Marie's Blog Party!

You know how I love talking about the cool connections I've made with other bloggers through the years?

Well today Marie over at Permission to Unwind is hosting a blog party for her BIRTHDAY! (I think it's cool she shares her birthday month with another of my very favorite crafty ladies...my Mom.) Stop over and wish her a fantabulous day. (You really should...she's serving cupcakes.)

PTU was one of the very first knitting focused blogs I started to follow. I pretty much think it was fate that brought me to Marie's URL. Without going into all the fascinating boring details, let me just give you a few examples of how alike Marie and I have discovered we are:

• We're both in our mid-thirties.
• We both married our high school sweet hearts when we were pretty young as far as today's average marriage age goes. Both our husband's names are Scott.
• We both practice yoga, like talking about healthy foods, and dabble in crazy things like aromatherapy and the power of energies.
• We both love coffee, knitting, sewing and have both worked in quilt shops.
• We both have some gluten tolerance issues.

One of the reasons Marie's blog stuck out to me when I first read it (I mean besides the fact her writing is fun and she's one of those damn prolific knitters who seems to be able to turn out projects in less time than it will me to write this post) is that she was writing from a town in Western Nebraska only an hour and a half from where I grew up. A town we drive past on our way home every spring. A town in which I have played many high school volleyball/basketball games in a past life.

As is the case, I'm happy to report that come March Marie and I will no longer simply be electronic friends. We are planning a meet-up when the girls and I head to my Mom's over spring break. I'm way excited! I will admit that I am also a little nervous...I think Marie is one high energy gal (I mean she home-schools her 3 BOYS) and I am, well, a little more of a subdued being. I guess we can't be alike in every way.

Happy, happy Birthday Marie!

(Seriously, go visit her blog...you'll be glad you did!)


peace

Non-Standard Measurement...

Have you ever felt like maybe your not living up to your potential...and that your not even sure what the potential is? That for some reason you're having a hard time figuring out why finding long term contentment in life seems to be such a hard task?

The weather has turned frightful again and Scott decided to stay in DSM tonight rather than chance the snowy roads. This had been a LONG, snowy winter and being that it's only February 8th I know we have a few more weeks before we can breathe easy. I'm sure the stress of his commuting through it all has contributed greatly to my unease as of late. I often wonder WHY we don't just move closer to his job...after all, what the heck am I doing that is worth us staying here while he commutes? And for that matter I'm questioning WHAT I'm doing with my life.

Sometimes I think not really following "traditional" means to define the successfulness of our lives makes it hard to know what direction is the right direction to take when looking at potential new adventures. And that deciding to take a less than traditional approach to my professional life makes it that much more likely that I'll second guess decisions when things get a little rocky. And that while I'm kinda an entrepreneurial spirit, I'm not very good at taking risks...or knowing which are the right risks to take.

So many questions and thoughts. Feelings of uncertainty. The dark, cold of winter. It's all getting me down a bit on this cold snowy night. How many weeks until spring?


peace

Lace Update...

After a somewhat rocky start (it took 4 COs to get things headed in the right direction) progress is being made on my lace scarf that I'm knitting for the Adventures in Lace KAL.


I was a bit worried as I got started how the design would present itself as the hand-spun yarn is pretty irregular. I've come across some VERY thin spots and have a bit of worry that they will be weak links in the finished project. Fingers crossed that's not the case!

My favorite feature of the design is the side with the "pointy things".


Actually one of the reason I love this pattern is that it's not symmetrical across the width of the scarf.

Last night, after a few busy knitless days, I sat down with Scott to watch a movie and knit only to discover I had 1 too few stitches on my needle. Come to find out I had mistakenly repeated two rows and in the process somehow dropped a stitch...I think. It took me 2 hours to tink-knit-tink-knit-scratch my head and have anxiety filled flashes of frogging my progress to this point-knit-tink-knit before I got everything squared away so that things can continue on in proper fashion. Whew! That was a close one. Needless to say after starting this project I have even MORE respect for those who choose to knit those beautiful, intricate lace shawls.

In other knitting news...I started a new Facebook page for Grinnell area yarn lovers. Whether you crochet, knit, spin or weave, become a fan and connect with other Grinnell Yarnies. I hope to be posting an informal gathering invite soon!

Brunch has been made and cleared. The house is clean for our Super Bowl guests. The chili is in the crock-pot. Which leaves me to go enjoy my tea and work on my scarf. Have I mentioned how much I love Sundays?


peace

Shop Talk...

I thought maybe it would be nice to update you all on how things are going with my crafty shop project. Partially because I've received so many encouraging words since I let known my intentions and I've not been able to respond to everyone individually. (Sorry!!!) Partially because blogging about new adventures helps keep me accountable and make sense of all the random information flying through my head. (Didn't know your readership had such an important role in life, did ya?)

Where to begin?

As with any new undertaking, first things were all exciting and dreamy. I pictured myself dropping the kids off at school, grabbing a coffee at my favorite coffee shop, and spending my day at the shop surrounded by all things and people creatively inspiring. Quite a lovely picture of small town America bliss.

Then the reality of what it would REALLY take to get this adventure rolling set in and I started to feel MAJORLY overwhelmed. I've been up. I've been down. I've talked non-stop about my shop dreams at times...and kept completely quiet about where my thoughts were at others. I reached out to area resources (our Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development office, etc) and started networking with other small business owners. I've gone from thinking there's NO WAY IN HELL I could ever even consider opening shop to scaling back my dreams to more of (as my friend Monica tagged it) a garage business. And through the whole process I've tried to REALLY examine how I feel about all sorts of things that would/could be affected by such an undertaking.

I've thought A LOT about where exactly my passions lie. About what excites me creatively, professionally, personally. One of the realizations I've made (that I've almost been afraid to face) is that while I enjoy quilting/fabric/sewing, it doesn't excite me near as much as YARN! Admitting that almost feels as if I'm cheating on my fabric stash (and my growing pile of quilt blocks/tops in various stages of doneness) with a new, younger, very sexy lover. I feel like the black sheep in a flock of family and friends who are sewers/quilters...and who are WAY more productive with their quilt projects that I could ever see myself being. (And who are all super supportive of my knitting adventures so this is by no means a negative reflection on any of them! Kisses!) Really what I think I've come to realize is while I LOVE quilts, the process of quilting doesn't feed my soul the same way sitting down to knit has over the past year. Becoming a knitter has felt as natural to me as yoga did 11 years ago when I did my very first practice in my living room with the help of a VHS. (You know...those tape things that existed before DVD and Blue Ray.) And well, look where falling in love with yoga has taken my life. I find myself amassing a list of future knitting projects longer than any one person could ever tackle in a lifetime...only this new list somehow seems more "doable" than my quilting list EVER did.

All that to say, as I've looked at my potential new business plans what I've decided is that IF things ever move forward, it will be in the direction of opening a yarn shop. Period. No fabric or scrap booking supplies (as suggested to me by a local resource) or beads or embellishment products. Just yarn and knitting and crochet notions. A place for yarnies of all ages and years of experience. The one thing that hasn't changed through all of this exploration is knowing first and foremost that I want to create a space in which a community of creators can gather and grow together.

So where am I in the process right NOW? Well, things are on hold. Several parties have come forward to express interest in buying the quilt shop. For a variety of reasons I'm waiting to see what happens on that front. Financially right now is probably not really the right time for us to be thinking "new small business." As I do my research I'm still not sure HOW someone actually makes a living owning a small business. Right now I'm not sure I'm ready to devote the time that would be needed to get things up and running (and keep them running) which would take away from our already limited family time. We continue to examine how Scott's daily commute affects our lives (and the environment) and I think more than ever both of us are more open to accepting that a move closer to his employment may very well make more sense on a variety of levels. Moving forward with shop plans right now just doesn't feel right. So things are on hold.

That doesn't mean the dream is dead...or that I'm not going to continue to gather information and grow my small business knowledge base. Small business workshops will be attended. Networking will continue to happen. I will continue to broaden my understanding of the fiber world both for my own enjoyment and with a bit of an eye towards the business of it all. One never knows WHEN the right time will present itself in the coming years. When that time comes, I want to be ready to move forward.

And now you know the rest of the story...at least for now.


peace

Adventures in Lace KAL: Casting On...

One of the the knitting techniques which I've decided I need to explore during my second year of knitting is lacework. So it was perfect that Kate over at Lazy Kate Creates suggested a little virtual lace knit-a-long (KAL) to help us all get through the final weeks of winter and to get me to cast on a project. (Click the little Adventures in Lace button in my side bar for more info.)

Official cast-on date is today...though I jumped the gun a bit and cast on yesterday because I knew I would probably need a bit of un-rushed quiet time to get started. Earlier this fall I had decided my first lace project would also be my first scarf having fallen in deep like with the Juliet scarf out of Knitting Little Luxuries. I'm knitting it up in my 171 yards of Merlot handspun merino I got in Nebraska last spring.


The first cast-on was doomed from the first round of lacework. First off I was YOing wrong (which I didn't realize being as I've only practiced on a small swatch of eyelets once last summer) and then I dropped a stitch and couldn't figure out how to pick it up. So I frogged and CO again. After the second CO I got about 4 rows into the lacework when I decided what I was creating looked nothing like the picture in the book. After consulting a technique book I discovered my incorrect YOing and so...frogging #2.

CO #3 was going along splendidly and I made it all the way through one repeat of the lace pattern (12 rows) at which time I had to put down my knitting to bathe the girlies and prep dinner so we would be all set to catch the Grammy's. For some crazy reason when I sat down after dinner I thought I could both switch to using the lace chart provided with the pattern (vs the written instructions) AND pay attention to the Grammy's. Somewhere in about row 6 I again dropped a stitch, tried to fix it, knit a few more rows, realized the whole pattern had shifted one stitch to the right, got totally frustrated and frogged AGAIN!

Before I cast on for the 4th time I decided to switch needles. Originally, being as I think the yarn would technically be considered worsted weight, I had planned to use my size 9 10-inch straights from KnitPicks. But then a couple weeks ago I won a collection of vintage wood needles in various sizes on eBay (because...well because I simply thought they were cool...and I seem to be slipping deeper and deeper into love with all things knitting/fiber related as time goes on) and since I don't knit many projects that use straights I thought it would be nice to use a pair for my scarf. I chose a pair of size 8 needles that have pretty nice points, but as you can see most of my new vintage needles are 14-inchers...


Which, while beautiful, are a bit of over kill for a 7 inch wide scarf. I decided the extra length of needles was adding to the whole awkwardness of this new undertaking and switched to my originally planned, shorter needles. It was a good switch. Not only are the shorter needles easier to deal with (which is also making my writs happier), the slightly larger size opens up the lacework a bit resulting in a lovely airy drape. I'm now 2 1/2 repeats into CO #4 and all is going smoothly. I've decided just to stick with reading the written directions as I seem to be able to follow them better than the chart at this point. I'm also finding out that lace knitting is good therapy for my tight knitter syndrome. Lacework really isn't fun to work when your stitches are I'm going to maintain control of everything in my life even if it kills me tight. So I'm working on loosening up a bit.

The original pattern creates a short scarf pinned to a close with a knitted rosette. I'm planning to just knit to the end of my yarn and skip the rosette all together for a little longer finished item. I'd love to have Juliet knitted and blocked by the end of the month so I can wear it out for my birthday in March! I think it's just about the perfect blend of feminine lace and blue jean casual that I can see it becoming a much loved accessory in the coming years.

And how lovely when Yarnica! falls on a Monday! Waiting on my doorstep after my noon yoga class was a box from Webs. Inside: 10 balls of Italian light gray superwash merino for my next new to me knitting adventure...a sweater! (Interestingly enough I chose a pattern that has a bit of lacework even before I made sure this lace thing was gonna work out OK. I guess one could call that self confidence...or total foolishness.)

I'm off to knit!


peace