We Are Home.

And we're almost all unpacked.

(Amoryn's Bear was very glad to be unpacked. He's a little too big for carry-on - that's Rowr's job.)

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Also, be aware: although my blog & Maui became suddenly incompatible (the computer ate several posts of lovely pics), in order to cope with this:

(My view from the back door, and lovely, but COLD.) I am formally introducing a Maui Wowee policy. This is where I randomly insert cool Hawaii pics. Maui Wowee will carry on until summer, or I decide.

(Interestingly, similar color tones to the above pic - but this is a black sand beach, and the water is foaming surf, not snow & ice.)

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The carry-on with the dregs of the electronics and Big Pink* are the lone hold-outs for unpacking. Big Pink has been press-ganged into helping with a general clarification of the house, and I’ve collected all of my little projects, accessories, & books, drug them to my studio in the basement, and now I’m going to resort, re-prioritize, & replace them. Replacing them means that, depending on the hierarchy of my personal knitting desires & schedules, they’re either shelved, or re-bagged** & put back where they should be. (i.e.: Handbag, bedside table, coffee table, etc.) Considering that I have a house with cats, and thus try to limit the yarn that is left out, there is still a substantial supply of ongoing stuff. I may just leave it all in Big Pink, too.
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Clarification is my new concept for the house. I keep reading Architectural Digest, and being moved by the beautiful open spaces. Then I would look at my house, which is relatively large and open, and think “ACK! Why don’t I get that feeling from this?” I think part of the answer is the drifts of clutter, plants, & toys.*** And so, I’m trying to clarify the organization of the house, to increase the feeling of openness, but retain the base level of clutter****, plants, & toys that are necessary for life in our family.
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I did get some knitting projects done over the holiday – Liesl is one, more on another later. I’ve revised my opinion about Liesl’s need for serious blocking – it appears to be an optical illusion sweater; wearing it, I am hyper conscious of the garter row of the old-shale-y pattern, but looking at it, not so much. I’m finally knitting on the scarf that I started on the flight out – I looked at my ability to mindlessly knit repetitive theme/sanity, and revised my intentions slightly. By that, I mean a lot. I may still frog this & go back to the original concept, but… undecided. This state of a project is usually when it will get shelved, to let my subconscious muddle around with it for a while. I honestly can’t even say how many brilliant solutions come to me as I’m in bed, drifting off, or brushing my teeth in the morning.
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Turns out, in our absence, Suki had a knitting project too. He doesn’t have opposable thumbs, so I’m giving him credit for choosing such a lovely soft yarns out of my knitting bag (after he dug into it - apparently I have a cat that can work zippers, and is intoxicated by yarn fumes), and really sticking to it, even attempting to use the legs of chairs as needles to carry stitches on. It’s that, or I seriously consider the charm of a pair of Siamese cat-fur mittens.

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(This image may be too graphic for those sensitive to images of violence – I’d already unwound the stuff from the chair. The image doesn’t convey the quality of his work, either – there’s about 400 yards of a silk/mohair blend wound up with some fine orange alpaca, all in a knot the size of my head. Liberally dosed with cat slobber, of course.)

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In the spirit of yarn puke, I’ve spent a deal of the morning winding yarns. I had a realization about my Taiyo cardi, & how I wanted it to be, so I wound the yarn into a neat ball, ready to go, and I wound the lovely sock yarn I got in Maui, and then I started in on That D@mn Skein. It’s actually Those; four skeins that I’d purchased, dyed, and am now trying to reskein, which means wind them into a ball, then wind them back to a skein. This is what I do with yarn that I’m planning on selling. This yarn is no longer going to the store though; anything that has been cursed at & flung in rage would surely doom any projects. Also, I’ve had to cut it in multiple places so that I could continue to try & unknot it. The problem isn’t the organic user interface*****; it is that the skeins came from the company completely screwed up. Twisted, snarled. Looked okay on a brief initial inspection, which is why I just tied them in a couple more spots & dyed them, but really; they are a mess. And I feel safe in saying that it’s not me. The first one, I thought, ‘is this me’? The second one, I thought ‘this can’t be me’, the third one, I thought ‘what is this crap?’, and the fourth one, I hurled with rage. And curses. Although I’m charmed by the yarn, & its qualities, the complete arsed disaster that its skein is makes me think I am Never, Ever, Buying anymore. I will not be defeated by this yarn, but by gum, once I get this thing wound, I may just douse it in gasoline & light it on fire.

Speaking of lighting things on fire, I should go & flip the laundry. Although, I don’t put much through the dryer (which makes me think of fire), we hang more, which results in cold clammy fingers. Bah. Laundry is for the birds!

(The birds are at the Garden Of Eden Botanical Garden, on the way to Hana. I look a little tense, because all I could think was "Has the bird man trained his birds not to poo on heads?")
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*Big Pink – A Big Pink suitcase I got in Philly, at the same place where this went on… http://outstandingastonishment.blogspot.com/2006/09/millinery-heart-philly.html . The man mocks me mercilessly, but I love that I watch bags being loaded onto a plane, and know that that one is mine.
**I’ve moved form storing projects exclusively in Ziploc bags to using little cotton drawstring bags that I’ve made. I love them, and they keep my yarn from leaping free to its doom.
***Guess which belongs to whom?
****Clutter is typically compiled of reading material & mail. Books & mages are okay – but I’m starting to look at the mail pile as an active, hostile enemy. I’m serious. Torch & burn, or at least file & recycle.*****Organic User-Interface – Geek Speak for the idiot running the computer, or in this case, ball-winder.