Tuesday, July 25, 2006

HOW TO BEAT THE HEAT, YARN SHOPPING AND ICE CREAM

I must admit being a native southern Californian living in OC and not having A/C until the last five years, I thought I would never resort to this. I finally closed the windows and turned on the A/C. Mrs. Twisted and I finally succumbed to the heat and gave up on just the fans. The fans worked until we hit 100 degrees. Four years ago I made a then questionable purchase of what is now affectionately known as the “blow your ass off” fan. It’s an industrial size high quality three speed floor fan that could power one of those fan boats used in the everglades, for those of you old enough to remember, like the one used by the Ranger Father on Gentle Ben TV show. You need to make sure everything is anchored down or is will end up in Kansas.

The settings are:
1. Higher than you thought you would ever need ( this is low)

2.If Marilyn Monroe had her skirt blown by this, it would look like an umbrella turned inside out like the ones you see whenever it rains on the every newscast. Mrs. Twisted found this out accidentally by walking past it in a skirt. J (Medium)

3. Honestly it feels like it will blow your ass off. It moves so much air that it easily moves the window coverings in every room in our place when it’s on. Being an engineer I rough calculated that it can do an air exchange of the room in less than a minute. Think focused category 5 hurricane without the rain. ( High)

Enough complaining about the heat, I know we’re all hot. Saturday we had a chance to see one of Mrs. Twisted friends who came down for a visit from San Francisco. They worked together prior to her moving up north and we attribute her with the re-energizing of Mrs. Twisted knitting by asking for some help. So thanks to Toomanyscarves I’m a knitter too. Mrs. Twisted and I always enjoy seeing her because we don’t have to explain ourselves, she is about 10 years younger but she reads and has a similar frame of reference. I know I’m sounding a bit snobbish but there is more to life than reality TV and this weeks Wal Mart advertisement. Try carrying on a conversation with the youth of today and imagine if you were paid $1.00 for every … well, like, you know, dude, Man. Have you noticed that you rarely ever hear sentences that exceed the monosyllabic drone of those overused prepositions and now unisex labels? Hearing a female called dude is either an ocular problem or an apathetic confusion of gender. Ok I know I can’t fix the world.

Back to our friend TooManyScarves…
With her being a knitter from out of town, we wanted to take her to a cool yarn store we love. If you haven’t been to La Petite Knittery in Ladera Ranch it’s one of the better shops in the area. Only the finest fibers and lots of custom hand spun and hand dyed yarns. ( No cheap commodity filler fiber to fill the shelves and give the appearance of abundant inventory when you would never buy it or ever knit with it.) Friendly owner and great staff. Bottom line is that we make our plastic cards warm almost every visit.

She was happy with the selection and bought some hand dyed yarn destined to be socks some time soon or another undetermined FO and some DP size 3s. Mrs. Twisted picked up some sport weight silk/alpaca that she already started making some couch socks in her favorite color way by Capistrano Fiber Arts, Sonoma Coast now called Marseille.




Lot’s of estrogen loaded conversation and lunch at my favorite Mexican eatery made for a nice afternoon. Mrs. Twisted finished her Cashmere cable hat and matching cable gloves. She expressed discomfort about not having a simple project she could do without carrying the multiple colors of her sunset picture sweater. Check out the Karaoke Ice cream cozy she whipped up in about an hour. After dropping our friend off it was too hot to sit and swelter in the abode so off to the coast we went with the intent on stopping at Gelsons, to pick up some of the new Dove Ice cream that doesn’t seem to be widely available yet. If you have a chance to visit the one in south Orange County it’s not like going to the corner market, they still use the extra thick freezer brown bags to help keep your frozen food cold on the way home, Pergo flooring and no lines at the check out, the maids must have done the shopping earlier. You know in the front of the stores they have charcoal and cigs in the display case, well this place had $500.00 Faberge eggs and specialty silver gotta-havems-whether-i-need-um-or-not trinkets. If you like Hagen Daaz or one of those premium pint ice creams you know the problem. The heat of your hand melts the ice cream as your eating it. Wellllllllll, Mrs. Twisted had the pattern and the ice cream needed to harden after the trip home so... an hour or so later Voila`





Check out the Mermaid colorway, what a wonderful idea for the frozen nirvana. Who ever thought of putting an 1/8” thick solid layer Dove of chocolate over the ice cream is a brilliant!

More ranting soon

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Saturdays Yarn Crawl



Saturday was so HOT, unless you and stayed in air-conditioning. We decided on our car and yarn stores. Mrs. Twisted and I went on another of our fabulous road trip yarn crawls. The agenda for the day included Unraveled in Monrovia, Jennifer Knits in L.A. (really it was in Brentwood) and if time permitted we would swing by A Mano yarns in L.A. ( Really in the Venice Beach area). Well, after the first stop we were a little dissapointed in the limited selection and we were passing one of our happy place yarn shops so we detured to Unwind. There was a Kool-aid dying class going on as we walked in but the owner was very graciuos and friendly as usual. Mrs. Twisted picked up some rowan tweed and I bout some Lorna's Laces Black purl shepard sport and two patterns for t's

We lucked out upon a ½ off sale at Jennifer knits.

Check out the new Project bag from Namaste. 1/2 off!!!

Jennifer Knits was wall to wall platnum card people who wouldn’t think twice of spending $55.00 per ball of cashmere for a sweater that requires 8 to 10 balls. After warming up the plastic a bit we were on our way , a little poorer but happy with bargains, towards the cool ocean breezes of Santa Monica for a nice walk on the pier and hot dog on a stick.

OMG they are the best when you get them at the original location and watch some beach volley ball. By the way some people should never take off there shirt in public. Just watching the freaks of nature in Santa Monica is worth the trip..

On the way to Santa Monica we passed some normacly for Ca that would seem odd if not in the land of fruits and nuts.


Miniature car shaped like a shoe, parked in front of a shoe store.


Statue that looks like an escapee from Easter Island


Cha Cha Cha Chia head in front of a hair salon ( like the gardener is going to cut my hair like he does the ivy covered head.


Three happy men waiting for their spouses to finish shopping, or so we imagined.

Where is Jaws the shark when you need him/her

I’ll have pics of the Stash enhancement as soon as I can take them.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Look what was laying in the park sunning itself at lunch

















Here is a sample of the Flickering Flame lace swatch on the new Lantern Moon Ebony circular needles. I was looking for a lace project ever since I found the yarn. Mrs. Twisted loves the pattern and covets the yarn as well. I just figure what the hell and go for it. If you havent tried the new Lantern moon circular needles yet, you owe it to yourself to try them at least once. Addi's are a little slippery on silk or other slick fibers. The yarn, Blue Herron Deep Space From Yarns of La Jolla, is amazing in real life. The pics don't do it justice.

Oh the Stream runs through a park I frequent daily to decompress and knit at lunch .

Monday, July 10, 2006


Bahhhhh-lex Trebek

This is Mrs. Twisted 's ultra rare salt and pepper Grey sheep tape measure. He is a dirty old man who loves the fine luxury yarns in our stash. Right here he is nestled in the silk Twisted Sisters yarn.

Friday, July 07, 2006

My latest purchase... Malabrigo "Little Lovely"






Like I really needed more stash but who could resist this soft yarn?

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

ok I'm going to try re-launching my blog

hopefully this is the first of many entries of this attempt to create a blog of my twisted yarn life