entrelac sweater, ham & cheese poppy seed buns, Cookie & Elsie

As most of you know, I (along with 2 of my friends) have been working on an entrelac sweater for quite awhile.  I have finally finished the back and both fronts:

 

 Yes…it is rather screaming isn’t it?  I don’t care, everytime I take it out anywhere, people come over to exclaim over it…and they say it is beautiful and it makes them smile…I love it too!  Anyway…I thought it would be nice to make the sweater ribbing, and sleeve ribbing and the big shawl collar all in one color….to pull it all together and also tone it down a tiny bit.  I decide to use the lavender color and I go on the website to order more…..they have NONE!!!  I can’t find it anywhere!!  I call to ask about it, and a very nice person (who has no idea that they are throwing an atomic bomb into my knitting bag) says ‘oh yes…it was a limited run..there is none left and we won’t be getting anymore’.  I hang up and run around my studio screaming and gnashing my teeth!

When I calm down (can you ever REALLY calm down when a project that you have spent HOURS and HOURS on is in jeopardy of never being completed???) I think about RAVELRY.  RAVELRY is an on-line community of knitters, that one of my friends told me I should join a couple of years ago.  I joined, but only go on there when someone says ‘check out this pattern on RAVELERY”.  Anyway, I go on, hoping I can post some kind of message asking if anyone has my yarn and would be willing to sell it.  I finally find a tab labeled ‘stash’.  People take pictures of the yarn in their stash and then up load them to RAVELRY.  I type in the specific yarn I am looking for, and 24 pages of people come up (with 15 people on a page).  I type the following paragraph:

“I am desperately seeking WOOL OF THE ANDES TONAL in the blue violet color (25419) dye lot 09007 to complete a project. One skein should do it, but I would be glad to buy 2 of you have them. Please let me know if you would be willing to part with any skein(s). Thank you for considering this request…I would be glad to send you a completed picture of the project.”

I post this message on every person (on the first 10 pages) who shows a picture of what I think is my color.  I did this Thursday evening. 

 

Friday morning (3/1) I sign on and I have 17 messages.  People were SO NICE….many offered to sell me some of their yarn, but it is the wrong dye lot.  I still have 14 pages where I didn’t post the message, so I thank everyone and tell them I’m going to keep looking.  Finally the LAST person to respond to me has 2 skeins…and ONE of them is my dye lot….and she agrees to sell to me….WHOO HOO!!!  Again…I run around studio screaming, but this time there is no gnashing of teeth.  I am over the moon.  She needs to be paid through PAY PAL (where I do not have an account) but BG graciously agrees to use hers and sends the money.  The woman is going to try to ship out in the next few days…..YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I’m still going to keep looking for a second skein, because I am just not sure how much yarn the shawl collar will take.  Whew – I was exhausted when it was all over…and it was still the morning!  I went upstairs and baked up a pan of ‘golden pull apart butter buns’ for our contribution to dinner Friday night.  I got 28 people to attend the current play at FMCP and 14 of them decided to come to a pot luck dinner at our house before the play.  I have wanted to make these ‘ham & cheese poppy seed rolls’ for some time and Friday was it.  I thought I was going to have to cut each bun individually, but while Michael was showering, I decided to see if I could just slice through them all at once horizontally ….it worked:

 

 

Then I spread them with this butter/Worcestershire/poppyseed/mustard spread:

 then Michael sprinkled them with ham:

 

 

 then cheese:

 

then we popped the tops back on and slid them back into the same pan:

 

Michael went to take his shower and he had an audience as he was getting dressed:

 

 

then we popped the rolls into the oven for about 15 minutes, until the cheese melted, and took them out just as people began to arrive…they were scrump-tee-ous!!  There was quite a variety of pot luck food: chicken/pineapple skewers, artichoke/spinach dip, cold corn salad, deviled eggs and tortilla roll-ups.  Jan and Walt brought cookies and Carol and Bill brought brownies for dessert.  I think everyone enjoyed the food and friendship before we all packed up and headed off to the theatre to meet up with the rest of our party to see HALLELUIA GIRLS.  This was a REALLY funny play and we all enjoyed it.  We stayed after to talk to several of the cast that we knew, and were home by 11 to read for a bit before bed.