Hello Blogfriends,
Yes it has been since forever from my last post. I have let many obstacles get in my way that have stopped me from writing...I am not tech savvy...I can't take good photos...no one wants to hear my ramblings, and so on and so on. My husband said don't worry about all of that just write!
So, here I go and I will try to improve on all the other points but this is a diary after all and writing is the main focus.
I have knit tons in the past few months, deadlines to meet, gifts to be sent, and my needles have been busy. The other day I turned on the telly during daylight, weird for me but I just wanted the noise. By the way there really is nothing on during the day...I had no new Oprahs to watch so I tuned in to a show on TLC called Hoarders.
The premise of the show is that some poor soul has accumulated so much stuff to the point of being trapped in their lives and unable to function normally and through concern for their lives get professional help reorganizing everything.
I was fascinated and repelled at the same time...I think this basic voyeuristic gene is in all humans, you know like watching a traffic accident that makes this show successful.
Both hoarders were women that just couldn't stop buying stuff, one was probably early 70's, she had so much junk plus cats and those two things together do not make a good pair. Thank God we do not have "smellivision"!
The second lady lived in a small apartment in New York and she was an empty nester but then her son moved back home with all his stuff, plus she had inherited some relatives stuff when they had passed.
She had such a sweet sadness about her, I think I would have been friends with her if she lived here. The reason I know this is that she was a knitter...she had oodles of yarn, boxes of needles, and she even had a swift and ball winder.
The stash she had was quality...I can recognize Addi packages a mile away, her yarn was beautiful. What happened to her is that she fully embraced the sport of knitting and then she got stuck on a project and could not move forward, so then she abandoned it.
The "professional" organizer came into her home and zoned in on the box of needles and said do you really need all of these, the "hoarder" said in a soft and tentative voice that no she probably didn't need it and would probably never knit.
Well, I wish that she had the support of the LYS that she got all that stuff from. Surely they would have gotten her back on track and made the knitting help heal a part of her grief that she felt from losing her relatives.
Maybe a kind word of encouragement would have given her the confidence to move forward and make her feel good about herself. Who knows, maybe if all of the above things happened she might not have become a hoarder.
I am so lucky that I get to work for a wonderful yarn shop where we make every single person feel welcome. Who knows maybe we in some small way make people feel good about themselves and alleviate some worry in their lives.
I can only imagine the joy that some thrift store shopper felt when they scored some of those Addi needles!
By the way someone needs to turn that organizer lady on to knitting and she will then know the difference between a "hoarder" and "collector"!
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Monday, September 14, 2009
Summer is Over
Hello Everyone,
Well it is official summer est fini, there is a briskness in the air and the nights are cooling down, the trees are starting to color and troops of kids are walking to school.
I personally love this time of year, for some reason I feel renewed energy and anticipation for the end of the year. I love the colors associated with fall and although I don't decorate much for Halloween I love putting out fall colors.
This weekend we closed up our cabin. It was a lot of hauling, cleaning, and packing this is a bittersweet feeling because we are trying to sell our lake place and though the money would be nice, we feel saddened to let it go.
Our DVD player was on the fritz so we watched an old VHS movie, Slap Shot, I forgot how funny this movie was and by the way it has knitting in it! One of the bored wives of the Chiefs was knitting a swatch of wool on big needles...I knitted many things during my kids hockey games. We had four of them all playing at the same time so we lived at the rink, of course their games never coordinated time wise and since the rink was far from home we really did live there.
These memories are not my fondest, I really did not like watching kids playing such a violent sport and the parents would get caught up in it as well. My tension affected my knitting, so everything I made was very tightly knit.
Sometimes things work well together like peanut butter and chocolate, or Paul Newman in leather pants, others not so well like hockey and knitting!
Well it is official summer est fini, there is a briskness in the air and the nights are cooling down, the trees are starting to color and troops of kids are walking to school.
I personally love this time of year, for some reason I feel renewed energy and anticipation for the end of the year. I love the colors associated with fall and although I don't decorate much for Halloween I love putting out fall colors.
This weekend we closed up our cabin. It was a lot of hauling, cleaning, and packing this is a bittersweet feeling because we are trying to sell our lake place and though the money would be nice, we feel saddened to let it go.
Our DVD player was on the fritz so we watched an old VHS movie, Slap Shot, I forgot how funny this movie was and by the way it has knitting in it! One of the bored wives of the Chiefs was knitting a swatch of wool on big needles...I knitted many things during my kids hockey games. We had four of them all playing at the same time so we lived at the rink, of course their games never coordinated time wise and since the rink was far from home we really did live there.
These memories are not my fondest, I really did not like watching kids playing such a violent sport and the parents would get caught up in it as well. My tension affected my knitting, so everything I made was very tightly knit.
Sometimes things work well together like peanut butter and chocolate, or Paul Newman in leather pants, others not so well like hockey and knitting!
Saturday, September 5, 2009
So Much Yarn
Last week our son moved home and the result is moving my craft room into one of the extra rooms upstairs. Most of what I moved was yarn, tons of it. Today I spent hours sorting through all of it and made a lot of discoveries, some good some bad.
The bad are that I tried on a Hanna Falkenburg sweater that I have been working on over the last three years and I hate the fit! It is too boxy and looks awful on me. But, the good is that it will look terrific on my sister Carol and instead of sleeves I am going to do applied I-cord around the armholes. If I need to add length I may do the same along the bottom.
Another bad is that I discovered a scarf (the Anniversary Flower one from Vogue) that is missing a huge chunk due to Rocky, I have written about Rocky before. The good is that now I only have the remaining two scarves to finish and they are labor intensive hand sewn projects.
One more bad is a turtle neck that I am knitting out of Mission Falls wool, which is a great product but this is my third attempt at using up this yarn. It was a Christmas gift from my husband three or four years ago. I should just let this yarn go but I can't seem to do it. The good is that it is the perfect weight for an afghan for my grand daughter Laura, so this will be its final destination!
The final bad is that I have a ton of novelty yarn...in every color imaginable. For those of you that don't know what novelty yarn is it is the fun stuff that is ribbon, shiny, textured, etc. It is what adds zip and bling to scarves and felted purses. The good of this discovery is that as I color coded these yarns they looked so pretty and inviting. I think what I am going to do is have some fun knitting up some wrap type garments and use these colors. Who knows maybe there are some Etsy customers that would really go for this type of thing.
Well, the next thing I am tackling is organizing my books, patterns and magazines...more fun to come!
The bad are that I tried on a Hanna Falkenburg sweater that I have been working on over the last three years and I hate the fit! It is too boxy and looks awful on me. But, the good is that it will look terrific on my sister Carol and instead of sleeves I am going to do applied I-cord around the armholes. If I need to add length I may do the same along the bottom.
Another bad is that I discovered a scarf (the Anniversary Flower one from Vogue) that is missing a huge chunk due to Rocky, I have written about Rocky before. The good is that now I only have the remaining two scarves to finish and they are labor intensive hand sewn projects.
One more bad is a turtle neck that I am knitting out of Mission Falls wool, which is a great product but this is my third attempt at using up this yarn. It was a Christmas gift from my husband three or four years ago. I should just let this yarn go but I can't seem to do it. The good is that it is the perfect weight for an afghan for my grand daughter Laura, so this will be its final destination!
The final bad is that I have a ton of novelty yarn...in every color imaginable. For those of you that don't know what novelty yarn is it is the fun stuff that is ribbon, shiny, textured, etc. It is what adds zip and bling to scarves and felted purses. The good of this discovery is that as I color coded these yarns they looked so pretty and inviting. I think what I am going to do is have some fun knitting up some wrap type garments and use these colors. Who knows maybe there are some Etsy customers that would really go for this type of thing.
Well, the next thing I am tackling is organizing my books, patterns and magazines...more fun to come!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
The Nest is Full
Life can be so unpredictable! Just when you think life is stable situations change and you start over again. My youngest son Brock is temporarily moving home, so that means shifting things all over the place. He will be in the downstairs guest room which is painted in these incredibly bright shades of salmon...it is fondly called the Mexican room.
The guest room is really only in use as such maybe 8 times a year so it is really my craft room. My daughter-in-law volunteered to help pack up all the yarn I have and it took up a queen size comforter bag, a super size expandable suitcase, a giant Costco recycling bag, and other assorted shopping bags. Plus, we left one wall unit section full because it wasn't too heavy to carry.
The up side to this is that I will be able to really organize my stuff while putting it away, for the most part I do have specific projects in mind for almost all of it.
I also have a quilting cabinet filled with fabrics, gift wrap, things that need mending, patterns that are pinned but not cut and more yarn.
Then there are the boxes of my beads, cross-stitch books, hook latch materials, and random craft projects I never finished.
By the way on Friday I went to A Grand Yarn and purchased 8 more skeins of yarn to knit up into adorable kid legwarmers that I plan to sell on Etsy.
Of course that takes a lot more time organizing but I will get to that when I get there!
The guest room is really only in use as such maybe 8 times a year so it is really my craft room. My daughter-in-law volunteered to help pack up all the yarn I have and it took up a queen size comforter bag, a super size expandable suitcase, a giant Costco recycling bag, and other assorted shopping bags. Plus, we left one wall unit section full because it wasn't too heavy to carry.
The up side to this is that I will be able to really organize my stuff while putting it away, for the most part I do have specific projects in mind for almost all of it.
I also have a quilting cabinet filled with fabrics, gift wrap, things that need mending, patterns that are pinned but not cut and more yarn.
Then there are the boxes of my beads, cross-stitch books, hook latch materials, and random craft projects I never finished.
By the way on Friday I went to A Grand Yarn and purchased 8 more skeins of yarn to knit up into adorable kid legwarmers that I plan to sell on Etsy.
Of course that takes a lot more time organizing but I will get to that when I get there!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Mama Bear
Wow, I really do consider myself a laid back mellow person but attack anyone that I love and watch out! This weekend I reached a breaking point when earlier in the day someone at our lake place said they wanted to put a bullet in one of my dogs head because he was barking. Our friend did not have his contacts in so he was pretty blind and could only say it was a man...geez.
Then later in the day my dogs ran off towards the woods and someone snidely said put leashes on those dogs. Well, we were chasing them and by the way they are always chained to our deck or on leashes...they just got by my son while coming in after a swim.
Well, this lady (loose term for her), walked by staring at us over her glasses in a condescending way and before she could say something rude I went "gangsta" on her *ss before she could say anything. I told her my dogs were always on leashes why didn't she ever comply with that...and how she is always complaining about one thing or another, I was mad. The funny thing is she is the lake bully and I don't think anyone has ever had the courage to tell her off!
It felt kind of good but then I thought maybe I should apologize because that really isn't in my character. My kids all had a good laugh about it and said that I would have scared the pants off of them if I yelled at them like that, I was living up to my kids friends nickname for me which is G-baby (say this with attitude and hand gestures).
I must admit that earlier in the week I heard the aforementioned lady speak in the most horrible tone of voice to her grandkids (little guys maybe 3 and 6 years old) it really angered me that she would speak that way to anyone, much less little kids.
Well, I felt pretty agitated for the rest of the day but I pulled out this beautiful cardigan knitting project and sure enough the rhythm of those needles calmed my spirits and made me feel good again!
Then later in the day my dogs ran off towards the woods and someone snidely said put leashes on those dogs. Well, we were chasing them and by the way they are always chained to our deck or on leashes...they just got by my son while coming in after a swim.
Well, this lady (loose term for her), walked by staring at us over her glasses in a condescending way and before she could say something rude I went "gangsta" on her *ss before she could say anything. I told her my dogs were always on leashes why didn't she ever comply with that...and how she is always complaining about one thing or another, I was mad. The funny thing is she is the lake bully and I don't think anyone has ever had the courage to tell her off!
It felt kind of good but then I thought maybe I should apologize because that really isn't in my character. My kids all had a good laugh about it and said that I would have scared the pants off of them if I yelled at them like that, I was living up to my kids friends nickname for me which is G-baby (say this with attitude and hand gestures).
I must admit that earlier in the week I heard the aforementioned lady speak in the most horrible tone of voice to her grandkids (little guys maybe 3 and 6 years old) it really angered me that she would speak that way to anyone, much less little kids.
Well, I felt pretty agitated for the rest of the day but I pulled out this beautiful cardigan knitting project and sure enough the rhythm of those needles calmed my spirits and made me feel good again!
Monday, August 17, 2009
Knitting and Hollywood
This weekend was rather gloomy and I was at our lake cabin stuck indoors with my granddaughter Laura. She is 15 months old and is so close to speaking, and one of her favorite words is doggy, she absolutely adores my destructive dog Rocky (see earlier blogs regarding his escapades) and any other dog no matter what shape or size. Our cabin is in a time warp and we only have a tiny t.v. with no reception and a crazy collection of VHS tapes. We decided to watch Lady and the Tramp and I must say it was so fun to watch this endearing tale involving dogs, babies, crazy cats, and parents that did not give one thought to leaving their infant in the care of an eccentric old maid!
What I loved most about this movie was seeing the mother announcing her impending birth by knitting baby bootees on a set of double pointed needles, I guess Disney thought you may not say the word pregnant.
Other movies that I have noticed with knitting in them are Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly doesn't know if she is knitting the Pampas or a sweater, Wallace and Gromit, you gotta love a knitting dog, it is a stress reducer for him! A variety of Jane Austen type movies and the most odd one is The Repo Man, in this movie it is a man that is quite a gruff character and he is knitting a scarf with alot of texture to it.
Some of my favorite shows I am currently following have knitting in them as well, in True Blood the main stars Grandmother was a knitter, and in Hung which is a series about a male prostitute (very entertaining because he has the equipment but not the business sense), his pimp is a knitter, I am not sure what she knits but she has the stuff lying around.
To me the knitting is not just a prop but a little glimpse into a person, for example if you look in my knitting bags, you will see such a variety of projects. Sweaters for different family members, a couple of sweaters for myself, a skirt for my Laura, Fair Isle pouches that are possible bridesmaids gifts, and lots of yarn that is waiting to be knit up into all sorts of things.
If Hollywood needs a professional knitter to be the yarn wrangler I am at their service!
What I loved most about this movie was seeing the mother announcing her impending birth by knitting baby bootees on a set of double pointed needles, I guess Disney thought you may not say the word pregnant.
Other movies that I have noticed with knitting in them are Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly doesn't know if she is knitting the Pampas or a sweater, Wallace and Gromit, you gotta love a knitting dog, it is a stress reducer for him! A variety of Jane Austen type movies and the most odd one is The Repo Man, in this movie it is a man that is quite a gruff character and he is knitting a scarf with alot of texture to it.
Some of my favorite shows I am currently following have knitting in them as well, in True Blood the main stars Grandmother was a knitter, and in Hung which is a series about a male prostitute (very entertaining because he has the equipment but not the business sense), his pimp is a knitter, I am not sure what she knits but she has the stuff lying around.
To me the knitting is not just a prop but a little glimpse into a person, for example if you look in my knitting bags, you will see such a variety of projects. Sweaters for different family members, a couple of sweaters for myself, a skirt for my Laura, Fair Isle pouches that are possible bridesmaids gifts, and lots of yarn that is waiting to be knit up into all sorts of things.
If Hollywood needs a professional knitter to be the yarn wrangler I am at their service!
Monday, August 10, 2009
Hooray for Woodstock!
So I kind of do the Facebook thing and had a little time to kill so I did one of those crazy quiz type things that give you some insight as to what you are all about and surprise I most identify with the 60's. My formative years were during the 70's but I had always wished I grew up in the 60's.I loved the idea of being a full out hippie living off the land, growing my own food, exchanging chores with others and teaching my kids through life experience rather than in a formal classroom.
Well, what the hell was I thinking? There are pieces of my life that are 60's ish, I had my kids at home, I didn't know you could buy spaghetti sauce in a jar (thank you co-op moms), I ground wheat for my homemade bread...entertained homeschooling for about 5 minutes. But I am not cut out for all the hard work that would entail real communal living, I don't like dirt, I love my kids but need me time. The crafts that I have always pursued have always given me the time that I need to recharge and reenergize my soul.
I love all the music from the 60's and the idea that we should all get together and love one another right now, but there is nothing like scoring the cutest shoes ever at Nordstrom rack!
Well, what the hell was I thinking? There are pieces of my life that are 60's ish, I had my kids at home, I didn't know you could buy spaghetti sauce in a jar (thank you co-op moms), I ground wheat for my homemade bread...entertained homeschooling for about 5 minutes. But I am not cut out for all the hard work that would entail real communal living, I don't like dirt, I love my kids but need me time. The crafts that I have always pursued have always given me the time that I need to recharge and reenergize my soul.
I love all the music from the 60's and the idea that we should all get together and love one another right now, but there is nothing like scoring the cutest shoes ever at Nordstrom rack!
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