Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Felting

I will post pictures of my newly felted bag and scarves very soon. I will also have a picture of my blanket of many colors.

My felted purse didn't turn out as expected, but felting is an experiment everytime from what I understand. Besides, this was my first time felting so I can't complain. It certainly turned out nice enough to give as a gift in my opinion. I plan on making more for other friends. I have looked for patterns online, but so many knitters want to charge for them. I find it just a bit ridiculous if you ask me. I am sure there are many advocates for charging for patterns, but I find it to be a bit on the greedy side. If I am at home and I am cooking, I may develop a new recipe. If my friends, neighbors, or even a stranger likes this dish and wants the recipe, I just give it to them. When I log on to the food network or allrecipes, they do not charge for their recipes either. It seems that we expect recipes to be for free. Why? I mean someone took the time to create it, right? Sure, but in my opinion, recipes and patterns, like many other great gifts (music, great works of art etc) should be free. Obviously I am not disagreeing with the right to sell music, art, cookbooks or patterns, but I am definitely an advocate of sharing knowledge.

In the meantime, I guess I will just have to create my own patterns. If you want a copy, please have your credit card handy:).

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Blanket of many colors

What knitting means to me can be summarized in a short story about my grandmother and a blanket. I told a very short version of this story in a reply to one of my favorite bloggers and it got me thinking.

My grandmother was a knitter. And a cross word puzzle junkie I might add.( Her vocabulary was endless). When I was 15 my family moved to Missouri to be closer to her. At that age, I didn't really grasp how special it was to have such a great grandmother just down the street. I didn't take advantage of her wisdom. However, the few memories I have of her make me warm and bring pleasant feelings. I remember going to church with her out in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road, mowing her lawn and drinkning instant Lipton iced tea afterwards, the small cute glasses with images of boys and girls dancing on them. I remember her rose bushes, the cotton field just across the street and her tool shed filled with all kinds of treasures. I remember her hydrangea bushes but I also remember her knitting blankets for my cousins. Unfortunately, she didn't get around to making a blanket for me. She passed away on Thanksgiving night in 1997.

I wish I could tell her I now know how to knit and often wish I could ask her questions when I get stuck during a project. Or just to pick up the phone to talk about life in general when I get stuck during a rough time.

Shortly after her death my father gave me a blanket. It was a blanket my grandmother had knitted years ago to put on the back of her sofa. I remembered seeing the blanket many many times lying on the back of her sofa in her living room. (Although as a child I didn't look at it closely nor did I care whether is was handmade or store bought.) But when it was given to me, I began to relize its value. I cherished that blanket, I put it away for safe keeping and only looked at it occasionally. Then last year I began knitting (which is another story I'll get to later).

I took it out of storage and began using it occasionally. No one had ever knitted anything for me before, (or since). I realized it must have taken a lot of time to make such a blanket. It was nice to cuddle with to keep warm. I began looking at the stitches closely. They are wonderful, just beautiful. Everything is so perfect on that blanket; spacing, tention, patterns, sizing. Each square is a different pattern. Cables, bobbles, diamonds, ribbing, basket weave and numerous others. Maybe there is a different stitch and pattern to represent each new pattern or step in my life. Maybe this is a way she can be with me as grow.

I feel like a piece of her, or her soul, is in that blanket. I wonder what she was thinking while she made each stitch. Although I can't hug her or knit with her now that she is gone, somehow I feel closer to her when I look at that blanket. I can hold or knit with my blanket when I long for family or need to feel a sense of belonging. I find it ironic that a craft I had no interest in 18 months ago has helped me to grow closer to someone I lost years ago.

If one lesson can be learned from all of this, it is to cherish my friends and loved ones each day. as I swim in my Sea of Scarves I hope that the gifts that I present my family with this Christmas will bring a fraction of the warmth and comfort my blanket has brought me.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Sea of Scarves

Welcome to my blog!

I am glad that you are here. As you can see, this is my first post so there isn't much to see at the moment. I will add pictures, additional links and other goodies as time goes by. To get an idea of what I am doing currently, read on and enjoy!



Currently, I am swimming in a sea of scarves. Well, at least it feels that way. I decided to give hand knitted scarves to everyone on my Christmas list this year. Although this is a feasible task since I have only 6 more to knit before the big day, I am consumed with knitting scarves. Unfortunately this prevents me from being able to explore other projects and keep my favorite past time exciting. I like a challenge and want to move on to more complex projects (at least projects that are more difficult than what I am used to knitting). But I guess the challenge now lies in being able to finish 6 more before Christmas.

I've had the entire year to knit, but didn't pick up my needles from February through September. With moving, graduating and numerous summer activities I just didn't make the time. With the onset of what I call the knitting season, I have jumped into knitting at full speed. Knitting, reading about knitting, teaching friends how to knit, starting a guild and frequenting knitting shops have become a normal part of my life. But even though I tire of knitting one scarf after the other, the work is still very relaxing and rewarding. I won't know what to think when I begin working on other items that are fun and challenging.

Within the next couple of days I hope to have pictures of said scarves available for your viewing pleasure.