Tag Archive for ‘yarn’ at adam knits!

Tag Archive for 'yarn'

An Earnest Plea 19 Mar 08

Dear Mr. Postman,

I just want you to know how much I appreciate your tireless effort to deliver the mail, be it rain, shine, snow or sun. Everyday, despite the risk of losing your fingers, you gladly insert letters into the mail slot, no matter how ferocious the growling Schnauzers may sound. You work hard to make sure that I receive every single “no strings attached” credit card offer thrown at me by the crumbling loan industry. You don’t bat an eye when I hand you a big box filled to the brim with yarn, no matter how strange it may seem to you. And I can always count on you when I need a bit of ~~crack~~ yarn to brighten a dreary day.

So even though I am deeply appreciative of your years of dedicated service, I can’t help but be a little disappointed today. See, I’m awaiting a very important package right now, and I’m not sure you fully understand the weight you bear with this particular parcel. It all started last week, when I was innocently checking up on my Flickr friends, when I came across this photo. My heart lept. Could it be? No way. Surely they’re sold out, I told myself. But something from deep within told me to try anyway. It was with trembling hands that I hastily clicked “Add To Cart” and then “Checkout”, hoping to claim my bounty before someone else. 30 seconds later it happened.

I had acquired a Fiddlehead Mittens Kit. The most coveted pattern and yarn combination ever unleashed upon the Internet would soon be mine. I was as elated as Ralphie, when his father pulled out one last box to reveal a Red Rider BB Gun.

So you can imagine how my level of excitement and anticipation has been building all week, since the kit shipped on Monday. I was sure it’d be here today, waiting for me to come home, but I can’t seem to find it.

I checked the outside mail box.

I checked the indoor mail slot.

I checked the front porch, the space in between the front and screen door, and the side of the house. All I was able to find was this lousy credit card offer.

Don’t think me a fool either. I ship a whole lot of stuff with the Postal Service, and I am very attuned to how long a Priority Mail package should take to arrive. I’m very good at reading in between the lines of your cryptic delivery status messages, and I’m almost certain that my mitten kit is in New Mexico. You may say that it arrived too late to get placed on your truck today, but I say that’s not good enough. This is not an offer for Propecia we’re talking about here. This is a very sacred package, which definitely warranted a trip back to the station for a pickup.

Because I’m a nice guy, I’m willing to give you one more day. And maybe, if you’re really diligent about bringing my impulse yarn purchases this year, I’ll knit you a pair of socks to keep your feet warm this winter. Does something like this suit your fancy? It certainly does mine.

So get some rest tonight, because you have a very important job to do tomorrow. Oh, and if you could tell a colleague up in the WA area to make sure that my mystery gift gets delivered tomorrow, that’d be g r e a t.

PS: If you do not deliver the goods tomorrow, I will be forced to let my attack Schnauzers follow you back to the station to retrieve it. Dallas would love nothing more than to give you a huge wet willy.

Sincerely,

Adam

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Adam

in knitting, patterns, schnauzers, socks and works in progress

Is It 5 Yet? 27 Apr 07

18 Comments

Man am I ready for this week to be over! It’s been a long one, full of late hours at campus and lots of homework. I also had lots of Yarn Nerd orders to ship out, (thanks everyone, you rock!), so I often found myself awake at 1 am, packing yarn or working on math simulations. The math simulations aren’t so hot, but at least the yarn shipping is still a labor of love, so I don’t mind packing a few skeins up in the wee hours. I keep telling myself that I’ll keep more humane hours after school is over, but then I’m sure I’ll spend a few nights watching movies and knitting into the early hours too. At least I’m still young, because I think in a few years this lack of sleep thing won’t be so easy to recover from.

I have a nice relaxing weekend planned, involving dyeing up some Create Your Skein orders, knitting on my sock, and a little yard work. The yard work isn’t terribly relaxing, I have to install a new sprinkler timer and a new pond pump, but it’s a change of pace from bit error rate calculations so it should be nice. Speaking of the weekend, I woke up this morning to find my sock (which may or may not be a physical manifestation of my inner fratboy) trying to convince me that it was high time for a beer. While the sock made a convincing argument on why I deserved a nice treat after a long week, I had to tell him that it just wouldn’t happen. Just because it’s “5 o’clock somewhere” doesn’t mean I can just go hog wild, at 8 am nonetheless. I guess I’ll just have to wait until 5. Anyone else looking forward to quitting time after a long week?

The sock is progressing nicely though, and I’m hoping to sail down to the foot this weekend so I can seam it’s mouth shut…I’m getting tired of it trying to get me to shirk all my responsibilities…

Also, my Eye Candy for today is the lovely pond Irises (I think that’s right, is that what you said they were Mom?), which are beginning to bloom. I’m looking forward to the summer as my backyard is a great place to hang out and listen to the pond, while taking a nap in the grass. It’s a lot of work to get it up and going, but I’m making steady progress. Plus, I think the Irises alone make up for all the labor!

Finally, the last thing I have before sailing off into the wonderful land of miller time is a finished object that I’m very proud of. Although I didn’t knit this sock, I did dye the yarn for it, and I think it’s smoking hot. It was knit by Chawne (I don’t know if she has a blog, but her Flickr photos speak for themselves), with my 900 MHz Merino the in Tour de France colorway. This is one of my favorite colorways and I think she did real tribute to it with her simple sock design. Isn’t it sweet?

I was sad :( to find that Chawne found 4 knots in the skein when she wound it. 4 knots? Man that would make me mad if I was knitting it! Knots do occur occasionally when hand-dyeing, but I always try to limit them, and I would definitely not send out a skein with 4 knots if I knew about it. But sometimes the skeins come from the mill with knots already, and those ones are sneaky little buggers.

Anyway, the short of it is, if you buy yarn from Yarn Nerd and are less than pleased, do let me know! I want you to be extremely happy with every Yarn Nerd purchase, and I will do whatever it takes to keep you as a Yarn Nerd fan. I value my customers highly, and I would love to hear your opinions on my yarn (good and bad). Because good customer service just makes the world a better place, ya know?

Oh boy, 10 minutes until 5, I can’t wait! Have a great weekend everyone!

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Adam

in a nerd's life, customers, knitting, nerdy, school, shop, socks, weekend!, works in progress and yarn nerd

Buy Some Yarn, or the Schnauzers Get It! 24 Apr 07

9 Comments

Just a quick post to say that I did update the shop yesterday, and there’s still some goodness to be had, so go grab it while it’s hot! The colorways pictured are still available (lots of Project Spectrum goodness!), both in my 900 MHz Mega Merino and 900 MHz Mini Merino. What is this you ask? Well now I’m offering my sock yarn in both mega and mini versions, both of which are still 100% Superwash Merino. The Mega Merino comes in 450 yard skeins, so you’ll have plenty for a big pair of socks, or some socks and wristwarmers! And the Mini Merino are just like little skeins of crack…Each skein has 190 yards, so they’re the perfect size to make some anklets, or buy two to make a larger pair of socks! Did I mention that the Mini Merino skeins are the same base yarn as Koigu?

Also, I’m excited to introduce a new Yarn Nerd feature, called Create Your Skein. Basically it’s a cool new way to do a custom colorway, or order an existing colorway in whatever base yarn you want. All you do is browse through the Yarn Nerd color gallery, pick your colors (up to 5 for a custom skein), and checkout. Then I’ll dye up your custom skein and send it out within a week. So simple, yet so dangerous. I currently have 2400 MHz Worsted wool in stock, and a new yarn that I am excited to offer: 1500 MHz Nylon, a 90/10 Superwash Merino/Nylon blend. It’s so soft, I pet it everytime I walk into my office…

Anyway, that’s the Yarn Nerd scoop these days, so go on over and check out what I’ve been cooking up in the kitchen!

PS: Guess what? This week is my last week of “new material” in class! That means no more homework after what’s due this week! The light is getting slightly bigger…although I do have a few take home finals to do first…ugh!

PPS: No Schnauzers were harmed in the writing of this post. I’m just full of empty threats ;)

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Adam

in dyeing, project spectrum, school, shop, unm and yarn nerd

Basking in the Fluorescent Glow 20 Apr 07

9 Comments

It’s an absolutely gorgeous day outside today; the sun is shining, the birds are chirping and the flowers are blooming. So what am I doing? Getting a green tan from fluorescent lights. Such is the life of an engineer I suppose, especially when you work in laboratory buildings with no windows. The price you pay for being a math nerd…

Although I should mention that today is a good day because I’m finally moving into a permanent cubicle in my building. I just got to move into the building with my coworkers a few months ago (it’s very hard to find space in our building) after sitting in a temporary trailer for almost a year. And now my new cubicle is finally vacated and ready for me to move in. It’s actually a pretty sweet cubicle, I think even Dilbert would be slightly green with envy. It has a big wrap around desk, high walls and a sliding door! That’s right, a door! It’s so swank, I love it. And my favorite feature? The giant whiteboard! I love whiteboards so much, I’ve contemplated putting huge ones in every room of my house. You could brainstorm anywhere!

Ahem. Anyway, I’m super happy about having a permanent workspace now, because boy has it been a long wait! But you didn’t come here to hear about my obsessive love of whiteboards did you? You want all the details about the yarny goodness sitting in my home office!

How’s this teaser for you?

The Yarn Nerd shop update will be this Monday, April 23, at 8 AM MDT. There’s lots of goodness to be had, including the lovely new color pictured above. That’s all the details I’ll give here on the blog, so you’ll have to come to the Yarn Nerd site on Monday to check it all out. And if you’re a newsletter subscriber, I’ll be sending out a more detailed announcement with a few more juicy details. I can’t wait, this is going to be a good update!

I hope you have a great weekend, and that it’s filled with some fun and fiber! I’m going to do some yardwork tonight (got to get the sprinklers up and going!), lounge around tomorrow (serious knitting time baby!) and do some homework on Sunday (no fun, but Viterbi Algorithm simulations don’t write themselves). I think it should be a relaxing weekend on average, so I’m looking forward to it.

Catch you later peeps!

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Adam

in dyeing, ee, knitting, nerdy, shop, work, works in progress and yarn nerd

Mmmm, Yarn! 17 Apr 07

9 Comments

That’s what Dallas was thinking the other day as I was reskeining some yarn! I turned my back for a second and looked over to see him chewing on a freshly wound skein of Raspberry Sherbet. He didn’t eat any of it luckily, but he did manage to completely destroy any hope that poor skein had of ever being knit up into anything. He’s pretty thorough with those teeth!

Oh well, what can you do eh? He did get a scolding for playing with something he wasn’t supposed to, but I can’t really fault the poor guy, he’s completely out of toys! I need to go to the discount store and buy some more dog toys, since he destroys them as fast as I can buy them! He certainly keeps me on my toes that’s for sure :) And I wasn’t too mad, since it was one of my mini skeins (more info on those to come with the upcoming shop update), so at least it wasn’t a 450 yard skein that was ruined.

And I thought only cats liked yarn!

Things are still chugging along here…the shop update is getting closer to being ready, but school also continues to loom over my head like an anvil. It’s like I told a friend today…I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but there’s still a bunch of roadblocks and potholes on the road before I get to the light!

I spent most of this evening trying to figure out how to find the bit error rate for a multi-carrier communications system using repetition codes and majority decoding for BPSK modulated subchannels under flat Rayleigh fading. Any one know the answer to that one? I think I got a solution, but I’m still not entirely sure…which is usually how the homework for this class goes.

Speaking of evening, it seems to have slipped away into night time, and I’m getting tired so I think I’ll hit the hay. I was a bit worried 15 minutes ago, because the water randomly shut off, but it seems to be back on now so I hope it sticks around until the morning. Just another small test to see how close my sanity is to the breaking point I suppose.

Here’s hoping a little sleep will bring me back from that breaking point…just ever so slightly. ;)

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Adam

in a nerd's life, dallas, schnauzers, school, shop, unm, work and yarn nerd