I must say, it’s rather sweet to be a winner. I think I like it. Many big thank you’s to Julie at Passioknits. She has a knitting podcast, in case you didn’t know it. After you read this post, go listen!

Can you tell I’m not used to winning contests? Last time I won anything, it [...]]]>

I must say, it’s rather sweet to be a winner. I think I like it. Many big thank you’s to Julie at Passioknits. She has a knitting podcast, in case you didn’t know it. After you read this post, go listen!

Can you tell I’m not used to winning contests? Last time I won anything, it was a roll of lifesavers in Girl Scout Camp. We’re talking decades ago, people. About the time I first learned to knit.

Never mind. Here’s a close-up shot of the goodies that are now mine.

Nice, eh? I’ve been a bad girl, though. While I immediately planned to create a blog post all about winning the contest, showing the photos and tooting the horn for Passioknits, it didn’t happen. When did I win these two skeins of yarn? Today, this week, this month? (Hangs head in shame.)

My husband was appalled when he discovered I’d never even emailed her my thanks. He said, “You have no social graces whatsoever, do you?” Sigh. Apparently not.

But here we are at last. Guess what else? I haven’t knit a stitch since July 31.

Why? Because I started the third annual Thirty Day Challenge! If you want to learn how to make money online by having someone guide you step by step and do it for absolutely zero cost, go join! You won’t regret it.

Am I rich yet? Not quite. Why? Because I searched for and found a great niche—but it wasn’t something I’m passionate enough about. I’m to write articles and blog posts every day about the topic, creating content. Lovely. I created maybe a dozen pieces of content, then stalled out. I let my perfectionism kick in.

That little voice in my head piped up with, “Who are you to write about this particular niche when you know nothing about it?” Yada, yada, yada. Never mind that I was researching and learning as I went. I was doing just fine, then two months passed with no progress at all. Argh!

If you want to learn the extreme evils of perfectionism, visit Flylady. I’m battling this demon in my household, let me tell you! I need to stamp it out in my head.

So where was I? Ah! During the month of August my invitation to Ravelry came in. Now I may lack social graces, but I’m not stupid. I’ve seen knitters’ posts and heard their podcasts all telling me what a marvelous and wondrous thing Ravelry is—and what a super time suck it can be.

In August I was grabbing every spare minute to do the Thirty Day Challenge on top of my tailoring, eBay selling and everyday life needs. I didn’t dare dive down the Ravelry rabbit hole! So I’m saying to myself, “Just a minute. Soon as the month is over…” Yeah, right.

I reached some kind of critical mass a couple days ago where I was so itchy to knit I was actually twitching. I hunted up my Ravelry invitation, logged in and started searching for what other knitters have done with two skeins of Knit Picks Shimmer yarn. I was a bit ginger about it, knowing the time suck factor could get me at any moment. I looked around a bit, saw some lovely photos and got the heck out of Dodge.

I went back the next day. You knew I would. And this time I was a little more organized and discovered exactly what I was looking for. And you’ll never guess what I’m going to knit with my prize winnings.

A Clapotis!

Ha! Years ago I looked at the pattern, saw the cost of the yarn and sprinted away. That was back when I didn’t know quality yarn from a mud pie. I thought I might very well be an outsider in the knitting world, one of the few knitters who would never knit or own a Clapotis. I consoled myself with how some knitters abandoned theirs midway when they got bored.

Huh! Back before August when I lost my knitting bearings, I joined Elizabeth’s Year where we would knit a new project each month from Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac. In July, it was the Pi shawl. I knit TWO of them!

So I think I can knit a Clapotis. We’ll see, I guess. And this is more than enough blabbering. Can you tell I missed posting about knitting? Yikes!

I’m not talking the physical sensation of the yarn passing through my fingers so much as the emotional feel of each color. I [...]]]>
Here’s a photo of the four Kidsilk Haze Nelly shawls bagged up and ready to block for Christmas 2006. I want to talk about how different each color felt while knitting.

I’m not talking the physical sensation of the yarn passing through my fingers so much as the emotional feel of each color. I don’t know whether I was responding to the color itself, or if thoughts of the different recipients was the big switch each time. I just know that every time I started knitting with a new color, there was a period of adjustment.

The first one I made was the white one that’s labeled “cream.” It was the color that gave me the most trouble, but then it was the first time I ever knitted with Kidsilk Haze. Getting used to knitting with such fine yarn was one thing. Realizing that I needed different needles was another. I had such a death grip on the first needles that my hands cramped. I had to hold them tight as the needles felt slippery enough to just slide right out of the stitches.

When I used bamboo needles, I was able to relax my grip and knit with far more ease, especially once I realized, “I’m knitting with cobwebs.” That thought set me right on track. Not to say I didn’t encounter trials along the way. I learned that ripping back with Kidsilk Haze is something you just can’t hurry. Sometimes each stitch was a separate issue and a triumph when successfully disentangled.

I was making it for Grace, a young woman who was embarking on a second chance at life by going to college at age 38. She was excited and nervous and relieved. I’d heard about the Red Scarf Project where you knit a red scarf for a foster kid heading off to college, because these kids don’t have “people” to do that for them. She was a divorced orphan on her way to college, so that fit nicely, but she loves silk and the color white, so she didn’t get a red one. I put into it all the love and support I felt for her, even when I cussed at the ripping back. The creamy white seemed pure and new and innocent, a fresh start, untrampled snow. Something like that.

Next came the gray one labeled “smoke” for my daughter Jill. It seemed much thicker than the cream yarn, much easier to knit. But I was experienced by now, so that might have been a factor. The gray matched her black coat and the gray fleece hat she had, so I thought she’d like it.

She’s my best friend and the best daughter on the planet. I might be prejudiced, but still. What a great young woman she is. She knows her own mind, knows what she likes, plans ahead and creates what she wants, which includes learning to run a thriving eBay business, rearrange furnace pipes, electric and plumbing skills, machine embroidery–anything she sets her mind to. Love that gal. I’d like to be her when I grow up. Knitting hers went much more easily. The gray felt just right somehow–maybe because she has a much-loved cat that color?

Third was the black one labeled “wicked” which makes me smile because it was for my husband’s 85-year-old aunt. She’s a tiny thing with a great, loving heart and she worked for years as a hostess in a restaurant so she loves to dress with drama or something unique in her outfit. With her dark hair and dark eyes, this color was perfect and dramatic. The yarn seemed very thick and incredibly hairy. I had to sit in a strong light to see the stitches. I was torn between knitting her a black one or a red one, but black won. Bold, classic, always right, just like a little black dress.

I’d planned to make only three shawls, but couldn’t resist making a blue one for myself. I knew I’d be giving the others away and in a year or two wouldn’t remember ever knitting these at all. This is a memento for me and also, why not have one myself? I’m a person and just as lovable, right? Never mind that I almost never dress up. That could change at some point. I could wear this somewhere, sometime.

It was the easiest and fastest of all the shawls, in a color that had a good weight much like the smoke color, and less hairy than the wicked color. It matches my main staple of dress—blue jeans. By now I had the pattern long-since memorized, of course. I still had to count off each and every stitch in my head as I knit to keep from misknitting anything. I don’t think I had to rip back at all on the last couple, much to my relief.

I don’t know how interesting this is to anyone but me. I guess the colors had their own qualities, sure enough. It was intriquing how different they felt while knitting–and I’m sure the recipients counted for some of the difference. I know I feel a bit differently when I sew for someone I like versus someone I regard as a pain. Ha.