And HWJF took the test and got:

Made for each other? I think so!

Panera blogging time again (after two attempts to get into any Panera in the area and get a table much less a place with a plug!). In this addition we have several highlights:

1. HWJF and I went to NY on Friday night to visit my parents and celebrate my Dad's 60th birthday. I still can't even believe I just typed that number. Wasn't it yesterday that we were talking about him turning 50? Unreal. We arrived around 10:30pm Friday night after a full day of work for both of us.

2. 7am Saturday morning the roof came off the house. On purpose. My parents have needed to have their house re-roofed for some time and Saturday was finally the day. I managed to sleep until 8, HWJF an hour later than that.

3. It suddenly became obvious that since I was home I needed to go see my accountant and get things with my taxes finalized. So Dad drove, I knit, HWJF accompanied and we went off to take care of that. Got everything signed and my CT return ready to mail. Walked to the post office to find that it was already closed. But the good news is, I'm getting money back!!!

4. A trip to the big city (tongue firmly placed in cheek there) means Dad must go to the hunting store which means I must go to the yarn store. Yes, I took two boys to a yarn store. Nearly ran screaming after 20 min. ("Aren't you going to buy something?!" - Dad) but managed to leave with more sock yarn. I am a pro apparently.

5. Being dragged to the hunting store meant seeing the best in "cabin decor":

I'm sure you know where this came from by now.

1. A blog which you think people have not discovered.
Sarah is another knitting librarian. We even went to library school together. Go check her out!

2. A blog whose author lives close to you physically. Just get as close as you can, it’s all relative.
That's easy. Eklectica literally lives within a five min. walk from my place. Can't get much closer than that!

3. An unusual or weird animal picture.
There is always an interesting bunny pic or two at Chris of Woolybuns. I've learned more about bunnies since I've read her blog than I ever would. Plus, they are just so damn cute!!

4. An entry that made you laugh and got you strange looks from family or co-workers.
There are so many to choose from! But there always seems to be a gem or two over at Crazy Aunt Purl.

5. An idea you wish you’d thought of.
Flickr. The more I hear about it the more I want to know.

6. Something you’d like to knit.
Well this caught my eye today (I'm trying to think spring)

7. A picture of something you consider beautiful
I've been wanting to post this for a while so here it is:



8. A blog whose author you’d like to one day meet in person
Beth from Stuck on Socks. We've got that cataloger mojo thing I think. I'd also like to meet Chrissie since we always seem to get the same results on those silly blogthing quizzes. Perhaps we were separated at birth? Of course there are many others, but I'd be linking all day!

9. A blog of someone you have already met in person.
Lolly of course!

So I didn't get to post on Sunday as I had planned thanks to some fun stuff (which I'll get to in a second) and some not so fun stuff (an unexpected trip to the doctor...nothing serious!). But first, the poll results!!

The overall winner with 45% of the vote was "The writing is witty and entertaining". A six way tie for second was between " I know the writer personally", " The writer shares many of my same interests besides knitting/crocheting", " The writer uses a lot of pictures to illustrate what they write about", "The entries are short", "I was brainwashed and can. not. resist. (my personal fav.)", and "Ummm... I dunno. I never really thought about it". Receiving no votes were "The entries are long", "The graphic design...", "the writer turns out a million finished objects".

I think these results are really interesting. Overall it appears that entertainment value is pretty high. That makes sense. I mean, if we wanted to read something boring we could get out some old textbooks and read those right? We are generally hobbyists in the knit/crochet blog world and entertainment is basically the name of the game. The second place entries are pretty varied. I was actually surprised that knowing the writer personally didn't carry more weight. Perhaps part of the attraction of the blog world is "meeting" new people? I also found it pretty interesting that a brief entry length seems to be preferred. We want to be entertained, but not too long by one person! Then again this isn't all that surprising if you look at most people's collection of bloglines feeds! Short entries make it easier to read more in the short time we all seem to have for anything in this age of instantaneous communication. This is something I'm really going to try and keep in mind as I move forward with my blogging. I think perhaps the most interesting thing to me about the poll was the fact that graphic design didn't get any votes. I know I spend a lot of time thinking about how my blog looks and where items are placed and apparently that probably matters more to me than my readers! Who knew?

In the end, several of you left comments alluding to the fact that you don't read all blogs for the same reason and you would have picked more than one answer in the poll if you could have. I totally agree with this. My aim in posting the poll was to try and determine what might be the most important reason overall that you go back to certain blogs over and over. I certainly learned a few things from it and I hope you did too!

[Edited later to add: I'm probably the last blogger on earth to do this, but the poll has been replaced by a Fraper map. I'd love it if you'd take a min. to go stick your pin in it! Thanks!]

So my fun thing on Sunday was getting together with Sami to check off another place on my list of "things to do before I leave CT". That would be Oolongs:



I just love this place. Their house decaf chai is awesome. It's a tiny little place with only a few tables and chairs inside, but the tea and the little water fountain they have in the seating area (not to mention the cleanest public bathroom in all of New Haven!) definitely make it worth the trip. A great place to knit a little and catch up with a friend, which made for a lovely Sunday afternoon. If you are in the area, do check it out!

A couple of more quick things. I have a posting on the destash blog.



If you haven't heard about this yet, do check it out. And please have a look at my post while you're there. I have a mixed lot of Lion Brand yarns that I'm looking to unload (the pre-moving purge has begun!). Some of them might be good for charity projects if you do that type of knitting/crocheting.


The flickr problem that I.E. users seem to be having as I asked about in my last post has not yet been resolved. I e-mailed flickr to see if there is a fix and I'm waiting to hear back. In the meantime, if you click on the empty space where the pic should be you will be taken to the flickr page and be able to see it and leave a comment there if you'd like. I'm hoping I'll find out what the problem is with this real soon. If you have had this problem and know a solution, please let me know!

And finally, anyone planning on going to see the Yarn Harlot at Webs on April 22nd? I have tentative plans to be there and would love to meet some of you if time allows. Leave a comment and let me know.

Have a great evening!

Happy National Library Workers Day!
Originally uploaded by Zarzuelaknits.

Congrats to Noricum who was selected by the random number generator as the winner of my little desk contest!!! I should have your package off to you as soon as I can find a box. I hope you enjoy it. :)

I got some great ideas from Andrea and the other entrants to the contest so here is a quick summary:

Thank you again for all the great suggestions. I can't wait to start incorporating the ones that I can into my space. You've definitely given me some inspiration! I'll be sure to share another photo when I finish redecorating! :)

And speaking of that, I've already kind of gotten started. You see, I'm starting to build a list of "things I must do before I leave CT" and I got to check two off today. The first was a visit to the Fabric Place:

See the blue material? Cube wallpaper baby! For less than $5.00 too! And of course there are a couple of other things. Some blue Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece for a spring top, and four skeins of Malabrigio (I have finally succumbed to the siren call of this yarn) for the cardigan in the Reynolds pattern. They had a sample knit up in the store in the Malabrigio instead of the lopi that the pattern calls for and I just fell in love. And I even got it in red! I must have really been delirious...

And my second stop:

A new season, a new do. I'll miss my hairdresser. (And can I just say Yay! It's finally shrug weather!)


Tomorrow I'll visit another favorite local place and tell you about the final results of my blog poll. So if you haven't voted, go do it now! See you then!