Flooding over, I hope

The floodwaters have receded - in my backyard as well, I believe, as in Chattanooga and Georgia, where it's been the worst. I heard of nine deaths in Georgia and one missing-presumed-dead in Chattanooga: a man was swept away by the currents in a drainage ditch. Apparently, he jumped in there on purpose after boasting to bystanders that he could swim across the swollen ditch. Awful.
In light of these tragedies, it doesn't feel right to start going on about trivial shop-related issues, so I'll leave it at that for the night.

My backyard...

...is flooded. The patio is submerged in rainwater, and the dogs are tracking little muddy footprints into the house. Just wanted to share that.

Scarves Really Done Now *'Echarpes Finalement Finis

Finally got my scarves up on Etsy; you can see them here. I'm pretty satisfied by the way the pictures turned out. I was seriously debating how much to price my Night Sky Crocheted Scarf;the yarn itself was really expensive, but it was mostly made of synthetic fibers, which I usually charge less for than natural fibers. I wound up setting the price at $60, about the price I paid for the yarn; a bit of a loss, but I'm comfortable with that in this case.

Now, to prep myself for a weekend of work!

*Finalement, mes 'echarpes sont sur Etsy; on peut les voir ici. Je suis satisfaite par les photos. Je n''etais pas su>r du prix de mon Night Sky Crocheted Scarf; les mat'eriaux les-me>mes 'etaient tre's chers, mais ils 'etaient presque tous synthetiques, qui sont moins chers dans mon magasin. J'ai d'ecid'e de vendre l''echarpe pour $60 - le prix des mat'eriaux. Je perds un peu d'argent, mais je suis 'a l'aise avec cette decision.

Maintenant, un week-end du travail!

Three Scarves, Photos Only *Trois 'Echarpes, Seulement des Photos

Work, plus some scarves * Travail, et des 'echarpes

I've spent the day recovering from a long weekend of work (strange as that may sound) - I work Saturdays and Sundays from 8 a.m. to midnight (32 hours total) at one of Tri County Center's group homes for developmentally disabled adults. It's a wonderful job; I get to spend my days with three amazing guys, helping them with housework and cooking, driving them wherever they want to go, and so forth. The long hours, however, are pretty wearying, and I haven't quite made up my sleep debt.

Anyway - two scarves and a neckwarmer are finished, and all I have to do is get some decent photos of myself wearing them before I can put them up on Etsy. I'll try to get the pics up by tomorrow! (I think they're pretty.)

*J'ai pass'e toute la journ'ee en restant apre's du travail ce week-end (oui, c'est peut-e>tre 'etrange). Je travaille le samedi et le dimanche de 8h du matin jusqu'a' minuit (32 heures en somme) a' l'une des maisons de Tri County Center pour les adults avec des capacit'es mentaux diff'erentes (je ne sais pas le phrase correct en franc,ais). C'est un job excellent; je travaille avec trois hommes tre's sympas. Je les aide avec le menage et la cuisine, je conduis leur voiture, et cetera. Mais les heures sont tre's longues; je deviens tre's fatigu'ee, et aujourd'hui, je dois rester.

J'ai finis trois 'echarpes, et maintenant je dois trouver quelqu'un qui peut faire des photos de moi avec elles pour Etsy. J'essayerai de montre des photos ici demain! (Je crois que les 'echarpes sont jolies.)

Now in Two Languages * Maintenant, en Deux Langues

I'm making the transition to a bilingual blog and Etsy shop; from now on, I'll be writing posts in English first, and then in French. Note: My French is passable, but not great!

* Je fais la transition a' un blog et un magasin Etsy en deux langues. Je vais 'ecrire en anglais et puis en franc,ais. Note: Je ne parle pas franc,ais tre's bien! (On peut voir que je ne sais pas comment de faire des accents en Blogger.com...)

Tennessee Again

So I'm back home in Tennessee and back to my normal routine. That means I get to come back to my stash and my larger works-in-progress. I'm trying to view it from that angle, rather than the one that acknowledges that I'm a couple hundred miles away from my Dan - by necessity, I keep reminding myself. I start back work at the Tri-County Center on Saturday, which I'm excited about; I love my job. And I have three new items to post on Etsy. I'm hoping I'll get around to photographing and listing them tomorrow.
I'm toying with the idea of making this a bilingual English-French blog. Mostly for my own benefit - I need to keep up my French regularly so as not to let my B.A. go to waste! On va voir. (We'll see.)

The Wedding Dress Saga Ends!

Here it is - finally, definitely my wedding dress! By pure serendipity I stumbled upon it in Chamonix, a small off-the-rack bridal shop in Rhinebeck, NY, while Dan was getting a haircut. Not only was the dress lovely, but I could afford it (!), it was the right color (ivory), and IT FIT ME PERFECTLY. It's light and comfortable and absolutely perfect for a July wedding. I'm in a happy state of shock; I cannot believe I've actually found The Dress. I simply cannot believe it.

Hat finished, scarf begun

I finished Dan's hat yesterday, after a bit of frogging and reknitting to get it the right size, and here you see him kindly modeling it for me. As you can see, it looks very nice on him. The only thing I don't like about it is the way it covers up his nice curly black hair... but that's a hat for you.





I've still got a ton of the yarn left, btw, and I'm using it to make a scarf that should appear on Etsy before too long.








Another great yarn shop, which I visited yesterday, is Fabulous Yarn in Tivoli, New York - well worth a visit if you're in the area, but even if you're not it's okay, because they run a mail-order service as well! Wonderful stuff.

(Far right: my loot from this trip.)




(Right: Divinely soft white alpaca that I want to turn into a wedding-esque shawl.)




C'est belle, la vie, quand on a de la laine!

Back from Boston

Dan and I just returned from a weekend trip to the excellent city of Boston, where we stayed with friends in Somerville and did things like visited the science museum, ate some very tasty food, did karaoke (my first time at it - it was a lot of fun), wandered along the waterfront, took a Freedom Trail tour, and - of course - went yarn shopping. My plan was to get a 16" size 8 circular needle, suitable for hat-making (I previously had only a size 6 and a size 10 in that length), and yarn to make Dan a winter hat to go along with the gloves and scarf I'd already knit him.

I found some really gorgeous hand-dyed superwash from a great little yarn shop in Cambridge, Mind's Eye Yarns, and was once again reminded of how lucky I am to have a guy who actually likes to wear colors - he asked me to make his hat out of it! After hearing all the stories from great knitters (like Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, of whom I'm a fan) whose husbands, boyfriends, fathers, et cetera refuse to wear anything but solid black and gray, I almost can't believe that my fiance wants me to make his hat in the beautiful, vibrant shades of sky blue and grass green you see here. Yet more proof that I've found the most wonderful guy on Earth.


Today we're taking it easy - all that walking made one of his knees quite unhappy, so we're putting off visiting FDR's home till tomorrow and instead lounge around watching Dollhouse, the singing commentary on Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, and whatever else takes our fancy. That means lots of knitting time for me!

One more thing - here's a picture of some really pretty coffee that one of our friends (not me, sadly - I bet it was yummy) had at the cafe 1369 in Somerville. It's so aesthetically pleasing that I have to include it here.