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The Temptations

These are The Temptations. Classic. Iconic. Talented beyond measure and addictive. If one is a true music aficionado, one cannot resist the temptation. Some of their song define my knitting life quite accurately.

Ball of Confusion
I’ll Try Something New
With These Hands

I mark long trips in the car with how many times I have to play the CD I have of their greatest hits. That’s the one disc I can play over and over because it is my car jam.

These are also temptations. Especially those four balls over to the right. Those are skeins of Lion Brand Jeans yarn. And I am in love. It has been quite some time since I had a yarn that I loved. I have an affinity for all things yarn but when one knits so much and does so for a job, then yarn can sometimes be nothing more than a means to an end. 

I am surrounded by yarn – certainly more than I will use in the next few years. Note to self: set a challenge to use 100 balls of yarn in 100 days. It is the act of knitting itself that I am most in love with. Although, I won’t knit with just anything, I learned on a ball of crochet thread. it is knitting that gets to me. The yarn is a partner.

But the first time I used the Jeans, I wanted to live in the stuff. I love the feel. I love the drape.I was tempted to stock up when Lion Brand was doing a 45% discount and again when JoAnn had it on sale plus a 20% off coupon. But I didn’t. Because I have to discipline and control over having this nectar in my cup. My yarn blitz is in December and then it’s on.Both the Jeans and the Jeans Colors will find themselves grazing with the other free range skeins in the yarn room. I have only used one of those four yarns pictured there. The others are on the range somewhere. I think I know where one of them is but can’t say for sure. The others I will run across at some point in time. I am filled with anticipation at the thought. I won’t go looking for them on purpose. That’s part of the fun of being me. Avoiding the temptations is a way to enjoy the indulgence when I finally find it. After all, I Ain’t Too Proud to Beg I’m just glad I don’t have to.

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The Things I Do

The things I do.

I was at StitchCraft – the knitting group in Knitsville – and I was looking at what everyone was making and it hit me that I knit for my shop while everyone else knits for themselves or as gifts for someone else.

Now, I love that I can make a living knitting and designing. That’s a great gig. But when I see the sweaters, shrugs and other 

 

pieces of clothing that were being made around me, I couldn’t help but think I was perhaps a little…well…boring with my knitting. And then I remembered I designed and knit this. It came to me as I was uploading a pattern to my Ravelry shop. It occured to me I haven’t written this pattern or the pattern for a infinity scarf.

Yes, this is the hat worn by Dante Alighieri of Dante’s Inferno fame. This was a custom request and the client offered to pay me $20 more if I would send him photos of the hat in progress.

OK. So, I’m going to cross boring off the list. The things I do can sometimes be routine and there is a business aspect to it because it is a business. But it isn’t boring. All that means is I need to branch out into some other territories and that is already happening. Over the past few days, I’ve been uploading a pattern a day to Ravelry. I’m up to two dozen there are four more I have to do of existing patterns and then the three that are part of the latest collection.

I will have to write this pattern and the one for the scarf. I went looking through my pattern notes and didn’t see any for either or them. Really strange but I will get that done. I have a collection coming that will have four or five patterns in it. There’s no reason two of them can’t be this hat and the cowl. I sold the dante hat twice and it was not boring to make. I will have to make it again for the pattern. I definitely will not be bored.

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WTF

This is yarn. This is pink yarn. This is pink yarn I have in my stash, I don’t do pink much but I have it for a specific purpose.

I also have a nephew – well, I have several wonderful nephews – this one, Alex, made a request that I knit him something. Hear that, Mr. Honey? Alex asked that I knit him something.

A pair of pink gloves.

WTF?

At first I thought he was kidding but he reminded a few months ago that he still didn’t have them and he still wanted them/ So, I have it on my list to knit the kid (almost high school age) a pair or pink gloves.

Here’s the thing: I’ve never knit gloves. Fingerless mitts. Mittens. Those I have done but not a pair of gloves.I have scoured Ravelry and found this. I will be using that pattern when I start working on them It looked simple enough. Which means, I will change it around to suit me better. It’s what I do. IT’s the fingers that give me pause. That looks like work. Each finger put on dpns and worked. Makes me think the best thing to do is just knit the middle finger. Oh c’mon, I can’t be the first person who thought of that.

I am beginning to think there are no rules to man knitting. I thought my nephew would forget he made the request and he was very firm with his reminder and that he likes pink and he doesn’t care who says anything about it. He likes what he likes and he’ll stand on it. That boy is so getting a pair of pink gloves made by his auntie.

I wonder if male knitters know what guys want. I know they won’t have problems with their girlfriends. While a man may scoff if a woman says her boyfriend knit her a sweater, this is something she will lead with on a girls’ night out.

“Hey, girl, how you doing?’
“My boyfriend made me this sweater.”
“WTF!”

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No Way

Like this sweater? So do I. It’s called Siberia and you can see it for yourself. It’s a free pattern from Drops. They have some interesting (read strange) patterns over there. They have about five pages of men’s sweaters and three of the five frighten me. But this is a sweater I can get behind. A quick glance shows while it may consume some time, it’s not a particularly hard pattern.

I have been after Mr. Honey to knit him a sweater. It’s been more than 20 years so I’m thinking the boyfriend sweater curse ain’t nothing to fear. Every time I approach the subject, I am met with the same answer: No Way.

I am not allowed to make him a sweater. Because he won’t wear it. He has, he says, a drawer full of sweaters that he does not wear. I can attest to this. He wears sweaters maybe once in the winter season and that’s because we’re going somewhere. The sweater he wears the most is a sweater my late mom gave him – so that’s something. And I haven’t seen him in it for years. So I get it.

Except I don’t get it. 

I don’t think he gets that I wouldn’t bug him to wear the sweater. I just want him to have it. There’s a tradition here that he’s just not getting with and,honestly, our marriage is so solid that this can be considered an issue. He looks good in sweaters. He has a long torso that’s made for wearing sweaters. So every other year or so when he wears a sweater, he can wear the one I make him. And alternate between that one and the one Mom gave him. I don’t see why he doesn’t get the romance of it.

He will wear a scarf. He will wear a scarf I knit. In fact, that’s what he takes. He has two scarves I made and he took the scarf that came with my coat. Yes, I know. I can make him a scarf. But I want to make a sweater, dang it. I’ve made a sweater for women and for kids but never for a guy. I wanted him to be my first. Is that so wrong?

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Work Hours

I try to keep work hours but that hasn’t really worked out well. So, I put little activities in between work sessions but yesterday, Mr. Honey told me to put the knitting aside and clean up the living room so the new refrigerator could go through easily. So, I did. I don’t come from housekeepers so it took me all day to do it but I did not pick up my knitting until the living room was what I would pass off as clean. I’d even open the door of someone came by; that’s how confident I am.

But ignoring my knitting wasn’t easy. It was bad enough to have all the yarn piled up in one section of the living room where they could actually organize but then to ignore the cowl design I’m working on. And the bobbles. That took a force of nature I didn’t know I possessed.

So, it’s livable and passable and I have vowed never to let it revert again. It is but a springboard to better cleaning and better living. Then Mr. H announced we may not need a new fridge. He noticed ice was blocking the vents and now he’s doing an experiment to see if the fridge is cooling again after clearing them.

The yarn is saying it was an attempt to come between us. But that doesn’t sound like him. More like a trick to get me to finally have a significant cleaning session. That makes more sense. The poor guy as something of a clean freak and I was a lot better pre-Etsy. 

But now, there can be peace again in the kingdom. Just have to do the living room and kitchen and he will be one happy camper and I will be a happy camera’s wife.

And the yarn won’t have to suffer separation anxiety anymore.

 

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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.