name that colorway!

We are {sob} sending 17 old friends into the vault very soon to make some room for new best friends.

This is distressing, I know. You hate change. You don't want me to tell you can't have something you like. It's like your mom telling you you can't eat the Halloween candy for breakfast when you're four.

(If you don't recall this from childhood or parenting, it goes something like this: "Please? PLEEEEEEASE can't I have just ONE PIEEEEEEECE? PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE?" And then when the level headed mother thinks, Peanut butter cups for breakfast can only bring bad things and says "No, maybe you can have a piece after lunch if you eat everything on your plate," the child has no choice. They must respond, "You're not my mommy anymore. My real mommy would let me eat as much candy as I want.")

Unless, of course, you're blessed with a mild mannered four year old who obeys your every instruction without arguing. In which case, I would suggest keeping that to yourself. Thanks.

I've already gotten my fair share of "Mean, mean, mean, badbad Yarnista" comments. And that's OK. I'm prepared to be the mom in this situation. That means you get to be the four year old. And in case you don't remember from childhood or parenting, four year olds are easily distracted by shiny objects.

Look! It's a yarn picture!

It's a contest!

It's a sale!

Our soon to be released collection of colorways has 34 beauties in it. Put 17 to bed, bring 34 guests to the party. See how, being the benevolent Yarnista that I am, I'm actually increasing your colorway options when this is all said and done?

Thirty-four is a lot of really good colorway names to come up with. And I am picky.  I have been known to ruminate on these things for days. We've brainstormed some names in the studio, and I have some I like. But I could use some more suggestions. (Note: picky does not always equal mean. One can be selective without being an ogre.)

So, here's your chance to offer your colorway name suggestions. If we pick your name, you'll get a skein of that colorway when it's released. No catch. No "just pay separate shipping and handling, which is really like paying for item." I will send you a skein for honest-to-goodness free.

A couple of hints to increase your chances of winning:

1. No names that are currently in use. You can check out our colorways here and here if you're not sure.

2. No names that are impossible to pronounce. People do not always want a lesson in etymology when holding a skein of yarn. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I will not be choosing Deasmumhnach, Larfhlaith, or Oilleog. If someone can't even take a stab at it in English, I probably won't choose it.

3. The name has to have a pleasant sound, feel, or connotation without being overly trite. I'm not as attracted to names like "Holding hands under a rainbow made of angels," or, "Fairy skipping across a pond of enchanted lily pads." Conversely, I also don't tend to choose names that have negative words or sounds in them, like "Kill him," "Parseltongue," or, "Moaning Myrtle."

4. Names should not be shared with other well-known products currently being sold. In other words, I'm not going to name a colorway "Bounty Paper Towels," "Tide Free and Clear," or, "Land O'Lakes Butter."

5. Names should not be something my nine year old son would find hilarious. You know exactly what this means, don't even ask.

6. I especially like groups of names that are related to each other somehow. Previous colorway collections have been things like Bayside, Driftwood, Skipjack, and Salt Spray. They sound pretty. The relate to each other. My brain likes that.

To enter, leave your suggestions in the comments here. I'll close the comments at the end of the day on April 2nd, so you have time to think about things. You can enter as many times as you want. Please leave a valid email address in the email box when filling out the comment. I need to be able to reach you. If you leave it there and not in the actual comment itself, no one else will be able to see it.

And while I've bent your ear, the 17 colorways that we're saying goodbye to are 20% off for a limited time. Grab them while you can.

Ready, Set, Go!

all the weird things in the world

All the weird things in the world happen to me.

Like the time I spent two hours talking to a famous person having no idea who he was until he left his card.

Or the time I got on a train and had to moderate a dispute between a blind man and a deaf man.

Or the time I won a radio contest that one of my friends entered me in and I was forced to go on a limousine ride for two ridiculous hours around the city I've driven around in my entire life.

I can guarantee you that:

1. Any grocery cart I choose will have at least one bockety wheel.

2. The line I get in to pay will experience a technical difficulty of some sort, resulting in what was once the shortest line now being the longest line.

3. Any plane I am within two gates of will be delayed.

4. Anything I choose to wear will malfunction or develop a stain within an hour.

5. Any mentally ill person -- the more raving the better -- in a mall, a museum, or the internet, will find me. And want to talk to me for a really long time.

If you've spent any time with me in person, these facts are well documented. I have multiple independent sources that will say without qualm, "Oh yes, crazy people love Sharon." Give me ten minutes alone in a restaurant while you sit in a nearby booth and watch what happens.

Do you think a foil hat would help?

I recently visited -- and loved -- Syracuse, NY, where I was teaching at a knitting retreat.

On the plane there, I was pleased that the seat next to me was empty. After the delay, which I'm sure I caused, I was anxious to just get on the plane and go.

However, we did not take off after everyone was seated. We waited. And waited. A gate agent boarded the plane, looking for empty seats and writing down their locations. Of course, that meant someone on standby needed the empty seat next to me.

Soon, an elderly woman was assisted down the aisle, tiny and frail, with a purple perm that was flattened on one side and poufy on the other. A large male gate agent was carrying her bag and her portable oxygen tank.

The flight attendant followed them down the aisle and helped her locate the seat, motioning for me to move out of my seat so they could help this person get situated.

As soon as she was shown where she would be sitting, this woman said loudly, "GOSH DARN IT."

Except, she didn't say gosh darn it. This being the kind of site my children can read, I'll refrain from actually repeating what she said. But it was exactly what gosh darn it is a euphemism for. And it was said emphatically.

"SHOOT." (Insert what shoot is usually a substitute for here, and just imagine that throughout the rest of the exchange.)

"WELL, GOSH DARN IT. SON OF A BISCUIT." (Ahem.)

"SHOOT, GOSH DARN IT."

Now, this was a small regional jet.

The kind that I -- and this large gate agent -- have to stoop to stand up in. We stood there in the aisle that is -- at best -- six inches wide, blocked by this tiny woman who obviously found her seat next to me quite unacceptable.

The flight attendant, who was courteous the entire time, said, "Ma'am, your oxygen tank needs to fit all the way under the seat in front of you. The plane can't leave until we get it under there." The flight attendant struggled to fit it.

"SHOOT. GOSH DARN IT, SON OF A BISCUIT." The woman said more loudly.

Of course, now the entire plane can hear her. But they can't see her, she's a tiny woman in row 10. Who can they see? Me, of course. Giant bellied me, standing in the aisle. So the entire plane is now staring at me like I've just arrived to class in my underwear.

"It's a good thing these planes are so spacious," I joked to the man stooped over next to me. "I would feel terrible for anyone having to stand in the aisle for any length of time."

"Oh, me too," he replied. "You're fortunate to have been given such ample space on a huge plane like this one."

The woman got louder when the flight attendant tried to put her white windbreaker into the overhead bin.

"I NEED MY COAT, GOSH DARN IT. THERE'S AN APPLE IN THERE THAT A WOMAN GAVE TO ME BACK AT GATE C17 AND I HAVEN'T HAD AN APPLE IN A LONG TIME. THEY'RE NOT IN SEASON IN MONTANA. I NEED THAT APPLE."

The flight attendant said, "Ma'am, I've already closed the overhead bin, and the flight needs to depart the gate. You can retrieve it after take off."

Wrong answer.

"I REALLY NEED THAT APPLE, SON OF A BISCUIT. THE WOMAN AT C17 GAVE IT TO ME AND I NEED A BITE OF THAT APPLE."

The flight attendant walked away, and at this point, I'm quite sure this woman has some dementia issues.

Except.

Except her first words to me when the attendant was out of earshot were, "I probably shouldn't talk that way to her. But I really want that apple. And they don't give you any space on planes anymore."

I decided I was going to be as nice to her as I could be without making a martyr of myself. She is someone's mother. She wasn't going to become nicer or quieter if I was mean to her.

The plane was finally hurtling down the runway, ready to do the impossible, which is propel itself into the air and remain aloft until it arrived at a precisely calculated destination halfway across the country.

As soon as the nose left the ground she said to me, "GOSH DARN IT, WOULD YOU MOVE OVER?"

I took a second to clench my jaw and said as nicely as I could, "Well, I don't really have anywhere to move over to. I am sitting all the way against my own arm rest."

"NO, YOU ARE IN MY SEAT. LOOK AT YOU. YOU'RE TAKING UP SOME OF MY SEAT."

I've never pretended to be a small person. But I don't weigh 500 pounds here. My airplane fitting abilities are more of the wow, my legs are four feet long and the space in front of me is not variety.

I decided to play the I'm-having-a-baby-back-up-off-me card. "Well, I'm moved over as far as I can be. If I could move over more, I would. And I am having a baby in a few months."

"SHOOT. ARE YOU HAVING A BOY OR A GIRL?"

"A little girl," I replied, hoping to steer the conversation onto something other than the size of my backside, which was clearly crowding this woman out onto the wing of the plane.

"WELL YOU SHOULD HAVE HAD A BOY."

There's really nothing one can say to that, given this particular scenario. Was I going to argue about how I contribute the X chromosome either way, and that the gender of the baby is determined by the father? Was I going to say, "Try and make me?"

The only possible answer was, "Would you like me to get that apple for you now?"

Except it was the wrong answer.

That just seemed to set her off more.

"GOSH DARN IT, WHAT I REALLY NEED IS A BITE OF THAT APPLE THAT THE WOMAN AT C17 GAVE ME. I LIVE WAY OUT IN THE COUNTRY IN MONTANA AND WE CAN'T GET APPLES THIS TIME OF YEAR. SHOOT."

My internal dialogue coach wanted me to say, "Really? No apples in Montana? REALLY? I'm pretty sure you can get apples in Montana in March. There are apples year round just about everywhere."

But I didn't. I clenched my jaw. Which is slightly less painful than biting one's tongue. But it can lead to bruxism, so watch it.

I got out of my seat to find this woman's apple. A man in the row behind us gave me a thumbs up.

Thumbs up for what? Thumbs up for putting up with the sailor-mouthed woman? Thumbs up for finding her apple? Thumbs up for being a giant pregnant woman on a too small plane?

She was happy to see her apple, and dug her blue sparkly acrylic fingernails into it. They looked like this, but more chippy.

She took one tiny bite and then stored it in the seat pocket for the entire rest of the flight.

I read a book on my iPad.

"SHOOT, CAN YOU MAKE PHONE CALLS WITH THAT THING?"

I looked at a magazine.

"GOSH DARN IT, MAGAZINES ARE NOTHING BUT SMUTTY ADS THESE DAYS, SON OF A BISCUIT."

The irony. It killed me.

I was reading Better Homes and Gardens. The ads are for things like cholesterol medication and carpeting. The mouth on the woman next to me, however? Smutty.

Over the course of the flight, the woman said GOSH DARN IT 29 more times. She said SHOOT 38 more times, SON OF A BISCUIT 12 more times, and WOULD YOU MOVE OVER eight more times.

At the end, I finally just said, "Sure." when she asked me to move over, and I pretended to scoot closer to the thing that was already digging into my side.

When I got off the plane, the flight attendant apologized to me.

I wish she would have just given me a cookie or a pat on the head or something, that would have helped a lot more.

I think I racked up some karmic brownie points, because on the way home, the seat next to me was empty and the plane was on time.

And guess what? It's now Thursday evening. I left Syracuse on Sunday. Not one person -- not one -- has emailed me to comment on my clothes, my hair, or my makeup during the knitting retreat. I have, however, gotten a number of nice people who thanked me for coming and said they hoped I would come back.

Maybe some of the weird things that were destined to happen to me happened to someone else instead. It's only fair, I think.

How about you? Do strange people come up to you in grocery stores wanting to discuss things like cat litter with you too? Do you ever come into the dining room to find your 95 pound dog standing in the middle of the empty table? Do strangers tell you look matronly when you wear your hair up? No? I'm the only lucky one?

Update on Friday, March 23, 2012 at 4:44PM by Yarnista

Oh my. Case in point. I just had to remove the equivalent of a 17 page Word document diatribe in the comment section that included things about how Jesus was used to create the Matrix, and how masculinized women are the only hope for the world, and how Hawaiians, who were the real first Americans, ruined their people by eating too much pork and ignoring fish.

And other more disturbing stuff too. But it's a lovely illustration of how the crazies can find me, even on the vast world wide web.

Lookbook 2012 model search!

Interested? Download more information and the application here and return it to us no later than March 19, 2012.

Applications can be returned to us at threeirishgirls AT gmail DOT com.

crazy making

My studio is in an old building in a historic downtown area. I mostly love this. We're near glorious Lake Superior. 

The neighborhood has character, unlike the cinder block prison cell I worked in when I lived in Washington, DC.

I love this neighboring building.

The building that houses the studio is hooked up to a municipal steam line, which generates heat for much of Duluth's downtown. Steam heat is different than hot water heat that you might have in your house. Instead of circulating hot water through radiators or baseboards, it pushes superheated steam at high pressure through huge pipes. The result is a heating system that is much more efficient -- one small radiator can more than heat 1500 square feet.

The steam lines connect many of the buildings downtown with speakeasy tunnels, in which we've found several wine bottles circa 1930 with wine syrup still in the bottom.

Which brings mean to part one of the crazy making.

This radiator, the one our sheepy is standing on top of, is not far from my desk.

There is something very, very wrong with this radiator.

Someone from Candid Camera has planted Will Ferrell and Steve Carell in the basement, and given them strict instructions.

"Take these hammers and hit the radiator from the inside ALL DAY EVERY DAY. Alternate between loud and soft. Never clang or bang in a rhythm, just make sure it's very noticeable and distracting, and that everyone in the vicinity will be driven crazy by it."

People, the radiator makes SO MUCH NOISE ALL THE TIME. When I talk on the phone, people ask what that noise is in the background. A plumber came today to fix it. He left without doing anything except scratching his head and saying, "Huh." Who knows when he'll come back.

I'm sure this is all part of Candid Camera's plan.

Which brings me to part two of the crazy making.

When we moved in, the space next door to us was empty. Possibly because it was painted with neon, glow-in-the-dark, anatomically-correct alien butterflies.

About a year later (I've been in this studio for two years now, can you believe it?), a new business moved in next door.

The owner of the business is a nice person. His worth as a human being is not in question.

But I do not like this business. I do not like this business at all.

This business -- which again, is owned by a nice person -- is a kettlebell gym. Do you know what kettlebells are?

They are weighted balls with handles. You swing them. They are apparently for "working out."

In addition to using kettlebells, this gym uses free weights, medicine balls, monster truck tires, and weighted ropes attached to a wall.

When a class starts, which is about six times a day, people who are there to "work out" turn their stereo to a level a normal person would seek hearing protection for.  The stereo, I've discovered, only plays heavy metal music, like Lamb of God, Megadeth, and someone else Boy Aaron told me and I can't remember and don't care to.

The participants -- who pay money to do this "working out" thing -- pick up the huge free weights, hoist them above their heads, and then dead drop them on the floor.  These free weights weigh about 200 pounds, and the resulting boom is very similar to a small explosion. It shakes the walls and the floors to the farthest reaches of the studio.

They pick up a monster truck tire and hurl it to the floor. They throw weighted balls at the wall behind my desk. They roar and take off most of their clothes, including their shoes. They walk around our shared back hallway wearing nothing but bike shorts, stinky and dripping puddles onto the tile. After their workouts, they stretch outdoors on the brick sidewalks, laying on the ground with no shirts or shoes on, stretching their gluteus muscles.

I'm no "work out" expert, but stretching on frigid brick hardly seems like a wise thing after a workout in which you have built up adrenaline and testosterone to the extent that you willingly pick up 200 pound objects and throw them, full-force, at inanimate objects. But hey, I'm no "work out" expert.

So, this is what my office sounds like all day:

The radiator goes, clang................clangCLANGCLANGCLANG.........taptap..........hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssclang

bangbang BANGBANGBANG

And now, add in SCREAMINGMUSICTHATISNOTREALLYMUSICANDISJUSTPEOPLESCREAMINGINRAGE

FORANHOUR

And then, throw in regular EXPLOSIONS  and EARTHQUAKES and

TENNIS GRUNTIIIIIIIING and you basically have what I listen to, all at the same time, for hours every day.

It's really unpleasant.

And crazy making.

I have asked this nice business owner to keep it down, and he will lower the volume of the Angry NonMusic slightly. But he says he can't muffle the sound of a truck tire being hurled.

I have asked the owner of the building to intervene on my behalf. I was here first. I am a nice, reliable tenant with a long term lease. He says he'll look into it.

I can't move to a new studio.

I suppose I could get some noise canceling headphones, but I do need to be able to hear the phone ring, and talk to people. And I worry about them getting wet or ruined by steam.

I do have a clause in my lease that says that I have the right to the "peaceable and quiet enjoyment of the premises." I've asked this nice business owner to put up some padding on the walls and floor to dampen the sound. He said he will look into it.

Tell me, am I being unreasonable here? I understand that a neighboring business will make some noise. We have music playing (at a normal volume), and we talk and come and go, etc.  I don't expect them to be silent. But I also don't expect that my neighbors will do the equivalent of set off pipe bombs to a Rage Against the Machine soundtrack, either.

Is it too much to ask that my radiator not be possessed? Should I have the right to expect that we will not have stinky people wearing almost no clothing parading around, trying to use the bathroom that we clean and stock? (The gym has its own bathroom, but it has only one stall, the door doesn't lock, and they don't clean or replenish supplies like we do. And there is no changing room or showers for members, either.)

This is a fellow small business owner trying to make a living, and I don't want to deprive him of that. But... but... it's really just not good. At all.

So what's a Yarnista to do?

Well. Would you look at that.

What a very pleasant surprise.

I don't know how or who, but thank you.

I am apparently a finalist for a Reader's Choice Best Knitting Blog/Website award.

I think the poll might be a little skewed. This blog is up against the website Ravelry. (Not the Ravelry blog, the website. The one with two million members.) It's just a wee bit of an apples to oranges competition, comparing my ramblings to an incredibly versatile site that does everything from house forums to store patterns for two million people.

But you know what? Somehow, out of all the knitting websites in existence, this is one of the five finalists. That in and of itself is an enormous honor.

So thank you again for whoever voted for me in the nomination process, and for all of you who have voted in the finals thus far. (Voting is open through 3/21.)

Next weekend -- St. Patrick's Day! -- I am going to be teaching at a fiber arts retreat in Syracuse, NY. Yes, I am going to be bringing Baby Shamrock with me!

You don't have to stay at the retreat center to take classes from a sweet group of teachers, including Laura Nelkin, Cal Patch, Sandi Wiseheart, Jill Draper, Beth Coye, Shannon Chaffee Adams, and Jennifer Van Calcar. There will also be a marketplace open to the public, in case classes are not in the cards for you, and my trunk show was literally -- just moments ago -- picked up by FedEx to begin its trek to the East Coast. Now that that's done, I think I'll go eat something for lunch other than yogurt. Shamrock is hungry.

I can't wait to see my friends at The Yarn Cupboard, and have a chance to meet all of you.

 Let's not forget this though, shall we?

No need to tell me, I already know.

Also, a few other things I am already aware of, so you can think of something else to talk to me about:

1. You don't like my dress or my hair or my makeup or my shoes or my accessories or my bag.

2. My teeth are crooked.

3. I am taller than ________________ (pick a person. Your mom. Your husband. Michael Jordan. Everyone in the Guinness Book of World Records.). Those last couple are not true, by the way.

That was just too much stuff to fit on one little poster. But I've given up trying to please everyone with my outfits or trying to figure out why some people seem to care so much if my hair is up or down or if my dress is the wrong cut or my sweater needs to be unbelted.

I am impervious! Impervious to these comments!

But I would love to see you and hold your baby, if you have one, and talk to you about yarn or color or photography or the meaning of life.

Which I know for certain is not my appearance.

See you in Syracuse, where I am going to do my best to find something green that fits over the belly!