Author: beverly

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Tasking

 I’m tasking today. Besides knitting, there’s reading on the schedule and a lot of cleaning. I am in the midst of cleaning the entire downstairs. For every hour of knitting I have to get up and do something. That something is cleaning. I’ve started the with the living room that has the 100 skeins of yarn but also boxes that were packed up when we painted the living room and dining room about three years ago. We haven’t finished all the painting. (Don’t ask but this task would explain our entire marriage.)

I am going through those boxes to see what things are being kept and what is being thrown out. I am happy to say I have made several trips to the garbage bins. I can even see progress being made. Though housework is not exactly the thing anyone in Knitsville wants to spend a great deal of time doing, it’s always nice when it’s done and the results are obvious.

This tasking stuff will come while I am designing a new cowl. Once again, I am thinking my original decision on the colors. I want to use a certain set of colors but the truth is, since I am making a pattern and not a finished object to be sold, it’s better to use the A.C. Moore yarn. (See review.) I want to start marketing to a certain clientele and the cowl would be a great start. I know the next new item I will be adding to the shop in the next collection will be a cowl. So, I could wait and make that in the colors I’m thinking about. Now that I say that out loud, that makes the most sense.

Glad that’s all sorted. Now, I can go downstairs, have some watermelon. Did I mention I love eating those summer fruits for breakfast? The fridge is stuffed with watermelon, peaches and grapes. Then I can get to work on that design – and cleaning. Sounds like a Saturday to me.

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Believe It or Not

Believe it or not, I do not use my own stuff. Well, I do wear my hats but that is strictly as a matter of function when it’s really cold and I have a high threshold for cold. Otherwise, I don’t (often) wear hats, scarves or even afghans I make.

I recall one day I complained to Mr. Honey that it was cold in the house. He stopped, turned to look at me and said, “You have a hundred blankets in the house” and pointed to a pile of afghans.

There weren’t a hundred of them. But there was a nice pile of them. Never occurred to me to take one and put it over my body. I have an electric blanket – a gift he gave me and a nice comforter my sister-in-law gave me. There is a handmade comforter we use on the bed but that was made by a friend of my mother-in-law. Hey, I purchased it at their annual craft show more than twenty years ago. It fit our double bed, was only $40 and it still holds up all these years later. Don’t tell me handmade ain’t great.

While I am not a great ambassador for my own goods; I am for my craft. I knit/crochet in public all the time. Even in church. I sit in the back and I put it down when during prayer time – except for the quiet prayer time. During that time, I hold onto the fiber and send a prayer and ask for a blessing into it. For some reason, it is more important to share the gift of it than the end result. I’m not sure I want to change that. I do like making money and having a successful business but I would be knitting anyway.

I like to think of it as being a natural inclination to remember what is really the important thing. The spiritual gift that knitting is to me. It is the journey not the destination that makes it work for me and through me. I imagine how I should look pulling on one of my hats. I should be thinner and taller and the rest of my wardrobe should all of a sudden make sense. It never has in all my life but that’s what the imagination does. Real life is so much different. I rejoice at finding a clean shirt. Where I was once proud of the way my hair draped after a visit to the salon, I now have a stylist who cuts me practically bald and I live for haircut day. The last time I bought makeup was around the time of the royal wedding – of Charles and Diane.

Knitting has remained a constant for me. Believe it or not, I have a short attention span so this is a good thing. I’ll take it over having a hat head. But still…

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Thanks In Advance

Hello lovely afghan, look at you sitting there all jeweled toned and elegant. I think you are beautiful and will be even more so when you are finished.

And therein lies the rub. I touched this beauty yesterday and got its hopes up that I was going to work on it some more. The truth is, I don’t even know where the yarns for it are. I haven’t worked on this for months. Months. And there’s another unfinished afghan in the same spot. They live next to each other in the living room and I am doing something of a spring cleaning of the living room (yes, it’s summer. It’s progress, trust me.) and I touched them both but just to move them out the way.

But they imparted such a feeling of guilt. Look at it. It will be beautiful. If I can ever get around to finishing it. And now, since the yarn is free ranging in the yarn room, it will be nigh near impossible to get them all together again.

So, I am asking it for forgiveness and saying thanks in advance because it is the nature of knits to be forgiving – except when they aren’t – but that’s rare. There are times when the yarn in a project just won’t cooperate. This is one of the reasons I tend to stay with yarns that are at least a 3. Though I have been known to work with thinner yarns, they have an attitude. Could be they’re hungry.

The way things work, I will eventually be able to complete it. I will run across the olive green that’s the cornerstone to completion. It will be more of a fate thing than a planned thing and that will be fine, too. But touching it yesterday brought up longing with the guilt. That must mean it has more of my heart than I realized. And where the heart is; the knitting will follow. One day.

 

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Taking a Dive

I found myself taking a dive into my yarn stash. Remember I mentioned the yarn that is allowed in the living room and then the yarn that makes it to the chair. This is the yarn that made it to the chair.

There are some discontinued yarn – I miss the Hatfield Chunky. There are colors I didn’t know I would ever have. Can you say hello pink? Of the yarns I see clearly, I haven’t used any of them and I am on item 4/10. I also decided to use the same fiber for 4 that I used in 3.

It was fun picking this month’s elite yarns. I can purchase more yarn til December. That can be a pain the arse when there are so many good sales but discipline is nothing if it’s not used so taking a dive in the stash has to suffice.

There are some yarns that didn’t make the cut that are putting up a little fuss, but they are appeased with my idea for what they will be.

I help them see themselves as mittens and fingerless gloves. They like the idea. I like it when yarn and I can live in peace.

 

 

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Talking Back

It surprises no one in Knitsville that people speak to their yarn. It should surprise no one that there is a habit of the yarn talking back. There’s no real point in speaking with yarn if it’s not going to engage in the conversation.

Sometimes yarn even starts first.

My yarn is (mostly) in my office. About half of it is caged (in bins) and the rest is free range (not in bins, might be in a bag, could be just hanging out.) There is not a day that goes by without one of them trying to get my attention and wanting out of the cage or off the range. They want to make it to the living room where the yarn in waiting is waiting.

I am allowed only one bin of yarn in the living room so Mr. Honey doesn’t feel as if his life has been taken over by fiber. It has been but he wants the illusion. So, there is one bin of yarn downstairs. One big bin and then there’s free range yarn down there as well. But that’s because I thought it would be easier than having more free range yarn in the office. Just keep whatever was down there down there. All 100 skeins of it.

It is all nicely piled up and from that, every month, I select at least 10 fibers to work on my collection. Those yarns are put into a bag and are resting at my work seat. (My mother-in law’s chair. She was quite the crafter.) That is the place all other yarns want to be. And they let me know it. Right now, there is a group of Homespun letting me know they’re ready to unite and become a prayer shawl and just this morning, a skein of Yarn Bee Sugar Wheel is telling me he would be ideal for that shawl design I have in mind. He would be. And while the Homespun will surely become a prayer shawl, the Sugar Wheel does not have such a guaranteed future. Did I mention there’s 100 skeins in the living room?

I have a great relationship with my yarn: it talks to me; I’m talking back. We can’t always get together but we don’t want to be apart. Some days, it works better than my relationships with people. 

 

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And Just Like That

Photo by Godisable Jacob from Pexels

And Just Like That

And Just Like That…I may have a new hobby. But it’s not a hobby; it’s a project. My new project is happiness. And I know I got it right because of how happy I felt when I thought of it. I smiled – out loud. I must be on to something.

I know I said before my body was my happiness project and that still stands. I want to improve my body as it ages and it performs way older than my spirit feels. The solution was to either age my spirit or change my body. And why would I age my spirit.

So, now I eat better (OK, I eat less) and I am putting exercise back in. It is a slow build up because I used to be an athlete. The key is not to get bogged down in the failures because that breeds pretty quickly. The other key is to constantly remember the first key.

What got me smiling out loud? The first hour of my morning has been spent on writing yarn reviews for Knitsville and placing a new pattern in my Ravelry store. This morning I realized I was finished with my yarn reviews. I don’t think I am using any new yarns with the new collection and putting up the new pattern was pretty quick. So, I had free time with that first hour. 

And I didn’t know what to do with it.

I thought of filling it with a church related activity. I am the Communication Coordinator for my church and there is much to do. But that brought me a little low more than lifted me up. My mind ran thorough a couple of other things before deciding I wanted happiness. I wanted to do something that wasn’t so work related and church and my career are work. I wanted to breathe.

And now, I have to go. I have an appointment in a half hour to get my hair cut. And I will be so happy when that’s done. But I’m not dressed. I’m gonna go have some happy moments.

 

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I Want a New Drug

I want a new drug.

Actually, what I need is a new hobby. Knitting was my hobby. But then I recognized it as a spiritual gift and then that gift produced so many finished objects that it became the source of a career. 

I still get immense pleasure from knitting and crochet and I do it without complaint but now I don’t have a hobby. Technically, a hobby is something done for pleasure and not done for pay or professionally but some with skill or proficiency. Of course, proficiency takes time. 

I’m thinking piano/keyboard. I played some in college. Maybe exercise. Reading for pleasure is nice to think on. As long as I don’t read pattern books.

I don’t think Candy Crush qualifies for hobby life though it fits the criteria and I can play it for long stretches. I can write as a hobby. But I’ve written professionally and I would want to publish anything I wrote.

If not keyboard, then studying voice. I don’t but my voice is older and changing; maybe lessons will help. Maybe I can get a view more years singing in choir.

Miniature golf is also a possibility. I wasn’t good at regular golf When I don’t care if I lose miniature golf. I just want to make par and have fun. And it takes care of the exercise thing.

The decision doesn’t have to be made this second. I don’t have to choose right now. I want something that captures my interest. Something that is a productive use of my times and moved with me through my life. Something I am glad to have as a regular part of what I do. Something I truly enjoy.

Maybe sleep. My body is my happiness project so maybe I can make sleep my new hobby. Imma think on it. Pray on it. Sleep on it. 

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Always Something There to Remind Me

I want to make this sweater. I want to make this sweater so much that I have the pattern sheet from when it was hanging in Michael’s (Two of them, actually.)

I also have it downloaded to my tablet – which just died so I don’t think it counts. And I have a link to it in the yarn review for a Red Heart Yarn – sorry Premier, I know you own the pattern but a knitter’s gotta do what she’s gotta do.I have the yarn picked out – the aforementioned Red Heart Yarn, in this case Super Saver Ombre. I can even do it in a couple of colors: Anthracite, Cocoa, Anemone or Purple.

So what’s the hold up? The way I select items to make. The sweater isn’t for me, though I would certainly wear it I would place it in the shop and I do want to get a little into clothing and not just accessories.But there is a system to how completely new items get added to the shop and a sweater is on the list but very far down the chain behind hats, scarves and even a market bag. 

I really can’t break the code I wrote. I need to have some order and structure or I would be all over the place. There’s always something there to remind me that I want to make this sweater. Right now, I have several skeins of Red Heart Ombre looking at me from across the room where I work. Each time I see them, I think of the sweater that I am not making. It hits me especially since I am working on a sweater for a friend. The skeins think this is a breach of the rules. They send me subtle messages I try to ignore.

I think the sweater would look awesome in the way the color grades in the ombre. I will get to it – start it and complete it. But for right now it reminds me that I have to do it. I want to be optimistic. It means there’s something to look forward to.

 

 

 

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I Don’t Get It

I Don’t Get It

Let me say there are knitters and crocheters of all kinds here in Knitsville and they can create anything from the most fabulous sweaters to knitted boobs for cancer patients. It’s all good work and there’s lots to admire.
But for the love of all that’s holy, what is this thing about socks?
I’ve knit one pair of socks because I heard knitting socks was so, so something and a knitter had to experience it to believe how magical it was.

I cast on, did all the work and when the sock was done, there was this sense of…what’s all the fuss about? From what I read from other knitters, it was like discovering fire. For me it was discovering I could knit – which I already knew I knew. I figured maybe the euphoria didn’t come because I only knit half a pair. Maybe it came with knitting the pair of socks. Knit the other one and when I was done, I was like ‘wow, did it twice and came away with the same feeling but only twice as much.

I don’t get it. Sock knitters seems to have a joy that escapes the rest of us and no other knitted thing brings that much acclaim from knitting brethren. People will ooh and ahh over an intricate sweater but let someone upload a photo of a striped sock and people think they invented color. I am always amazed.

The closest I think i am going to come to making another sock is knitting a Christmas stocking. That is on my futures knitting list. I will knit more than one but I won’t knit a pair of them. I already feel a little excited about that. But for some reason, knitting the regular sock holds no joy.

Ah well, we don’t judge in Knitsville. We accept, not merely tolerate, so if you don’t think sock knitting is the greatest thing since sliced bread – well, you can still enjoy toast.

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A New Collection

A New Collection

The last time we spoke, June 1st, I announced the 4,3,2,1 Collection was ready for pre-launch. I am excited to say that three weeks later, a new collection – the Deuces Wild Collection is almost ready for its pre-launch. 

I am working on the last pattern, that will actually be two patterns because I completed a pattern before the sample was done and then changed my mind and did a completely different scarf. But I don’t want it to go to waste, so it will be a two-fer.

As always,the Style Posse will get the first peek at the entire collection and will be able to shop it before it gets launched on designbcb.

As a reminder of that the Style Posse gets for signing up:
25% percent off
Sneak peeks at lines before they launch
Chance to purchase ready to ship before anybody else
Being first in line for back ordered items
A gift bag with each item purchase

Sign up here.

So, what’s in the new collection? Just like the 4,3,2,1 Collection, it is a combination of designbcb bestsellers and new items. It’s called Deuces Wild because while there are 3 new patterns (hat, cowl and scarf) and 1 new version of the Lacy Slouchy, there’s 2 Taffy Pull Scarves, 2 Cable Slouchy hats and 2 new basic beanies. These beanies are knit with men in mind but would look great on women as well.

The collection should be available for the sneak peek in the next week or two. The scarf has LOTS of sequins and that adds just a little time. Then it has to be photographed and readied for the launch. There’s a lot that goes on once the needles are put down.

Something else to look forward to: a slew of yarn reviews. With this collection I used A.C. Moore’s house yarn, Ice Yarns Tweed, I Love This Yarn Print, Ice Yarn Acrylic, Red Heart Unforgettable, Lion Brand Jeans and maybe one or two more. All will be reviewed shortly. There are some pretty nice yarns to work with.

Enjoy your summer!

Photo by Rijan Hamidovicfrom Pexels