That Geek in FInance or "The Compact Bus"

Episode 17

I Productions Scheduling

1. Events
   1. Ann Arbor Fiber Expo October 22 and 23^rd at the Washtenaw Farm Council Grounds.
   2. The yarn discover tour is running September 9-24. This is pretty much a 2 week yarn crawl. I can't wait an excuse to go to yarn stores I normally don't get to Hurray! More info can be found at www.yarndiscoverytour.com
   3. Yankee Peddler Festival in Canal Fulton, OH 3 weekends in September the weekend of the 10^th, 17^th, and 24^th. I'll be at this event on September 18^th. Be sure to drop by the Algonquin Spinning and Weaving Guild's booth. There will be crafts for kids I have it on good authority that they will be making yarn and woven bracelets. Not sure if B will be able to pull this off but we'll try. I hear I know the lady helping out with the crafts pretty well. <It's my mom...>
   4. Newly scheduled and the event that I’m most looking forward to! I will be attending Session one of Camp KIP April 21-24 2012. How much time is there to Camp KIP? 7 months 24 days 14 hrs 35 minutes 50 seconds.
2. Production
3. What's in my Tea Pot
4. Shipping
5. Materials Sourcing
6. After 5

II Production

1. The Summerflies Shawl by Holly and Ella Knits and as per usual a free rav3elry download. I'm knitting this out of my Zauberball in Indian Rose I am sooooo in love with this yarn. It's variegated with mostly pinks and reds but I think I saw a hint of purple... Ah well.... I guess I need to ween myself off the purple slowly. I'm using sz 10 needles to get gauge and have made it to the end of section 2. This is my second attempt as I wasn't happy at how the stitches pickup around the beginning “Shawl Tab”.

III What's In My Tea Pot

1. Tazo Zen

IV Shipping

1. The Embassy Scarf is done! Woohoo! This one got a bit monotonous toward the end. But it was a fairly quick knit but toward the end I had to force myself to work on it. Mostly though I was thinking. “If I talk about this scarf for yet another week nobody's gonna listen anymore....” Which may or may not be true but it get's my butt in gear. This pattern was the Embassy Scarf by Amy Polcyn I found this pattern in the Spring / Summer 2011 issue of KnitScene magazine I knit this out of Knitpicks Laceweight in Foxtrot. (Which is of course PURPLE!)
2. Kitschy Teacup Pot Holders: {Free Crochet Pattern} from www.tipnut.com. These are being hooked Sugar and Cream Cotton yarn in White, Rose Pink, and Hot Green. One down and three to go. This pattern turned out to be adorably cute. I'm almost afraid to put a pot on it and get it dirty, I finally mastered the lazy daisy's. Well mastered may be a stretch but they are on there and they look cute. I think my girl friends are going to love these. Now to get them done!

V Materials Sourcing

1. This was a spinning kin of week. I Finally finished that bobbin of pot luck fiber and got 205 yds of sock weight yarn! WooHoo. I was pretty impressed with myself. Too bad I don't think I'll get a pair of socks out of it. I may try any way... or then again I may attempt to replicate the weight and spin some more.... either way I didn't get the rest of the worsted – ish I was planning for that slouchy beret. :P huh... well thank goodness I have about 12 more oz of this fiber left. I like this fiber, I like the colors but I think if I had known when I bought it that I would be spinning this 16 oz for all eternity I may have just stopped at 8. (yeah I know I'm being over dramatic.
2. After the Party colored fiber came off the wheel I couldn't resist the 50 / 50 Romney / alpaca Blend I picked up from Kirkwood farms. (The ones with the Cute sheep bags at Peninsula Fiber Fling.) I love this fiber the singles are really soft, It's been a real PITA to spin. It's probably my inexperience but getting the draft to move across the fiber instead of down the side can be a struggle. That said when things are going well it flows like “Butta”. I thought I bought two balls the same color what I actually have is a gray blend and a reddish brown one. The singles are spun and rested. I'll do some samples and decide I want to ply them together, separate, chain, or double.
3. I also Pulled out the Black Cherry fiber I picked up at Great Lakes farm Park. This one is going to be a challenge I didn't notice when I bought it but this fiber a has some add chunks of something blended into it. The fiber doesn't want to draft. I don't always pre draft. It depends on the fiber and it depends on what I'm doing with it. Usually in the beginning stages of spinning a new fiber I'll try to pre draft a bit and spin a bit with out pre drafting. When I tried to pre draft this it ripped apart. Spinning without pre drafting yielded a very slubbly single. No sure what I'm going to do with this fiber. It may be taking a trip back to the stash to hibernate for a bit more.

VI After 5

After 5 this week has been a whirl wind. I don't know what tit is about back to school season but it always catches me totally unprepared. It never fails that I promise my self I will not be at walmart or target the night before school starts. But when that fated day rolls around where am I? Kohl's. But only because Nate wanted button down shirts. I went to that Plaza intending to go to Target. So now gone are the days of sleeping in and not having to compete for the bathroom. Nate has what they call a compact class at one of the other school systems about a half hour from the house. So we have to make sure he's at school at 7 to catch his compact bus. When I read on the paper he had to ride the compact bus I thought that was PC for the short bus. Needless to say he was quite scandalized by that. Luckily compact does not mean short bus it means the but to the schools within the compact.

Work has been crazy... Hurricane Irene will be causing some havoc for me this weekend. Naturally a lot of my customers went into panic mode and I spent the better part of this week cleaning things up on the coast. We also had one of our younger guys in finance went crazy and decided to put about 20 assorted sun catchers on his window. Now I might understand this if it was a window that got any sum but it's and inward facing window that looks out onto the customer service cube farm. We're also not talking about 1 or 2 sun catchers we're talking 10-12 in assorted shapes there's fruit, a frog, a race car, a flowers... too may to remember, So this guys windows has been a point of conversation about the office and it's driving one of my interns absolutely nuts. This intern has been around for a while. He's been with us since his freshman year and is by now really more of a contractor instead of an intern. He's one of those people who knows how things should be and gets a it angry when someone bucks the rules. Case I point he thinks the sun catchers are pretty un professional. Be that as it ,ay we're a pretty casual work environment. Management worries when I wear business attire. I had an apt the required I look professional and I was asked if I had an interview...:) So the intern came back in a huff this week to discuss. “the window” and I said... “Yeah! What is up with that it looks like somebody's grandmas kitchen.” We discussed perhaps putting up frilly curtains in his window to compliment the sun catchers and then he said it... “maybe we should give him some knitting … to go along with his grandma theme.” Now I know this kid well enough to buy him a Christmas present and have lunch with him. He'll text me after hours if he needs something and is in Kent. He's seen me knit on lunch and he knows about the obsession. I just about had to kill an intern. Instead … “Forget you man! He's not cool enough to knit!.”

This Friday was also my mom's Birthday. SO Happy Birthday Mom.

Special thanks also this week to Jknitsalot for her review on Itunes this week If I'm not mistaken I believe she write the the Knitting in the Red Blog at www.knittingintheredfl.blogspot.com which is linked to in the show notes. Yes... I actually did the link this time.