I love my job.

See this truck?



It's full of yarn.


My job: to help unload the yarn so that you, my fellow knitters can make beeeautiful things.




You want to be exhilirated. Try signing for a 3500 kg container of yarn! Man I never thought signing my name to something would be so exciting!


They must all think I'm crazy....



GG

Help

OK. I've not been home during the weekend for the last two weekends.

I feel so behind in everything.

Laundry, cleaning, car maintenance, health insurance.

yuck.

And it's record high hot around here so the only thing I feel compelled to do is make fruity iced beverages.

GG

And now a non-tnna post

You would think I've been in hibernation since I came back from tnna. It kind of does take a wee to get back to normal.

But then Mr. G and I have to go out of town to my brother's graduation. Good times were had by all. There was the watching of world cup soccer USA v Italy at a pub. Awesome crowd, pleasing result. And beer. It's been a while since I've had beer. Oddly enough, I haven't felt more American ever routing for USA in the World Cup. It's the only time I've thought about being american without being entirely ashamed by the Iraq Debacle. Watching all these international teams, playing by rules and uniting world inspires me.

Allow me to reiterate: Peace is entirely possible. Only one thing needs to happen to promote peace: no more killing people.

It's that simple.

But back to the graduation. Brother G got a degree in Japanese. We feted him at dinner and toasted his success. And then we got some exciting news: Brother G is engaged! Yay! I'm going to have another sister-in-law!!!

and there's a good chance that I'm going to have to go to Japan for the wedding.

And you know I love any excuse to travel.

I think I smell a round the world ticket in my future!

so many congratulations for brother G and Sister E.

But back to the world cup. I'm going for France, USA, and Australia and now Japan. Funny how when my family grows, so do my favorite international soccer teams.

Another little note. I'm totally disorganized. My office is a mess and it's so underused that Mr. G is threatening to turn it into a guest room/library. To which I ask "but what about my yarn!!!???"

eeek!
GG

PS also a very happy father's day to my dad who I got to sit with at dinner both Friday and Saturday. I hope he's had a great day we've had a beautiful family weekend.

love too you all

GG

Yarnia 8 - King Yarnthur and The Knits of the Round Table

For those of you who are keeping track we're still only on day 2, the first day of the actual convention. According to the knit-nighters at Marin Fiber Arts I'm writing a small novel.

But that's because so many fabulous and funny things happened to us on our trip. If it wasn't so action-packed there wouldn't be so much to write!

Aside from the yarn, getting to know Warren has been one of the most interesting things about the trip. Together, Warren and I can get pretty goofy, especially when fatigue sets in.

I know this may be hard for you to believe, but there is only so much yarn that a person can see in one day.

I know. Blasphemy.

Sad but true, we became overwhelmed by yarn and other knitting products. Even more overwhelming was the fact that we were supposed to go home the next day and we were no where near ready to make any actual purchasing decisions. OK, so we bought some buttons, but buttons alone a yarn shop does not make.

There were four knitting bag vendors to choose from and we could only take two. Warren wanted to introduce another hand dyed yarn, but which one? And we don't even want to get started about the Karabella booth.

As to the buttons. We purchased a bunch of buttons from the button lady at. She is a one woman workshop of ceramic buttons. My personal favorite are the coin-pressed buttons. She takes coins from around the world and impresses them into the clay, and glazes them with your chosen color. Perfect for that manly sweater that we won't mention that's waiting to be seamed in the craft ( a.k.a.junk) room. Anyhoo, the lady was missing a coin from Australia, and by some crazy twist of fate I had an Aussie 20 cent coin hanging out in my bag.

Shortly thereafter, we went to the GGH booth. Where they have multiple boxes of buttons to examine. At this point, Warren was at a level four goofiness, with level 5 in sight. This means that Warren has seen too much yarn, hasn't slept very well and is in need of food and beverage.

This was the level that Warren was at when choosing buttons. It was all the more difficult because there were so many to choose from. Being the assistant, it was my job to keep Warren on task. Thus I presented page after page of buttons. And Warren would put them in one of two piles, LOVE IT or HATE IT. I felt like a page at court, showing the king a selection of fabric or food for his approval. Sometimes I would purposely choose something I knew he would hate, and he would look at me with disapproval "how could you even think I would sell this in MY store?". Thus I came up with Warren's new nickname: Napoleyarn.

Warren didn't like that much.

He thought King Yarnthur was better. Hey he's the king, who am I to argue?

I suppose that would make the knit-nighters the Knits of the Yarn Table.

hardy har har.

Grenadine Girl

Yarnia 7 - Little Girls With Big Hair

It took a little while to get to sleep, what with me being on California time, so I took the opportunity to catch up on my late night tv. I feel asleep a little after David Letterman's lively game of Will It Float (that night it was a giant can of condensed milk and it sunk).

I slept very well on the sofa bed. But I had the strangest dream.

Warren and I were eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant and we were surrounded by these strange little girls, in dancing outfits and massive big hair.

Then I woke up and realized that I wasn't sleeping. Warren had dragged me out of bed in time for the hotel's free continental breakfast and I was in fact truly surrounded by strange little girls with obscenely perfect ringlets of hair.

Apparently there was an Irish dancing competition also meeting at our convention center.

It was entirely creepy. It was 7:30 in the morning and each of these girls had perfect makeup and intricately elaborate masses of curls. Yet none of the mothers looked like they had lost any sleep and the girls looked quite comfortable.

I began to worry that they were cylons.

Warren and I kept making jokes about them all morning, but I noticed something on our way to lunch in the convention lobby.

One of the older dancers was holding her hair in her hands. I almost let out a scream because well, I always assume the worst.

They were all wearing wigs.

Mystery solved.

Good thing too or I wouldn't have been able to eat my lunch.

GG

Yarnia Part 6 - I Left My Heart In San Francisco and It Followed me to Indianapolis

For some people, Elvis is a great way to close a night. For others, it's a sign that the night has only just begun.

Warren was still exhausted from his sleepless Delta flight so he returned to the hotel for some shuteye. But I couldn't refuse an invitation from the Fabulous Yarn Company for some snacks and cocktails.

One of life's great jokes is that you can travel thousands of miles and still feel like you haven't gone anywhere. With San Francisco this is rarely the case because it's such a unique city. It's so unique it might as well be it's own country.

However in the era of eatertainment, that's not so much the case. If you can't afford to fly to Australia, you can go to the Outback Steakhouse. Can't get time off work to go to Mexico? Have some chips and salsa at Chevy's. Now you don't ever have to travel to the liberal bastian of San Francisco, you can instead go to The Alcatraz Brewery in Indianapolis for your taste of life on the rock. This is where we had appetizers and cocktails with the FYC.

Ironically, I've lived in the bay area for more than a decade and have never been to Alcatraz the historical landmark, but at least I've been to Alcatraz, the restaurant and had a margarita.

Anyhoo, the food was awesome and reflected our region's fabulous culinary tastes. I bonded with the fabulous yarn company and partook in some yarn industry gossip. And there was enough food leftover to bring back to the hotel for Warren.

So I guess whenever anybody asks me whether I've been to Alcatraz, I'll just ask them "the prison or the restaurant?"

hardy har har

Grenadine Girl

The Chronicles of Yarnia Part 5: Elvis Lives- In Yarnia!!!

Ahhh yes, post tradeshow beverages... Is there any better way to wind down?

Once I was finished helping FYC I had to attend an industry event with Warren. There was some sort of knitwear fashion show and attendee reception.

The ballroom lobby was crowded and people were quite pushy trying to make their way in. I thought to myself, "Gee, it's just a fashion show. What? Have these people never seen yarn before?". So I started knitting, you know the raison d'etre for that day's festivities. I was surprised that there wasn't more knitting going on. But once the doors opened I realized that everyone else knew something I didn't.

There was food to be had.

and...

There was an Elvis impersonator.

You want to see someone confused? Watch me trying to figure out what to do first. Eat food or get photo with Elvis? Eat food or get photo with Elvis?

Never one to sacrifice, I instead made a compromise. Get food and get photo with Elvis. I cut in line and grabbed myself two egg rolls and high-tailed it to the other side of the ballroom.

Witness: the blurry photo.



Post tradeshow beverages? Pretty Cool.

Post tradeshow beverages and Elvis. Pretty darned awesome.

GG

The Chronicles of Yarnia Part 4. Tradeshows aren't so bad.

Most of the time tradeshows are very unpleasant. Even tradeshows that feature things that are mildly interesting can be tedious. Especially when you're working a booth.

But people, this time it's YARN!!!!!!

The only tedious thing about this trade show is how dang long it took to walk from our hotel to the convention center. But hey, we need to get our exercise somehow.

I got to help the Fabulous Yarn Company set-up their booth. To my surprise I was given the very important task of helping decorate the booth with our yarns and models. Now usually I'm not given the aesthetic authority for such things, but I hung dress forms and arranged colorways of yarns and they looked great. And shockingly enough, the arrangment stayed that way for the duration of the show. The great part was that everybody from the company helped out with smiling faces and positive attitudes. I couldn't ask to be surrounded by a better group of people. I'm blown away by the long standing relationships shared by the reps, partner needle companies and vendors. Working with them felt more like fun than work.

True enough, usually when I'm working at a tradeshow, I'm watching the clock waiting to get the hell out of there, but with FYC, the time flies and I'm sad when it's all over.

Fortunately, we all got together after work for snacks and margaritas!

I guess tradeshows aren't so bad!

GG

The Chronicles of Yarnia Part 3 - Bag Envy

The funny thing about TNNA is that you have to be careful what you say because you never know who's going to be behind you.

This is a no slagging zone. You never know when the owner of a store is behind you, or when the proprietor of a yarn company is next to you at dinner.

Fortunately we learned this the easy way at our hotel.

There was a lady in line at the hotel front desk who was carrying a Lexie Barnes bag. I have been drooling over these bags for ages, but I've only seen them on the interweb, not in person. They are just as fabulous, bright colors and heavy duty materials (because you know my knitting goes everywhere with me).

Anyhoo, I had to tell the lady how awesome her bag was, and what do you know it is Lexie Barnes.

And I had only been in Indianapolis for 20 minutes?

She was very sweet and gave me her card. Unfortunately things got really busy and I didn't get a chance to pick one up, but I'll be heading here soon to snag one.

For now the old tote bag will have to do.

GG

Chronicles of Yarnia Part 2: The Flatulant Bed

I slept well on the plane.

Warren.... did not.

Fortunately our hotel room was ready when we arrived and Warren went straight to bed.

It was made clear to me from the beginning that Warren would get the king size and I would get the sofabed, which I understand. He's the owner of the store; I'm the buying assistant; fair enough. However, one can't help but be a smidge jealous.

But then Warren flopped himself down on the bed, eager for some comfort after the particularly squished seating of the Delta airplane.

And the bed farted.

That's right. This ain't no squeaky mattress, it was a full-on burst of wind. It was so loud that if I was on another room, I would have thought there was something terribly wrong with Warren.

Suddenly the sofa bed doesn't seem so bad.

GG

The Chronicles of Yarnia

I have just returned from TNNA. That's TNNA, not TNA. It's the twice yearly tradeshow for the knitting and needlearts industy, where yarn shops come to choose their wares. I got to go in two capacities, one to assist Warren from Marin Fiber Arts and also to Assist the Fabulous Yarn Company.

Here are the highlights from night 1:

1) We took a red-eye flight. Note to Delta Airlines: Hobbits only exist in Middle Earth. You may want to start installing human-sized seating.
2) Another note to Delta: showing a movie entitled "Failure to Launch" is no way to spend an airflight.

There is much more to come with posts entitled "Yarn Wars", Elvis Lives, King Yarnthur and the Knits of the Yarn Table, Little Girls with Big Hair, Would you like some Barbados with that?, and The Knitwear Model Who Actually Knits.

GG

The Earth Really is Very Full of Things

Unfortunately I'm too small to roll these on my katamari.

Cloud Nine

The knitters out there must have had this dream before: they're somewhere strange, surrounded by unlabeled boxes and a voice tells them "open the boxes, go ahead open the boxes" and you start opening the boxes and there's carton after carton of beautiful yarn. Gorgeous yarn, in delicious colors and textures. You open so many boxes that you're entirely surrounded in balls of yarn. To the point where you create a bed of yarn and you roll around in it, like a lottery winner rolling around in money. But then you realize to your horror that you don't have any knitting needles!

And then you wake up.

Yesterday at work, I learned how to restock our yarn inventory. This entails some pretty laborious activity, but because it's yarn, I'm the happiest girl in the world. In fact, this task was very similar to the above dream, because you're opening neverending boxes of yarn, each of them very inviting. Everyone thinks I'm crazy at work, because I love it so much and it's not like I'm doing anything particularly glamourous. It's filing and order processing and answering phones, but because its in an industry that I LOVE I'm instantly gratified. Perhaps it was because I was told that later this month we will be receiving a 16 wheeled container full of yarn.

I'm learning that work in itself is not glamorous. Which is why it's so very important to discover what it is you really love. Because you will do anything for something or someone you love. It's very simple.

I only just realized how much I loved knitting this year. It was back when I was complaining about the oscars when it dawned on me that I loved knitting more than I loved film. Considering that I studied film in college that was a pretty big realization.

So those of you out there who are trying to figure out what you want to do with your life, discover the thing that comes the easiest to you. Discover the most productive skill that you love. Oftentimes it will be very surprising what that skill will be. I thought that I would be a photographer or a filmmaker or a writer, but these occupations never came naturally to me. I never thought that I would become obsessed with knitting.

Well, one of the biggest things I've learned in my twenties is that love is always where you're least expecting it, and when you're not looking for it.

Take it or leave it.

GG