my mother, the secret knitting ninja

so i've been knitting (or purling, rather) sporadically for the past few months, since i learned back in november. tonight (in lieu of stitch & bitch, which i skipped again) i decided to bust out my total idiot's guide to knitting & crocheting and see if i could teach myself to knit (as opposed to purl), which really just resulted in me realizing that i've been purling in a really awkward/wrongish way that makes knitting seem like a whole other art form. so, i need to work on that. i also need some more needles, because at the moment i have too-small and too-big needles but none that are just right, a la goldilocks.

but, right, the really remarkable part of this is how, after i ripped my half a dozen rows of tight-fisted lumpy knitting and wound the yarn back up, my mom asked if she could try to see if she remembered how to do it. apparently she knit twenty five years ago? first i've heard of it!

so i handed over the supplies and lo and behlod, after not doing it for twenty five years, my mom can knit / purl better than i can. huh.

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completely unrelated, but here are some pictures of the store i work at, as promised in a previous post.



the store from the back (i love our big front window). our floors are the building's original ones-- it used to be a hardware store (the original mural advertising the store and gilman paints are still on the back of the building) and you can see where the big cases used to be from where there are worn marks on the hardwood.



we do complimentary gift wrapping on any purchase (and sometimes on items purchased elsewhere). gift wrapping is probably my favorite job to do at work. sometimes i get teased about it. sometimes i get a little too excited about it and offer to wrap very tiny things that don't need to be wrapped and then i wind up having to make insanely tiny little packages that probably cost more to wrap than the actual item. my love of gift wrapping at work has got me thinking that maybe i should offer giftwrapping for purchases from the site, but i haven't figured out how to orchestrate that exactly.



one of our displays, though we sold the flamingos a few days after i took this picture. i adore the glass vases-- i got a dark green squarish one for my apartment next year. behind you can see some of our jewelery cases, which i spend a lot of time unlocking and showing to people.

we don't carry any madeye stuff yet, but i mean to remedy that. last fall i got so busy with school that it all but slipped my mind entirely, but this year i will definitely get on it.

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is there anybody out there?! hello?! if i stop asking, will someone start responding?!

indirect awesomeness

rare device, a brooklyn boutique that featured a few madeye hats last winter/fall, is mentioned in lucky magazine this month. rena, the shop's owner (who seems very nice from my limited interactions with her!) scanned the page and posted it to the rare device blog, but you can also see it here.

i was reading the magazine on my lunch break at work and got so exited that i... well, i made a post-it note that said "she bought some hats from madeye!" and stuck it to the page for whoever picked it up next.

anyway, i think that's pretty exciting, and a nice indirect compliment. i'd never read much of lucky before, except for this issue, but i like a lot of what i saw (if only i was like, a supermillionaire that didn't care about paying hundreds of dollars for sundresses... and if only i could walk in heels, right?) and so if i like lucky and lucky likes rare device and rare device likes madeye... i take that as a good sign.

that reminds me that i took a lot of pictures of the store where i work to share here, but haven't gotten around to uploading them yet. i'll do that soon. it's an amazing little place and i really want to show it off.

also: um, hello, is anyone out there? i feel like i'm blogging to a brick wall. speak, people! speak!

oui oui! chapeau de piaf

another in what is becoming a considerably sized series of scrappy bird hats. this one goes international.



same black yarn as the first scrappy bird hat, same crazy black & white checked / houndstooth skirt scrap, plus tan corduroy (also appeared in the scrappy bird hat-- see the swirlies!). birds are black craft store felt, eiffel tower is cut out of a hot pink toile print fabric from hobby lobby.



close up... my camera is NOT liking to focus these days. no good. but here you can see the heart a little better, though i may end up re-stitching that part because it's kind of lumpy.

usually i find the eiffel tower motif to be a little overdone and cliche, but i feel somewhat qualified to use it now that i've actually BEEN to the tower myself. and not just the big cardboard one they had at prom senior year... i mean the REAL thing.



honestly, i never expected or really desired to see the eiffel tower, especially, until i was actually there, at which point i kind of freaked out because it's pretty much undeniably cool. mostly because it's huge, but then the lights that sparkle all over it at the top of every hour just make it more irresistable. especially to me, because i am apparently a sucker for sparkly things... that's what the eiffel tower taught me.

okay, now the lumpy heart is really starting to bug me, so i'm going to go fix that and watch even more obnoxious soul-draining television (today's count so far: "the hills" and "cheyenne" on mtv, and the hilary duff episode of "celebrity home" on style. hilary duff has a sewing room that is AMAZING and designed to house this $5,000 sewing machine that she's not even entirely sure how to use. wtf, duff?)

PS: if you drop by, comment! please! i want to know who's out there snooping around!