The internet is full of Year in Review articles, Best and Worst of 2008 articles, Top Ten News Stories of 2008 articles, Fifty Best Movies of 2008 articles, and Predictions for 2009 articles.

I’m going to save you some time. Then you’ll have more time to knit or read blogs or whatever it is you like to do.

Here we are:

The economy sucks. The Feds should have seen it coming. They ignored the warning signs. People are being foreclosed on. Now is a good time to buy a house if you have good credit! Great deals abound! Buyer’s market!

Movies were hit and miss. We got to see Meryl Streep dance to Abba and Tom Cruise wear an eye patch. Paris Hilton play a hottie in The Hottie and the Nottie. Shocking.

If you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. If you eat fewer carbs, you will lose weight. If you call Jenny (what are you waiting for?), you will lose weight. If you get Nutrisystem delivered to your home (the food is delicious! New choices like chocolate cake and cheeseburgers!), you will lose weight. If you join a gym, you will lose weight. If you eat low fat, you will lose weight. Splenda is made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar. If you do pilates, you can sculpt yourself slim. If you watch The Biggest Loser, you will lose weight. Diets Fail. Weight Watchers doesn’t.

Terrorists are soon going to blow up something somewhere. We have people working on it, sit tight.

Women running for political office should not wink, speak with accents, moose hunt, or buy expensive clothes. They should also not wear too many pantsuits, be too articulate, seem unfriendly, or be married to former presidents.  Men running for office should not be too old or too Republican. Minnesotans will elect  — or almost elect — ANYONE. Including professional wrestlers and Saturday Night Live comedians.

Americans are good at swimming. Especially in the Olympics. That’s because we have a lot of pools here. Other places don’t have pools. It all makes sense.

People are not getting along in the Middle East.

Celebrities are still naming their babies odd things. Britney Spears is now on the good medication.

Gas prices rose and so did prices. Gas prices fell and so did prices.

Men can now give birth.

I have now saved you a large quantity of your most precious commodity: time. What did I miss? What 2008 stories deserve to be included in my “It’s been… a year” list?

FO = Finished Object.  Wouldn’t want you to feel excluded because you’re not up on the parlance.

Two scarves, both equally yummy for different reasons. Both are for me, an occurrence too rarely repeated round these parts.

Scarf #1. Knit from yummy handspun Blue Faced Leicester wool, spun for moi by Meridith at SweetKnits. You may recall how this scarf started life as this:

And now, it’s this:

And this:

Uhhh… Meridith? When are you stocking more yarn? Because I need some.

Scarf #2: Yarn Love’s Charlotte Bronte Aran weight, colorway Sleeping Beauty. (You can see more about this yarn here — it’s organic!)

Knit from a pattern dictated to me by a lovely woman at Stitches East. I complimented her on it, and she said, “Oh, it’s easy. I’ll tell you how to make it. I’ll talk, you write it down.” And I did. And I’m glad I did, because I love the scarf. It naturally corkscrews on itself. This would be more twisty knit with a lighter yarn at a tighter gauge. Here, I have a heavy yarn at a looser gauge, so the effect is more drapey.

Notice the bleak midwinter weather. Notice the no leaves on the trees. (Here’s what this area looks like in the summer:

Yeah. Now, we have no leaves, grey skies, and mud. And 65 degrees in late December. It’s more than ridiculous. Next week it will be freezing cold again, but it rarely snows. I grew up in American Siberia, I need me some snow!

What do you think about my FOs?

[/end weather rant] [/end post about FOs]

I loved reading about all of your holiday traditions, and they’ve definitely given me ideas to incorporate into my own celebrations.

It was so hard to pick a winner. I agonized. I lost sleep. I couldn’t do it.

I decided to get my friend Random to help me.

Random doesn’t know you like I do. Random doesn’t say to himself, “Oh, that person is an EMT,” or, “Wow, she has nine children,” or, “I met her at Stitches East, and she’s a brand new knitter.”

Random is just the person for the job.

Our first prize was a sock kit, including one of our patterns and a skein of yarn. Random chose:

And number 279 belongs to…

Carol! Congratulations, Carol! What a fun tradition. I am looking forward to Christmas as my children get older and sleep past 4:36 am. What will be like to awaken at say, 8:00 am? A girl can dream.

Our next prize was a custom colorway. How exciting — I look forward to working with people on these!

Random chose:

339. A fine odd number.

339 belongs to…

Karen! You are hilarious! I am going to have to try this. Perhaps I will swat at the people in my house who arise at 4:36 am. Congratulations.

And our final winner, the person who won three months of membership to either one of our nifty clubs, is…

And 49 belongs to:

Congratulations! I’m interested to know how your Christmas Eve tradition got started — have you always celebrated on Christmas Eve?

I’m sorry if you didn’t win. I wish I could give fabulous prizes to all of you! Please check back, maybe Random will choose you next time!

Have a peaceful rest of the season.

XOXOX

Sharon

Welcome to our first-ever Holiday Giveaway Extravaganza Spectacular Spectacle! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah (or Chanukah, if you prefer)! Make the Yuletide gay!

Whatever you’re celebrating, we want to help make your holiday a little brighter.

That’s why we’re giving away — in our Holiday Giveaway Extravaganza Spectacular Spectacle — three fabulous prize packages full of wonderfulness and awesomeness.

Tell them what they can win, Bob!

Bob?

BOB?

Fine, I’ll just fill you in myself.

By entering our contest, you’ll be eligible to win one of three great prizes.

Prize #1: A Three Irish Girls Sock Kit. This includes your choice of any of our awesome patterns and a skein of yarn in your choice of colorways to complete the pattern! If you are already a sock club member and you have all of our patterns, we’ll have a special alternative for you. (Approx. $28 value!)

You know you want a pair of socks like these:

Prize #2:  A custom colorway consultation and two skeins of a custom colorway! We can make your colorways dreams come true! On your favorite yarn base! (Approx $50 value!) Exclamation point!

Prize #3: Three months of your choice of club memberships! Sock Yarnista features your choice of two colorways, a custom designed pattern, and a fun extra each month.

If you prefer heavier weight yarns, Stash Menagerie has a broad variety of fibers, your choice of two colorways, and fun extras every few months!

Being a club member also gives you access to exclusive members-only colorways like these:

If you’re already a club member, you can extend your membership, add extra skeins to your existing membership, become a member of a club you’re not in, or give the membership as a gift to a very lucky person. (Approx $90 value.)

Why are we giving all of this away? For a few reasons. One is the spirit of the holidays. We like brightening people’s days a little with a yummy yarn package. It’s good to put a little good out there in the world.

Another is to say thank you for all of your support this past year — you’ve been with us as we’ve moved into a new studio, expanded our yarn offerings, and started new clubs. We would be nowhere without our fantastic customers, and we want to say thank you.

Here’s how you enter: leave a reply to this post answering the following question: What is your favorite holiday tradition?  Do you have a latke party? (And does your house smell like latkes for three weeks afterward?) Do you have a family outing to cut down a Christmas tree? Do you bake something special? Watch something special? Go somewhere special?

If so, I want to hear about it!

Winners will be randomly selected from the responses. You have until Monday, December 22nd at 9pm EST to reply. Winners will be announced Tuesday, December 23rd.

If you’d like to give any of these prizes as a gift, that can certainly be arranged!

Thank you again, dear readers and loyal customers.

I have not answered questions in a while. Please forgive me. I’ve been a tad busy. But really, busy-ness is no excuse whatsoever.  None at all.

Jaime, friend, asks:

Is your husband of Irish blood too? Can you trace your ancestors back to parts of Europe? You’re definitely a beautiful Irish girl!!

Yes, my darling hubs is Irish as well. His family knows where they came from, and none of them want to go back.  When they left Ireland, times were bad. People were starving. There were no jobs. Everything was always damp. People were dying of consumption and other diseases that now have modern names.

These stories were passed down through the family, and my husband’s generation is now far enough removed that Ireland seems like a beautiful homeland with castles and green meadows and people with lilting accents and deep literature.  But to my father in law, Ireland is like a place he was rescued from — he has no desire to go back there.

It’s hard to imagine that at the turn of the 20th century, the Irish were shunned in the United States.

Fortunately, times have changed. More Americans claim Irish ancestry than any other. It’s now OK to have the word Irish in the name of your business. There are entire stores devoted to Irish stuff. Like Irish Indeed at the Mall of America.

You can purchase this, if you really must:

My great great grandmother was an Irish immigrant through Ellis Island at the turn of the century.

As to the second part of your question, Jaime, all I can say is thank you. And perhaps you need glasses.

Kimberli asks,

How does one find more money to buy yarn? All options considered (even robbing a bank).

Well, now. As a law teacher, I would have to advise against the latter, as the FBI will likely seize any yarn you purchased with the stolen money and hold it in an evidence warehouse until the exhaustion of all your appeals. I don’t want that to happen to the lovely yarn. It didn’t ask to be bought with stolen money.

Here are some ideas for finding ways to purchase more yarn without actually committing crimes:

1. Sell your junk on Craigslist or Ebay. I like Craigslist because it’s free, and nothing more is needed in your listing than a tiny picture and a lot of exclamation points. Like this:

TV CABINET CLEAN AND CHEAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People eat that stuff up. In fact, I have purchased a clean and cheap TV cabinet off of Craigslist. Use money from selling junk to buy more yarn.

2. Tutor or teach lessons. Maybe knitting lessons. Maybe SAT tutoring? Reading? Math? Piano? (I got a clean and cheap piano off of Craigslist as well.) Banjo? LSAT? MCAT? Put an ad on Craigslist, you’ll find customers.

3. Cut out Starbucks for a week. I did this last week and saved $433.92. I bought yarn with it, naturally.

4. Go out to eat less often. Use the money saved to buy yarn. If you spend $35 going out to eat, the enjoyment lasts, what, two hours? Three, max? If you buy yarn, you get to spend hours picking it out, maybe days or weeks of excited anticipation as you wait for it to arrive, time fondling and petting the yarn, the actual knitting time (weeks? months?), plus all the time you get to enjoy the item after it’s finished. It’s definitely a wiser use of your funds. No dinners out = more yarn for you.

5. Cancel the internet at your house.  Never mind. That’s ridiculous.

6. Look on Craigslist for stuff to sell on Ebay. I am serious. Go to yard sales, find sellable stuff, and then resell it for a profit on Ebay. I once found a Delft plate at a yard sale for $3 that I sold for $90 on Ebay. I once bought a designer leather jacket at a yard sale that would never fit me (I haven’t been a size 0 petite since I was like… well, never.)  and sold it for like $120 or something. At yard sales, people just want to get rid of their stuff. On Ebay, people try to find good deals on collectibles. You get a good deal at the yard sale, and the buyer gets a good deal snagging a leather jacket for $120.

7. Ask for gift certificates for your birthday and the holidays. I can think of a few yarn sites that sell them. 

8. Marry rich.

Those are all my suggestions at the present time. Please feel free to add your own in the comments.

This has already become interminably long. I fear your eyes are beginning to weep at the site of this post, so I shall have mercy and bid you a fond adieu.

I have been chuckling over these pictures for days, and just have to share them with you.  Several of my lovely friends took it upon themselves to make little displays using their stash of my yarn.

If you send me your stash pics, I’ll be happy to include them up here. Or I can keep them private, like the woman who shall remain nameless. If you send in those kind of pictures.

Hey, if you’re interested in having a good cry, pull up some old family pictures on your computer or in a photo album. Maybe of your children as just-borns. Maybe of a departed loved one. Maybe of your retirement account pre-stock market crash.

I thought maybe you could use that.

I hope you had a lovely holiday, complete with large quantities of deliciousness and good company. And I hope that if you live outside of the US, you had the best Thursday you’ve ever had.

To celebrate, I am posting the link to a podcast interview I did while I was away at Stitches East.  It was conducted by the girls at Craft Mentality, whom I’ve known online for many years, but never had the pleasure to meet in person.

Just to set the scene, I was interviewed in the middle of our booth surrounded by large quantities of people.

So as we’re doing this interview, people stopped and gathered round. If someone gave me bunny ears behind my head, I would not have been surprised. It took all my concentration to stay focused on the interview because there was so much noise and so many people around.

So, just picture me:

sitting in that exact spot, surrounded by lots of noise and people and a person with a digital voice recorder. A very very nice person with a digital voice recorder. The fact that I sound the way I do has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with her.

I learned it is much easier to sound reasonably awake and intelligent in a quiet room than it is in a booth at a convention. I will add that to my list of Life Lessons Learned Through Experience. It’s on the wall of my studio right next to the rest of the signs I have tacked up.

It’s a long list. It also has things like, “Spilling black yarn dye on blonde hair = not good,” and, “When in Estonia, don’t eat the pizza.” (I know, I’m probably one of the few people in the world who doesn’t like pineapple and blue cheese as pizza toppings. Together.)

The first interview in the podcast is with my Yarn Love partner, Katie, and I am third in the broadcast.

Have at it! — Stitches East 2008 interview

(If you’re new to podcasts, you just click on “download episode 12″, and turn up the volume on your speakers.)

And try not to hold it against me.

I can’t lift my arms again. That’s what happens when you spend five days lifting very heavy things to shoulder height and keeping them there for several minutes.

You know when you’re working out (this requires me to dig deep in my long term memory), and you just can’t do one.more.repetition, and you reach complete muscle fatigue? Not just, “I’m tired and want to stop,”  but, “My muscle is shaking and I can’t control it anymore?” Yeah, that’s where I am. Except I wasn’t trying to work out.  Why would I try to work out when my every day life makes it so I can’t lift my arms?

Perhaps I will sidetrack you with a picture.

It’s a little something I’m working on. I cant’ tell you what yet. Mostly because I’m mean, but you knew that already.

Last week, I set up a little photo shoot with my yarn. I actually used props. Most of the time I am against props in yarn photographs. 99.9% of the time, you won’t see props in my pictures. Yarn with lollipop? No. Yarn with woodland wildlife? Too risky. Yarn with household grime and clutter? Cleanliness is next to Godliness.

Pictures… just a second, where are they… ah-HA! Here we go.

Mulled Wine:

The yarn is one of December’s Sock Yarnista colorways, dyed on a superwash Blue Faced Leicester yarn base that I am in love with. The mug is from Shafford, the pattern called “Golden Fruit,” for those collectors out there. I love vintage tableware.

Jack Frost:

Do you see the little glint of icy snow crystals in the background? This amuses me, I don’t know why. Oh yes I do, it’s because I’m easily amused.

To recap:

I can’t lift my arms.

I can’t tell you anything about this:

Here’s some yarn in vintage tableware:

Here’s some snowy yarn:

Thank you and goodnight.

… and I know you were. You can’t hide the wondering from me.

Just in case you were wondering what my studio now looks like, here are a couple of pictures:

Pardon the mess. No, seriously, stop looking at the mess. 

This is where I actually dye your yarn. I stick notes to myself up on the wall. They say things like, “Quit looking at the wall, why aren’t you looking at the yarn?” “The yarn will never get done if you keep staring at this,” “Step AWAY from the brown dye!”and “Buy more tape.”

I had this table custom made for moi. You can’t have it, it’s my baby.

This is the room where the finished yarn goes, waiting to be shipped.  The color isn’t that great in this shot, I only have the overhead lights on, not the fancy special lights. The wall on your left is actually deep raspberry, and the wall straight ahead is periwinkle.

Some days I think I would like to get a futon and just fall asleep staring at the yarn wall. That would not be a popular choice with my husband.

Perhaps, instead, I should blow up some pictures of the yarn wall and put them on my bedroom wall at home.

I need something with a fine art quality. How about something like this:

Yarn seen through miniblinds. This has a postmodern quality to it.

And here’s what a yarn wall would look like if the yarn were actually made of fur and not wool. I could splash this with some red dye, and it could be PETA protest art.

Perhaps something a bit more traditional, like an antique mosaic:

Or mid-century modern, like molded plastic?

Maybe just a classic oil painting would do the trick.

And finally, here’s what the yarn wall would look like if it were actually fine aged leather. Maybe I should look into getting a club chair upholstered with this.

Decisions, decisions…