We went to a local Yarn Festival this weekend. Okay, so technically it’s a Fiber Festival, but since I didn’t care about the other fibers, it’s a yarn festival. It was a lot of fun. Sorry no pictures of the actual day as I was too involved with yarn. The Husband came as payback for all the races I have attended and to act as my sane voice. If you put a recovering yarn addict in the middle of a yarn festival, someone will get hurt. The Husband was there to keep me on my purchase list and not buy every yarn that made my heart flutter. Plus he got to have a cider donut and coffee as payment. Not a bad day for him, I think.

OP seemed to have fun. She got to see sheep and bunnies in their pens, and she watched as sheep dogs demonstrated, through the commands of their owners of course, how to herd sheep. OP was fascinated. Plus she got to eat her first-ever cider donut (with a sippy cup of apple cider–another first) and LOVED it.

I love fall in the North East for the cider donuts alone.

As we all know, I established rules for yarn buying this year to help my yarn addiction recovery–no buying yarn unless it’s for a project OR at a yarn festival with specific projects in mind. I’m happy to report that I did very well this weekend!

The last time I bought yarn was in January  for my Central Park Hoodie (go me!) and have spent the rest of the year slowly, slowly, slowly knitting through stash-busting projects. I’m frustrated on my speed, but that’s probably another entry for anther day. With the yarn festival and how slow I’ve been knitting, I knew I had to really limit my yarn shopping. I went armed with a list of 3 project concepts I have planned and only bought yarn only for two of the projects.

Into The Whirled – Pakokku Sock

I did give myself the option of buying a bonus skein of really pretty yarn if I found it. Even the Husband, my voice of reason, agreed I could. Oddly enough, I didn’t buy any random yarn. I know, I’m just as shocked as you are. Is an apocalypse brewing?

Buckwheat Bridge Angoras – Very Special Yarn

I suspect part of my self-control was due to that list. I was only looking for my three items and if the yarn didn’t fit what I wanted, then I just didn’t focus on it. Removing the organic, “Oh shiny!” part of yarn shopping wasn’t as much fun and I don’t know if I got to fully appreciate everything that was there, but I also didn’t leave with yarn I didn’t need and a mountain of regret. And that felt good.

The other part of my self-control was due to my friend, Ezra711, who a few days before, photographed her entire stash to know what she already had. I had been thinking about doing that for a while as an exercise in accountability, but seeing someone else do it made me feel less crazy. To be fair, it’s not crazy to be organized. At least that’s what the voices tell me. I didn’t photograph anything before the yarn fest, but it did make me start mentally cataloging what I have. I have a lot.

I’m happy to report that last night I began photographing my stash and adding it to Flickr and Ravelry, although Flickr will not have the specifics only Ravelry will. It’s going to be a long process. Anything that starts with, “Holy crap that’s a $@^%-load of yarn.” is going to be a long process, but I also have to be careful of when and how I go through the yarn. I have a kid who’s favorite pastime is to take the “pretty yarn,” run through the house, and eventually wind herself into the ball. I need to avoid that. So I’m limited in the when and the how of the cataloging. So far I’ve cataloged only 7 items–that’s types of yarn not individual skeins. Looking at the chest of yarn, I suspect I have at least 40 more to go. Now’s the time to get your bets in. How many items do you think I’ll have when I’m done cataloging?

A blog post came out about a month ago lamenting the girling-down of the tough gal persona. The author called out blogs where woman bake cupcakes, knit, and garden as evidence of our ever-impending girly-dom. She then went on to further decry her view of our modern-day woman’s slow decline into heels and aprons by asking where have all the tough bitches gone by citing the past great women like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sigourney Weaver’s character in the Alien movies or drug-addled rock stars like Courtney Love.

I like to think that the post is really this woman’s failed attempt at a satirical look at gender issues that still exist, but sadly I suspect it isn’t. It’s probably her way to get publicity for something she’s working on.

The post has pages and pages and pages of comments from irate, but oddly well-behaved, women who feel the need to tell the author why they are really strong feminists who also have more traditionally feminine hobbies as well. Reading the comments are both empowering and sad, because while there are dozens of women who have fought in wars, defeated cancer, built airplanes, survived rape, etc. it comes across (to me) as an apology. The commenters seem to be saying I like to do something traditionally girly, but it’s okay because I fought a lion while building a rocket during the time I discovered the solution to some obscure math theorem and single-handedly saved a child’s life by running into a burning building, lifting a beam off him, and carrying him out. So really, it’s okay that I like to bake. Don’t think less of me. I don’t want to apologize.

My Mom told me in high school how lucky I was because I could play sports. She wasn’t allowed to growing up, but her brothers could. That’s feminism–I can do whatever I want within legal parameters no matter what is between my legs. That’s what we need to remember and celebrate. It doesn’t matter what you do–flower arranging, gaming, or boxing–all that matters is you have the right to do what you want. That wasn’t the case forty or fifty years ago and a lot of work was done to make sure that we that right without having to explain ourselves. I knit because it makes me happy. I bake because I enjoy it. No apologies and no rationalization. Just choice.

My first thought when I read the recipe for Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Cookies was pretty close to revulsion. I mean, really? Oreos and chocolate chip cookies together in an unholy union of gooey goodness and dunkable deliciousness? Isn’t that type of coupling illegal in most states? But then, I became intrigued by the sin of joining these two cookies and after discussing the recipe with the Husband, who thought that cookie sounded good (liberal heathen), I decided it was too interesting to pass up.

Tonight I decided to make them. I’m so going to Hell.

Look how tiny that Oreo is compared to all the evil.

It’s a relatively easy recipe to make, and the chocolate cookie recipe on it’s own is yummy. Together the two cookies are very good. It would have been even better had I used Double Stuff Oreos and less chocolate chips, not something I would normally say because really the cookie is just the mechanism to get the chips to your mouth not the other way around. The cookies are huge–it’s like eating three cookies at once–and after I ate the smallest one I could find I felt my heart start pounding, my hands shake, and I was overcome by a need to run a marathon right now this instant before the sugar runs out!!!!

Run little Oreo! The monsters are going to eat you!

Will I make these again? Heck, yeah. But with Double Stuff Oreos and less chocolate chips. Will I sleep tonight? One can hope so assuming the sugar runs out. Of course I may crash so hard I sleep for days.

Plus I got to use the new Irish potholders I bought at the Scottish games.