Temptations: Spinners & 4-Tops

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So... you're expecting a blog post extolling the virtues of Motown music?

Psych!

Don't get me wrong -- me loves me some Motown. As a teenager and college kid, I went to many parties where "Beach Music" was all that was played, and the "shag" was the only way to dance. For Beach Music afficianados, Motown is king.

But since this blog is not about music or dancing, this post shall remain in keeping with the highest standard of fiber-related content for which I continuously strive. (Ha!)

Seriously, though, the topic I'm focusing on here is something that the lovely Bess, (or, the Evil Temptress, as I now refer to her), has taunted me with lately.

It all started with an email Bess sent me in response to my post about the upcoming Camp Stitches in Asheville, NC. Turns out there's another lovely place in North Carolina, the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, that regularly holds week-long (!) craft classes. As Bess & I exchanged several more emails, I marveled at the wonderful choices in knitting classes offered, and noted that they also hold spinning classes. Bess then shared that she not only spins, but she teaches spinning classes herself.

Well, Pandora's Box has been opened. For, I've been contemplating spinning quite a bit lately. I've seen Knitty Gritty's spinning episode at least five times now, and it really seems like a craft I could not only learn, with time, but something that I could easily become addicted to ,obsessed with enamored of.

I've been resisting spinning, though, for several reasons:

* I'm still a new knitter -- perhaps I should master one hobby before picking up yet another one?
* I already have a thousand hobbies -- do I really even need one more?
* I live in a tiny and incredibly cluttered house, and I don't really have the space for a spinning wheel, the rovings, and everything else that goes with the craft.
* And if I start to spin, and fall in love with it, will I abandon knitting altogether, never to progress beyond rectangles?

I resist, but my resolve is weakening, as Ms. Bess is relentless. "You should try drop spindles", she says. And to further entice me, she sends me a link to this website, which has some of the most gorgeous drop spindles imaginable. After drooling over a few of them, I think my favorite is this one:

or perhaps this one:

But I must be strong. I must try to avoid the temptations of spinners and tops. (See, I pulled in this post's title, finally -- it makes sense now, right? I've always thought drop spindles looked a little like a top. Get it?)

And so, with waivering resolve, my somewhat tongue-in-cheek response to Bess, a fellow former Gertie Girl, has been:

Get thee behind me, Satan!!!

Who wants to take bets on how long I can hold out?

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See One, Do One, Teach One...

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...or, How a Knitter is Born....

Being new-ish to knitting, I still have much to do and learn in order to advance beyond the beginners category of [rectangles]. But recently I've had the distinct pleasure of watching (and perhaps helping a little bit, and maybe even learning something myself) as another new knitter is born and develops.

If you may recall, I gave my sister-in-law, (also named Mary), a scarf for her November birthday. She seemed to really like it, which is all any knitter, especially a new one, can ask for.

On Christmas Day, I went over to their house for a few hours and brought some knitting with me. It was then that Mary told me about a prayer shawl ministry being held at her church. I've gone once and plan to go again this Saturday. Mary's attended several of their meetings, the first at which they taught her to cast-on and knit, and I believe the knitting bug has firmly taken hold of her.

Case in point:

* She's been to the KnittingHelp website
* She's visited a LYS
* Twice now she's purchased yarn at a local craft store
* She has a small supply of yarn not yet ear-marked for a project; (I gleefully educated her that this is known as a "stash") ;-)
* She's finished a project and has now started two more

(This has both surprised and delighted me, because I didn't know she was even interested. Inside, I'm beside myself with glee.)

Twice this past week I've been at their house to knit and watch the Winter Olympics on their shiny new flat screen tv:

(look how sharply HDTV photographs)

which has been a lot of fun for me.

Even more fun, I've had the opportunity to teach Mary a few more knitterly things. On Saturday she learned how to bind off, to weave in ends, to purl, and got a refresher course in casting-on. Last night I exposed her to the long-tail cast-on, gave another refresher on purling and how to read knits and purl stitches on the needle, and also showed her the basketweave pattern, which was an absolute kick for me, since I'd not done that myself before. (Laurie would be so proud.)

What's that old saying, "see one, do one, teach one"? I just love observing and/or being a part of the process as a new addict knitter is born.

Whoo-hoo! One more for our side!

Now I just need to remember to take pictures of her knitting -- after all, she may want to blog about it someday! ;-)

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Olympic Knitting

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While I'm enjoying the Winter Games on television, I've not joined the thousands of folks involved with the Knitting Olympics. I do admire everyone who has picked up their needles and accepted the challenge.

And your humble efforts have not gone unnoticed -- a major publication has given you the nod.

Time magazine has a blurb about it in an article called Gold Medal Motives, but I imagine web access to it will be short-lived, so I will quote from it below:

NO IDLE HANDS - For the 16-day Knitting Olympics, some 4,000 crafty couch potatoes have set a series of stitching goals they want to reach while watching the Games. Charitable projects include making clothes for U.S. pregnancy centers and for tots in Mongolia.

I suppose if I were more thin-skinned, (and if I were actually involved), I might take offense at the "crafty couch potatoes" remark, but as they say in Hollywood, as long as they spell your name right, all publicity is good publicity.

And so I say to all you Knit-thletes -- my heartfelt congratulations, and I humbly salute you!

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Twisted Knitting...

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...and I don't mean twisted stitches.

This is probably the least offensive image of the knitted products-of-twisted-minds displayed on their website:

(if you couldn't tell, those are Siamese Teddy Twins, conjoined at the head. It probably says a lot about me that I find this fairly amusing.)

Go there, if you dare, to view other knitted gore.

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Happy Day-after-February-14th

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This would be hilarious if it wasn't so painfully true:


And lots of other anti-Valentines can be found here. Their server has been overwhelmed since yesterday, so you can't email one of these anytime soon. I guess that makes a sad but realistic statement about the prevalence of singleness in the world these days. Ironically, I could only find six single adults in my entire address book to whom to email this site's URL. I think that makes a particularly sad statement about my lack of single friends. Where are all these other single people overwhelming the anti-VD servers? Perhaps they all live in NYC and hang out with Carrie Bradshaw. Perhaps I need to move....

But, all is not lost:

Knitterly Musings

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I'm still slowly but surely working on this Sinsation scarf, and am on the seventh ball of yarn for it. Only three more balls to go, lots of ends to weave in, and then I get to felt it -- can't wait! This thing weighs a ton, though -- I hope it'll loses some weight in the felting process, or I'm liable to cripple myself wearing it!

In the meantime I've started yet another skinny scarf, using this yarn:

Plymouth Eros, color # 4796

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Which is looking like this, thus far:

15 stitches, size 8 needles, knit every row. Makes for good Olympics-watching knitting.

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And a close-up of the knitting:

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What has prompted me to start this new project? Well, I'll tell you.

A friend of the family owns an upscale clothing boutique here in town and twice now has mentioned that she'd like to sell some hand-knit scarves there. I don't know how serious she is about that, but I did drop by her store last week to check out what she sells. (I was definitely out of my element there, as my normal wardrobe consists of jeans or sweats, and the last time I could fit in tiny clothes like that, well, it's been awhile).

We talked about colors and she asked me to give her a "color card". After my eyes glazed over and I explained that there are thousands of yarns out there and millions of potential yarn colors and combinations, I think I convinced her that she's going to need to see for herself the choices available at the typical LYS. She's supposed to call me this week so that we can meet at Lettuce Knit at some point, but I'm not holding my breath.

The very idea that a scarf knitted by lil' old me could be sold in a boutique is both mind-boggling and humbling, considering all the expert knitters that are out there. I would love to do it, though -- and not out of any monetary interest -- I'd be happy just to be reimbursed for the yarn. I love the idea that I could continue to knit scarves ad infinitum and not have to worry about foisting them upon unwitting family members who may or may not want or need another scarf. This could theoretically represent a limitless realm of scarf recipients -- a scarf-knitters nirvana, if you will.

So, in the meantime, I thought I'd work up this Eros scarf so she could get a sense of a novelty yarn scarf that could be worn as an accessory.

And in knitting this scarf, I can't help but think of a woman named Judy I met last year. We were both working at a client site in Georgia, helping them with their new system conversion. During that stressful time Judy took it upon herself to take care of all of us in the "war room" -- bringing in meals, drinks and snacks several times a day for almost a week. She represents the vendor as a client manager of sorts and was a pleasure to work with. I felt very "mothered" and taken care of during that time, thanks to her. And then late that week, as we were walking back to the war room from another part of the hospital, a fellow consultant shared with me in hushed tones that just two weeks prior, Judy's husband had committed suicide. I was floored. To think of all she was dealing with, and yet she was taking care of all of us and was incredibly positive and cheerful. I imagine it might have been therapeutic for her - I hope it was, anyway. I still think about her at times, and hope she's doing okay.

So what does this have to do with the Eros scarf? One day that week Judy was wearing an Eros skinny scarf in a brownish colorway, and it looked really nice, and it gave me an idea of how to use my yarn, and how one could wear it . She had it around her neck and knotted somewhat low, and it made a very nice accent against a white short-sleeved shirt. I asked her if she had knit it, but it turns out to have been a gift from a previous client.

And so, a lot of things run through my mind as I'm knitting this Eros scarf. Most importantly, here's hoping Judy is continuing to find comfort in her grief.

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From snow showers to flower shows

A peek at some of the pretties at today's flower show:

A few more images and lots of discussion can be found on my garden blog.

It won't much, but it be purty

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Got about 2-3 inches of snow accumulation in my neighborhood. Not the "heavy snow" that was predicted, but then, you can almost bank on dashed hopes when the local news predicts "heavy snow". That's alright -- I'll take what I can get. It was beautiful, pristine and unblemished when I woke up this morning. Now the sun is out and it's already 34ºF, and most of it is sliding off the trees.

Ah well. We must appreciate fleeting beauty while it lasts -- a lesson for us all.

The roads appear to be clear, which means I can go hit the Maymont Flower & Garden show before it closes.

And so I leave you with this view from my front porch:

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Bring it on!

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I love it when the weather map looks like this in wintertime, especially on a weekend:


In preparation, I have a crock pot of soup simmering, a stocked refrigerator, a couple of knitting projects to work on, the Olympics on TV -- I'm set. Snug as a bug. Three to five inches of snow are predicted for our area by tomorrow morning. Bring it on!

Gangsta Knitters

(click ^ to watch)

(thanks to Sangeeta Darji for sharing this with the Southside Knitters group)

Happy New Year!

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Nope, I haven't finally lost all my marbles or lost track of time. We're in the middle of Chinese New Year, folks -- welcome to the Year of the Dog!

And in the spirit of new beginnings, and since the calendar year started off so crappy, I'm taking advantage of the new New Year to make some resolutions. (It's not because I procrastinated about making resolutions back in January - no siree, no way -- that's not it at all!)

And not just any resolutions. These are knitting resolutions. In my first New Year as a knitter, I resolve to try and do the following knitterly things before the end of the year:

1. Learn to knit socks
2. Knit a clapotis
3. Knit & felt a purse/bag/tote
4. Knit a hat
5. Learn at least one other "challenging" technique - (cables, intarsia, etc.)
6. Go to at least one fiber event (no problem there - Maryland here I come)
7. Take at least one knitting class (again, no problem - taking a class in March)
8. Better organize yarn stash and knitting paraphernalia

I'll be interested to see what I actually get accomplished by the end of the year. I hope when late December rolls around I'll remember to look at this list I made way back on February 7th!

(And now I gotta run and find some party hats and noisemakers...!)

Knitting Poll Results

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Many thanks to everyone who participated in last week's knitting polls. The polls are now closed and have been removed from that blog entry. My apologies to those who went to view the poll results and were taken to a webpage with lots of unsavory ads -- I had no idea that would happen. Rest assured I will never use that particular polling service again.

Without further ado, here are the poll results:

Coincidentally, this week there's also been an interesting thread about Continental Knitting technique out on the Knitty CoffeeShop forum. Go here to follow along.

Thanks again everyone!

Come join me on the Knitters Short Bus

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If you read knitting blogs at all, then you've surely read about Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics, either on her blog or on any of the over 2,000 almost 4,000 (!!!?!) other knitters' blogs who've signed up for the "competition". I won't go into a lot of explanation here since you can read the description and rules for yourself on Harlot's blog, but the gist of it is that you cast on a new and challenging knitting project during the 2006 Winter Olympics (Torino) Opening Ceremonies, and finish the project by the time the flame goes out at the Closing Ceremonies.

If I've learned one thing about myself in these past 40 years, I've learned that I'm not a fan of deadlines. And this "knit-along" falls into that category. So given that, and the fact that I'm a slow knitter and there's no guarantee my back isn't going to start acting up again, I don't think I'll be "going for the gold".

However, someone recently pointed out another "contest" that is definitely more suited to remedial knitters like me. Janis has proposed a Knitting Special Olympics, for those of us who just like to knit and don't really want to "race" to the finish line. Only rule is to cast-on during Opening Ceremonies and finish whenever you like.

She's even created a button for it:

I'm game for that! So, won't you come join me on the knitters short bus?

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There can't be enough knitting on TV

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(The following is lifted straight from Interweave Knits newsletter):

Don't miss Interweave Press author Lily Chin as the host of Oxygen Network's brand new knitting and stitching show, Stitchcraft!


The pilot episode airs Sunday, March 5, on Oxygen Network. Check your local listings and spread the word to your stitching friends!

Blog awards

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In the spirit of award show season, it's now also the season for the 6th Annual Weblog Awards, otherwise known as "Bloggies 2006". Voting has closed, and winners will be announced in mid-March. If you didn't get a chance to vote, it's still a nice diversion to look at the nominees in the different categories and see the quality that's out there. Of note this year is a new category -- "Best Craft Blog". There's even a knit-blogger nominee -- none other than our venerable & prolific Yarn Harlot. She has some stiff competition, but here's hoping enough knitters voted to put her at the top.

If you can't wait until mid-March to hear about the winners, the lovely ladies at knottygirls.com had an awards ceremony all their own, just for knit-bloggers. Winners were announced earlier this month, (seventy-five categories!), so go here, to see the quality of knit-blogs that are out there!