All Paquin Bulletin

Has anyone seen this pattern? I mean, for sale, out in the wild? Mary P. was outbid -- sniped, really -- by just a smidgen when this was up for auction last week and she's been mourning it ever since. Leave a comment or drop an email if you have one you're willing to sell/trade.

I know it's hard to tell from the picture -- and while we're here, can I just rant about sellers who show teeny-tiny pictures of patterns? A hint: if you can hold the actual object up to the computer screen, you can run the photo of it FULL SIZE, people -- but it looks amazing. I'd love for Mary P. to find a copy so she can make it and send me the picture.

And in a fit of selflessness (because now you're all going to outbid me!) may I remind everyone again about eBay's Favorite Search feature? When a search comes up empty, save it, and then eBay will email you when your holy grail shows up again. At the very least, getting a dozen emails from eBay every day will test your desire for whatever the item is -- I've canceled more than a few saved searches when I realized that my annoyance at dealing with the email was more than my desire for the item. (You can also get eBay searches through RSS, but I haven't done that yet. Probably should!) Saved searches are most useful when you save a very detailed search -- looking for a pair of shoes or a pattern in a particular size, fabric in a particular color -- so that you don't waste time looking at pages of stuff that's not quite right.

In fact, I think being able to do Boolean or regex searching is an indispensable skill in the post-eBay, post-Google age. I might just have to go volunteer to teach a couple how-to-search sessions at my son's school ... although probably not using eBay as an example!