A Weekend Retreat

I didn't have a stellar week. I wrote a few really angry posts about my job, but my better judgement kicked in and I published none of them.

A weekend retreat was definitely in order though, and Boyfriend & I spent the night at my parents' lake cabin. Waking up among the trees surrounded by birdsong... it's very zen.

I used to hate it up here. We got this place when I was... 12 or 13? I hated it because it meant I would be disconnected from all of my friends,  and while there were other kids here there weren't a whole lot that were my age and the ones that were had no interest in being my friend. Now though, as an adult and with the addition of things like internet access, laptops, cell phones, etc. I'm very happy to be here. Away from things. Nothing pressing on me, no apartment begging to be cleaned or kitty asking why he can't have supper at 3 pm. It's very pleasant and as much as I hated it when I was younger I'm enjoying it now.

We're having some friends come up for the day later, they should be here in about an hour. But for now it's just us. Boyfriend is reading, I'm knitting, and there's some music coming through the windows from my computer. Birdies singing and the trees just being green & pretty. Yay.

Like A Proud Momma

I launched! Wooo! It was exhausting and exciting and there were some hiccoughs along the way but I did it, it's done, and I celebrated with many beers.

It was nice to be out with people. It's something I've really missed since college: being just out, in a bar, even if you don't know anyone there. I really have to make a concerted effort to do that more, especially now that I'm done rebranding and hopefully the bulk of my prep work for that won't need to be repeated, just maintained.

I finally have had some time to knit. I hadn't knit a stitch in about a week, which was both terrible and scary, but I needed to make sure I had everything done. I got four repeats of my Mad May shawl done, and if I keep going at two a day I should finish in time.

Now all I can think about is a nap. I feel like I didn't sleep (even though I slept like a rock, courtesy of a melatonin) and even coffee isn't helping. Wah.

The Big Day Has Arrived!!

Finally, after months of deliberation and hard work, I'm ready to unveil my big news. I've spent months and hundreds of hours working on this, thinking, deliberating, brainstorming, doodling, daydreaming, and writing. And the news is... As of today, May 11, Yarn Monkey Productions is officially closed.

I came up with the Monkey when I was a senior in high school. It was cute, fun, & silly, and represented well what I was all about at the time. It was just a weekend thing, a justification for the crazy amount of yarn I bought and things I was knitting, an excuse to learn new skills, to experiment, to expand my horizons. Eventually, I took on other skills like dyeing and spinning and was able to really expand as my vision for what this company could be grew.

The past couple of years though I've become discontent.  I want more - more from my craft, more for my business, more of this in my life. The end goal  - a brick-and-mortar business - has morphed over time as I thought more and more about what I really wanted, what I could see myself doing for the rest of my life,  I came to realize that in this grand picture of where I'm headed there was no room for Yarn Monkey as a brand.  I needed something new.

This something is what I've been spending the overwhelming majority of my waking moments on. I've been eating, sleeping, breathing, dreaming about rebranding my business for months. And now I get to share it with everyone!

I'd like to introduce you to MollyGirl, where fiber rocks!

As you may or may not know, my background is in the music industry. I worked at a number of New York City venues all through college in all sorts of capacities. I love live music - few things bring people together like a live show. And while it might be less mainstream, the fiber arts bring people together too, in very similar ways. In my mind these two art forms aren't disparate in the slightest; they simply haven't been brought together yet. 

Right now, MollyGirl is still small. Our internet shop will be packed full of yarn, handknits, accessories, and who knows what else. I plan on doing as many shows as possible, and eventually (hopefully) I'll be able to take this on full time. That's the immediate goal.

The long term goal is greater - a physical place where people can come together. There will be yarn, fiber, tea, and music. There will be songs and knits and community.  The fiber arts have historically revolved around social gatherings - why not now? I don't know when or where or exactly how this place will come into being.  Knitting shop + coffee house + small music venue...  It might sound crazy, but in my mind, it's beautiful.

So YMP isn't really gone. It's just stepped aside and made way for a new leading lady. Hopefully by the time you're reading this I've changed YMP listings over to their new MollyGirl names. All the things you loved in YMP's shop have simply relocated over to the new MollyGirl shop. They might not all be up just yet, but I'm working on it, I promise. Yarns & colors have new names,  but they're the same great products. We'll also shortly be releasing patterns on Ravelry and starting our fabulous kickoff raffle so you should head on over to Facebook and get involved in that. We've launched our new website too, and we'll be announcing shows as soon as we get them confirmed.

I'm SO EXCITED to FINALLY be sharing this all with you! We have a whole new look but everything is as you've come to expect - high quality at an awesome price. This has been such a labor of love, and I'm looking forward to continuing to expand my fibery horizons with you!

Much love,

Angela

Change's Gonna Come...

Tomorrow! I get to make my announcement tomorrow! I'm so excited!

Mostly I'm excited to be able to (theoretically) be able to get backt to my crafting. I haven't knit in... a week? About? I finished my tweedy leafy shawly thing on Monday. So not quite a week. But still. I'm going through some serious withdrawal. I just didn't have ay time! it was frustrating, but I perservered and everything I think is ready to go tomorrow. I think. I'm going to have to check my checklist for the billionth time. And then tomorrow night I will drink beer with friends and get to be social for pretty much the first time in months. Yayyyy!

I don't really have anything else to say, other than that's what I've been doing and where I've been. I'm looking forward to being able to relax into a more normal schedule after tomorrow if nothing else. I like schedules and being in a general rhythm.  Thank you for bearing with me through all this - it's going to be great, you'll see.

Another Day & The Start of Mad May

Oh Mad May... I'm not going to go all out the way I did with Mal March, mostly because I have WAY too much going on, but I'm going to try and get at least one project done.  I CO'd a shawl of my own design yesterday, though I'm working on another similar project already. I'm most of the way through that one, so I figure one repeat of one then one repeat  of the other, back & forth, I'll get them both finished in due time and I won't get too bored with either one.

Had a good powwow yesterday with my parents over dinner. My father is going to try and build me an excellent new display for all the shows I'm trying to book, so I'm excited about that, and Boyfriend & I are going to scope out new table display items and tablecloths this evening, among other things. I feel sort of bad, like it's all about me right now because I'm just so focused that business is most of what I talk about at the moment.  I don't want to stop until I make some progress though, and Boyfriend is being very patient and supportive.  He's planning on having the boys over for games this weekend, so that'll be good. It also means I can get some work done in peace and someone will feed me.  We're also going garage-sale-ing on Saturday, so that should be fun. I like an adventure. Maybe we can hit some geocaches too... Hmmm.... Adventuresss.....

Geochaching & Late-Night Gaming

After a stressful week at work (and at home to some extent) I was really looking forward to a kickass weekend. Thus far, it's been off to an excellent start, too.

During the week I decided to try and find Boyfriend & I something to do. I vaguely remembered having a swap partner who was involved in Geocaching. I didn't know much about it then but I decided to look it up and thought we'd give it a try. Looked forward to it allll week, too. So yesterday, Boyfriend & two other friends and I piled into my car & drove to Hofstra Park in Prospect Park, NJ & set out to give this a shot. It took us awhile to find the first one, and we didn't find all the ones we set out to find, but we did find some and we had a blast! Got a good little workout too. The park was great, both urban & woodsy at the same time. It was kind of weird but good for our purposes. It was up on top of a hill overlooking Paterson & a strip mine... so they were nice views... of the sky anyway.

Afterwards we got lunch, parted ways for showers and naps, and reconvened at our place around eight for pesto & games. Gaming until 3 am does weird things to people. There was no drinking (for once) but we did end up making a cake.

Today I'm just catching up on stuff I didn't get to do during the week. Like taking pics of my FO's from the week, replying to emails I didn't feel like reading on my phone. Now I'm about ready for a nap though.

I did finish Candome hat. I tried to make the top a little interesting by adding a little cable twist into the decrease section, but it's not really noticable, I don't think. Oh well, no worries. The colors are nice, even if they're not my colors.

I finished the bag too, which I ADORE and I'm PUMPED to make another for myself! I was worried it wouldn't be the size I wanted, which was large enough to hold a beach towel. In lieu of a beach towel I tested it with my voluminous bathrobe and it totally fit! Super pumped! And I love this yarn! I don't think I'd ever use it for anything other than beachbags, but I am tempted to go stock up on some Cascade Sunseeker in different colors and make a few spares.

I also made another beret, which I finished towards the end of gaming last night, out of a sacred skein of Studio Donegal. I LOVE this stuff, I think it just knits up beautifully and it's nice & springy & soft... Ahh. I became enamored of it last year when I was in Ireland (where it's spun and pretty much exclusively distributed) and almost peed myself with joy when someone at last fall's North Jersey Fiber Arts Festival scored some to sell. It's just a simple beret with a little lacey leaf pattern in one place to add a little focus. Ugh. I wish I had a place to buy this locally, I'd use it all the time instead of hoarding it like Halloween candy.

This morning I CO'd a flat knit cowl. My co-worker loved the hat I made in Piedras for Mal Madness but she doesn't wear hats or want a cowl that she has to pull over her head. I snagged a skein of Twist in Piedras on sale & figured I'd make her something with buttons. I don't like flat knitting as much as in the round, but I'll get through it. =) But first I think I really want a nap. Not feeling hot today again, so at the very least I'd like to be horizontal with comfy blankets & pillows on my comfy comfy sleep number bed. Tea and nap, then more knitting. Sounds like a kickass finish to a weekend to me! =D

A Time For Rest

I hate that it's been so long. It makes me sad, actually. But these past few weeks have been rough, and I've either not had the time to sit down and devote or I've just been too weary, either physically or emotionally. There were two deaths, one that I had to leave the state for. There's been YMP busyness. Easter. Insomnia. Illness. Mal Madness. A LOT of stress at work (the summer is coming faster than you think, and it's hitting my office already).  It's just been exhausting, tiring to experience and too tiring to talk about at length. I spent a lot of time in my head, and I kept thinking to myself, "I should write about this!". I couldn't bring myself to put words to what I was feeling though, there was just too much.

Sleepy penguin!

Candome Hat

This past weekend, though, I finally got to take a vacation. Granted, it was just a long weekend with my hunnie, less than a three-hour drive to Mystic, CT, but it was the only vacation I've had since August of 2011 so I was SUPER PUMPED.  It was a sort of strange weekend, though it all worked out in the end. Just being ANYWHERE but our apartment alone with Boyfriend would have been great, but Mystic is kind of special for us, so it was nice to get back.  We went to Mohegan Sun, walked around the town & Olde Mystick Village (my fave!). We met two ADORABLE miniature Australian Shepherds, which I did not know existed but now I must have. Boyfriend & I have been wanting one but they need way more space than we have; apparently, the minis are calmer and need less space. SO CUTE my head almost exploded. We also went to the aquarium, which I love, & saw the penguins, which I love. I wanted to buy some original Penguin Art but settled for a print & mug instead.

I did visit two yarn shops, I'm proud to say, and I think I did pretty well with my self-restraint. The first was Mystic River Yarns, which was a lovely shop, really. They had a great discount wall, and I picked up a few skeins of different yarns by Ellyn Connor's Yarn Sonnets. The other was really an alpaca farm (though we didn't get to see much of the alpacas themselves, which was fine). Our hotel was 10 minutes from Burgis Brook Alpacas in Canterbury, CT. It was kind of tough to find and when we got there we were a little creeped out . You pull up to a house on a quiet country road surrounded by hedges & high fences with only a few other cars, a padlocked barn to the right, and not a soul in sight. It was a little eerie, but the proprietess heard us and came to open the shop. Once inside it was quite pleasant, although it was mostly mainstream yarns, lots of Malabrigo, Noro, & Araucania, which was kind of a bummer. I was able to score a skein of Aysen and one of Coliumo in Berry (which I actually really needed  for a project I have in mind - I'd swapped for one, but the person stiffed me & thought I was SOL) as well as 2 skeins of their farm blend and one of a corriedale/mohair blend from another local farm. I was well pleased with my purchases, all told.

I got a bit of knitting done, including a bunch of work on the bag I'm making for a swap.  I'd decided to crochet the bag originally, and unfortunately most of what I did was work on this bag. I got to the point where I'd start the cuff of the bag...  and it was WAY too small. I wasn't jazzed about the way that it was coming out anyway (reminding me how much I dislike crocheting) so when we got home for the weekend I frogged it all and started a knit bag. I'm almost done with the body of it, and I really like the way it's coming out. 

I also did a wee bit of work on my Candome hat.  I bought a skein of Rios in Candome during Mal March (naughty me!!) because it was on sale and I'm trying to use it up so I don't feel guilty about having bought it lol. I always love people's pictures of FO's in Candome but I never like the way it looks in the skein... To be honest, I don't know how I feel about this hat that I'm making  either. Something simple, just a plain stockinette slouchy hat, I'll probably put a button or something on it. The only bit of fanciness is that I added some mini cables to the ribbing on the brim. I meant to be able to knit this in the car, though I wound up driving on the way up and passing out on the way home. Now I'll try and punch it out once I finish my bag, though it's hard to work on it because I get bored really fast with the stockinette. Slow & steady though.

I'm hoping things will quiet down for awhile. Probably not for long, but two weeks of routine would be nice.  I'm a creature of habit, I like routine.  I'm all for shaking it up once in awhile, but I've had enough shaking now. No more shaking.  Time now to rest.