On the needles

I finally got to start something that isn't craft faire related or a commission. A friend of mine from high school is getting married and I am working on a shawl. It is the Swallowtail shawl from Interweave Knits. I am making it in a sock yarn that is a wool/ bamboo blend in a green and blue colorway. As soon as I get a good picture I will post it!

Maker Faire!

As some of you know Maker Faire is in San Mateo this weekend. No we don't have a booth, but yes we're going! And we're excited! You should be too, dag nabbit! I mean how can you not be excited about the world's largest and most comprehensive DIY/inventors' festival?

The coolest part? I GOT FREE TICKETS!!!

I'm the manager for a local pizzaria, but a sizable chunk of my responsibility is a 5-hour shift behind the counter Monday-Friday. Yesterday I was on the register taking delivery orders by phone as usual (bored out of my mind if it weren't for the kindle app on my ipod). A woman called in and said she needed a huge delivery to the San Mateo Event Center ASAP. She was feeding a set-up crew of 80+ people. On a hunch I asked what event she was working on. The answer: Maker Faire! I was super excited about that and gave them a discount for being awesome! (Well, technically for being an educational event but that's just what we're telling the boss-man, right?) After paying she says "I'm giving you a couple tickets so let your driver know to pick up an envelope from me." To which my response is naturally to jump up and down flail my arms and jibber gratefully at her! I may also have squeed. :P

That made my freakin day! C., f you read this THANK YOU!!!

Food Post!

Because food and yarn are totally the same thing.

Well, I haven't been working with fiber a lot (aside from almost finishing a pair or two of socks-- I'll post pictures someday, I swear!), but I have been cooking a lot!

This weekend, I went down to LA for my younger brother's college graduation (congratulations, Daniel!), and I stayed an extra day so that we could hang out. Well, one of the things that my brother and I like to do a lot is cook! So, we drove to the nearest nomful supermarket (they had pine nuts for $20/pound!! It's at least $35/pound up here! SO JEALOUS!), and ended up making scallops for lunch.

To be specific, we made baked scallops with prosciutto, pesto, and toast. (Or, you know, rustic pesto and pan-fried bread, if you're being pretentious. Which I sometimes am.) The pesto involved a lot of chopping (Daniel managed to cut himself somehow) because my brother's household doesn't own any sort of food processor. Then we cooked the scallops (sear and bake!), wrapped them in prosciutto, and put them and the pesto on toast.

It was incredibly delicious! I'm looking forward to cooking more with him this summer-- it should be a lot of fun.

The epic craft faire

So the craft faire adventure was epic. For starters, Napa is further than I understood. It is about 2 hours away. However, we had to come back Saturday night, which made the trip seem farther.

So our saga really begins Friday night. We had way too much to do in way too short a time. There were coffee runs, excellent chinese food, harsh words, heartfelt conversations, musicals, and maniacal giggling. We finally went to bed at 3 am, woke up at 6, finished measuring out yarn, packed up the car, picked up the Warebeast at 8, and headed out to Napa. After I took the wrong 80 and ended up on the bay bridge, we had to turn around on Treasure Island.

Now, I have lived in Northern California for 6 years, and have family who live in Berkeley so I have crossed the Bay Bridge several times. I have always wondered what Treasure Island was and rather than look it up, I made up an elaborate story in my head about it. Well, it turns out that Treasure Island is a tiny stretch of land, with a lot of cops, slow speed limits, and about a million cement mixers. Ok. Maybe not a million, but the fact is that we passed 4 cement truck in 5 minutes. The weirdest thing is that they were all going different directions.

So, after we stop at Freya's mom's house to pee, Warebeast takes over driving, since he has gotten a full night of sleep and has a much better since of direction than I do. Freya and I continue to skein balls of yarn in a desperate attempt to get ready. We finally get to the venue about an hour later than we anticipated, which we think is when the faire begins. Turns out it didn't begin until noon, so we had another hour. We get everything labeled and set out and waited. And waited. We sold a few things, packed up, drove home. Freya fell asleep when we got home and sleep for 12 hours. Warebeast and I had some fries and then followed suit. We got up the next morning and rinsed and repeated. This time without Warebeast and substituting the Boy. And of course less getting lost.

On Sunday, there were baby goats. 5 days old. They were wonderful. The faire seemed to go better on Sunday. More people took cards etc. The ride home was uneventful and we slept normally. Now, we just have to get the house recovered from the month of prep!