BOOMPH!
When I was a teenager, we used to use the word "boomph" in much the same way you might hear the word "score" used. We used it as a verb (ie., "I boomphed this great sweater at 70% off!") or a noun (ie., "I got a real boomph with this sweater at 70% off!"), but most often as an interjection of sorts (ie., "I got this sweater at 70% off. BOOMPH!")
In the past week or so, I boomphed twice. Yes, that's right, I got two boomphs. Boomph, boomph!
The first boomph came in the unlikely setting of the supermarket. I was standing in the checkout line with my cart, minding my own business, when a checker came along and hijacked my cart and pulled it into the self-checkout line. I really hate it when they do that! The self checkout line in my supermarket is almost never used. In fact, it is so universally avoided that the new store practice is to have a wandering employee hijack people from the regular lines and bring them to the self checkout, where the employee then does the checking. Not much of a "self" checkout line at all. This irritates me to no end as it would be so much simpler to just give up on the idea of the self checkout and use that wandering employee to open another register. But I digress . . .
I was situated in the self checkout line, quietly watching my alter-ego-checker-self scanning my groceries in the inexplicably small and awkward self-checkout area, when out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a table of discount books. Normally, I wouldn't even glance at them, since most of the books I've seen in the supermarket are either romance novels or books of 25 Ideas for Meals to Prepare in Under 90 Seconds, neither of which is of interest to me. There was something on this bargain table, however, that drew my eye instantly. Poking up a few inches above the tops of the other books, I saw this:
Could it be? Was it possible? Right here in Albertson's? I plucked the book out and found that indeed it was!
I've long been intrigued by Kaffe Fassett's work, but not enough to buy one of his books. The patterns and colors are fascinating, but I've never seen one pattern that jumped out at me as something I would really want to knit. I would have to really, really, really love a pattern to go to all the trouble of an intricate exercise in intarsia. The last time I knit intarsia was around two years ago when I made this jumper for a friend's baby:
There are sixteen intarsia chickens around the bottom of that little dress ("little" dress with something like 350 stitches around the bottom if I recall correctly!). It's very cute, but it was a pain in the rear to knit. And please don't ask me where I got the pattern. I know it was online and free, but it was so long ago that I have no recollection now and I just searched but couldn't locate it again. But again, I digress from the boomph I was telling you about . . .
The printed retail price on the back of this Kaffe Fassett book is $24.95. I picked it up at Albertson's for $3.99! Yep. That's right. BOOMPH!
The other boomph I recently experienced was this set of 10 skeins of Anny Blatt yarn. I picked this up from someone who was destashing and I got all 10 skeins for $30! The retail sticker on the yarn is $8.95 a skein. BOOMPH! It's 60% viscose and 40% cotton. I can't say I'm crazy about it though. The ply is sort of uneven. Not intentionally and obviously so, as with a thick-and-thin yarn, but just rather sloppy. I do like the coral color though and I think it might make a nice little spring/summer sweater. I just need to come up with the right stitch to use that won't highlight the unevenness of the yarn.
When I was a teenager, we used to use the word "boomph" in much the same way you might hear the word "score" used. We used it as a verb (ie., "I boomphed this great sweater at 70% off!") or a noun (ie., "I got a real boomph with this sweater at 70% off!"), but most often as an interjection of sorts (ie., "I got this sweater at 70% off. BOOMPH!")
In the past week or so, I boomphed twice. Yes, that's right, I got two boomphs. Boomph, boomph!
The first boomph came in the unlikely setting of the supermarket. I was standing in the checkout line with my cart, minding my own business, when a checker came along and hijacked my cart and pulled it into the self-checkout line. I really hate it when they do that! The self checkout line in my supermarket is almost never used. In fact, it is so universally avoided that the new store practice is to have a wandering employee hijack people from the regular lines and bring them to the self checkout, where the employee then does the checking. Not much of a "self" checkout line at all. This irritates me to no end as it would be so much simpler to just give up on the idea of the self checkout and use that wandering employee to open another register. But I digress . . .
I was situated in the self checkout line, quietly watching my alter-ego-checker-self scanning my groceries in the inexplicably small and awkward self-checkout area, when out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a table of discount books. Normally, I wouldn't even glance at them, since most of the books I've seen in the supermarket are either romance novels or books of 25 Ideas for Meals to Prepare in Under 90 Seconds, neither of which is of interest to me. There was something on this bargain table, however, that drew my eye instantly. Poking up a few inches above the tops of the other books, I saw this:
Could it be? Was it possible? Right here in Albertson's? I plucked the book out and found that indeed it was!
I've long been intrigued by Kaffe Fassett's work, but not enough to buy one of his books. The patterns and colors are fascinating, but I've never seen one pattern that jumped out at me as something I would really want to knit. I would have to really, really, really love a pattern to go to all the trouble of an intricate exercise in intarsia. The last time I knit intarsia was around two years ago when I made this jumper for a friend's baby:
There are sixteen intarsia chickens around the bottom of that little dress ("little" dress with something like 350 stitches around the bottom if I recall correctly!). It's very cute, but it was a pain in the rear to knit. And please don't ask me where I got the pattern. I know it was online and free, but it was so long ago that I have no recollection now and I just searched but couldn't locate it again. But again, I digress from the boomph I was telling you about . . .
The printed retail price on the back of this Kaffe Fassett book is $24.95. I picked it up at Albertson's for $3.99! Yep. That's right. BOOMPH!
The other boomph I recently experienced was this set of 10 skeins of Anny Blatt yarn. I picked this up from someone who was destashing and I got all 10 skeins for $30! The retail sticker on the yarn is $8.95 a skein. BOOMPH! It's 60% viscose and 40% cotton. I can't say I'm crazy about it though. The ply is sort of uneven. Not intentionally and obviously so, as with a thick-and-thin yarn, but just rather sloppy. I do like the coral color though and I think it might make a nice little spring/summer sweater. I just need to come up with the right stitch to use that won't highlight the unevenness of the yarn.
And so, those are my two boomphs. Very good indeed!
In the meantime, now that the Faux Russian Shawl is complete, I've cast on for a new project that I'll tell you about next week when I have a bit of progress to share.
Wishing you all a grand boomph or two this weekend!
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3 comments:
Congrats on getting such a great deal on both the yarn and the book. Sounds like it was a good week!
If I had to choose just one of Kaffe Fassett's pattern books, that would be the one. (I think of his Pattern Library as akin to a stitch treasury.) Sadly, the self-checkout is probably here to stay. What bugs me most, is the disembodied voice that nags about placing, or removing, an item from the bagging area.
Yay for great deals!! I hope you can find something that you can use the yarn for.
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