I am a woman with passion for many things. Because of this, I tend to say yes to things that sound like I would like to do them. Often I say yes based on my enthusiasm, and not on the amount of time available to do them.

Right now I’m in the process of crossing off as many of the items I’ve said yes to, which are starting to pile up in an embarrassing way. If you say yes, people think you mean you have time. I need to realize that many things take a LOT more time than I imagine they might.

From Friday night until Monday evening, I had a chock-full schedule. It was good stuff but I was not home much. Tuesday was wonderful but it involved seeing Sarah, Deb, Sara, Jo, Mom and Altu. Mostly one person at a time, except for Sara & Jo who I saw together.

And I did see Brian, of course. I left at 10am and got home after 9pm, did a little email and listened to Progressive Torch and Twang on WDBM and then it’s already past time to sleep. I’m nodding off as I type this, but that’s part of my life right now.

The wonderful part of all this is seeing the life I have. It is full of people I care about, people who make my life worthwhile. The hard part is trying to do things like get enough sleep and get things done that I promised. I’m working on a project for my Mom right now that I had hoped to do in December. Sigh.

I had a series of yesses to deal with, a list that got too long back in 2007. I got over-yessed back in the fall. And I’m working out of that situation slowly. After the job for Mom, I have a few knitting promises for the kids I teach at Foster Center. Then I’m working on not doing that again without really thinking about it. I do love helping where I can, especially when I truly have a skill my loved one does not have.

Also I keep losing things and that makes it hard to be efficient. I can not find the cord for my Kodak digital camera anywhere. I have not been able to download photos from my camera since the 5th of May, over a week ago. I will now need to give up and just go buy a replacement cord, but that takes time.

Meanwhile, the photo today is a tulip that showed up at our house in an odd spot. I may remember seeing tulip leaves there before but I had never seen a bloom. This one showed up a couple of weeks ago against the house. About a yard/meter and a half out from the house, was a single grape hyacinth as well. The second was surely buried there by a squirrel, as I planted those in the side yard, not the back yard, and this was just in a random place. The tulip, I’m not sure.

Paulette came to me not two months ago. She had a dream, to knit socks. First she had purchased a hat pattern, and I showed you that project two weeks ago. She finished that first hat, did a second, and started in with toe-up socks.

I present to you the foot portion of Paulette’s debut sock:

At this point she needs to knit ribbing for the leg as long as she wants to do so, and bind off loosely, and she will have a wearable sock.

I have never seen an adult starter knitter progress so quickly. I don’t expect this but she’s a determined person who is plowing through the learning curve with lightning speed. Go, Paulette!

In other news, I taught my Polymer Clay Translucents & Foils class at Yarn Garden in Charlotte last weekend. Lindsay, who has owned that shop for one year now, filled that room with 8 happy participants. One was her grandma. Grandma had this gorgeous wound “cake” of Noro wool/angora yarn and wanted buttons to go with it. Even though I confess I’m not a neutral person, have never been known for subtlety (I go for contrast every time), I helped her figure out how to make what *she* wanted for *her own project.* Just look at how nice those buttons are for the yarn!

Of course, the web is just not good at displaying subtleties in color but trust me when I say that she was pleased, I was pleased, and the whole group agreed that she got the buttons she had been working for.

Our friend Ben Hassenger is playing a musical gig with hubby Brian this Friday. I’ve been to a few concerts in the last few weeks where Ben played (one where Brian played, too). Ben wrote to ask me if I had a photo of the two of them next to one another, for promo purposes.

I had a few photos of the concert they both played, but they were not near one another. In fact, I was photographing from one side so Ben looked bigger in his photos than Brian in his. Here is what I found.

Photo of Brian:

Photo of Ben:

I made Ben’s photo smaller and cropped Brian. Then I changed the color balance on both of them so that the colors looked right together.

I overlapped the two photographs and then I had a problem with the microphone sort of being cut off in thin air. And Brian’s shoulder being totally cut off vertically behind the microphone. The background was easy to airbrush/rubberstamp so that it was seamless, the other bits were harder. I literally had to airbrush the background away from behind a microphone and superimpose it on top of the seam between the photographs. I also had to use a rubberstamp tool to paint in what looks something like Brian’s shoulder behind it.

In the end, here’s what I came up with:

Whew! It worked. you look at the faces, and it’s easy to ignore the imperfections of the seam in the middle.

It’s beautiful here right now, though the temperatures have plummeted and we are having frost warnings for several days this week. The flowering trees are spectacular this spring, it seems every possible bloom has bloomed. Some years we get frost at just the wrong time, after buds have formed, and it’s just not this beautiful. I am drinking it all in.

I pass Mt. Hope Cemetery, a historical spot in Lansing, almost every day. The early important civic folks for Lansing are buried here, it seems every large stone has the name of someone whose name is also attached to a park somewhere. Ransom E. Olds (founder of Oldsmobile) is also interred there, his family mausoleum visible from the street.

I love taking photos there in the fall. This year I realized I wanted to photograph it again in full-flowering spring splendor. Here you can see both seasons, the same view from the other side of the road.

The year my cousin Karen got married in Houston in April, I was bowled over by the bold flowers and color there. I spent a long weekend drinking in the beauty. Then I returned to Lansing in mid-flowering-tree season. It took that trip to understand the kind of beauty Lansing displays in the spring. For all the bold in Houston, the balance was gentle, almost feminine beauty, covering the landscape. I’m glad to have that perspective.

(To be honest, this spring photo is about a week old and the trees are totally green now. I wish I had time to sneak over there again today and photograph it again, but that’s not how the schedule looks for now.)

I tell you, nobody has a job as fun as mine can be some days. Today/Saturday I taught polymer clay canework (Jelly Rolls, Stripes, Bulls-eyes and Checkerboards), at Threadbear. It was a BLAST. It always is.

Tomorrow I am at Rae’s 11-1 for a mitten class. The weather has gone mean again, we are expecting “patchy frost” for 4 days in a row and I got out my earmuffs today (after 80F+ summer temps yesterday). Mittens are a decent topic for a little longer, I’m afraid.

Next Saturday (May 3) I teach my Polymer Translucents and Foils class at Yarn Garden in Charlotte, Michigan. The class is from 11a-3p. I am showing some photos here of buttons made with this technique. Some were made by me, some by my students. The technique can be very subtle where it looks almost like mother-of-pearl or obsidian, but it can be vibrant as well. Look at the variety here!

I sure hope some of you can join me for some of my upcoming classes (baby set, needlefelted embellishments, mentioned in my earlier post here). I think you might just have a good time, too.

Sorry to those out of town… do remember that I travel to teach. Let your local shop or guild know if you would like to have me come to your area and teach you (and your friends). We will all have a great time, I’m sure of it!

We have spring, for the last several days (actually about a week). I hear it is supposed to snow on Sunday? Ugh. We can hope I heard wrong.

I do remember one April 25 where there were piles of snow still underneath any shady bush. It’s possible to get snow again. Let us hope it is not so extreme to get a ton of snow… it has been humid yesterday, and over 80F today. Sometimes when humid warmth is hit by super-cold air, we get piles and piles of snow.

Right now I’m typing this with bare feet and wearing a tank top, bare arms even. I typically get cold easily (I would be happier with a wrap or light sweater but I’m on my way to a cozy bed so I’m not layering anymore at this time). I love knowing it was over 80 today!!!

Photos? These forsythia bushes really look great this year. Some years the frost hits just wrong and they don’t bloom much at all. this year, every single yellow bush is totally covered. I love these when they are this happy! Notice how the trees around them have no green leaves at all.

These photos were taken about a week ago. Today we have so many leaves on the trees that there is shade on the street. Amazing. They took about 2 days from almost nonexistant to thriving. The change has been incredible to watch.

This weekend was the Habibi Dancers‘ 25th Anniversary concert (and two days of dance workshops). It was a great time. You can imagine that the preparations for something that big distracted me a bit from the teaching part of my life. Now I’m diving back into my teaching realm.

On Saturday, April 26, I’m teaching polymer clay “Stripes, Jelly Rolls and Checkerboards” at Threadbear Fiberarts. (See buttons top left and bottom almost-left in photo.)

I’ve taught a buttons/beads class for years, which uses layering techniques (think thin woodgrain or ivory but in any colors you like) to make buttons that are easily wearable with handknits. I have also recently added a “Foils and Translucents” class which creates lovely pearlescent buttons which also are just great with handknitted garments.

In the polymer clay community, beads are the focus rather than buttons. Many of the beads are made with a millifiore technique, an ancient glassworking method which works best with sharp contrast, and which draws in the eye to analyze fine detail.

I have had the instinct that fancier buttons with this type of detail, might distract from a garment. However, I am reminded by students that detail is adorable in a child’s button and also great for beads.

I’ve had enough requests that I’m teaching my first millifiore (stripes, etc) polymer class ever at a yarn shop, at Threadbear (Lansing, Michigan) this Saturday from noon to 4pm. Call 517/703-9276 to register.

If you want a project on which you might place your new buttons, I’ll be starting a baby set class at Rae’s on Thursday nights starting May 1. We’ll have one class, then a week off, then 3 more weeks in a row. We’re knitting the Wee One Welcome Set from Knitting at Knoon, which includes a sweater, hat and booties.

Rae’s sample version at the shop (see photo, shown with purchased buttons) is knit with one large (half-pound) skein of my Cushy ColorSport DK washable merino yarn, in the Seaside colorway. (She had enough yarn left over from the newborn size to knit a pair of tiny pants to go with it as well.) Last I looked Rae had 6 skeins of my yarn in stock (it’s limited in supply, I dye yarn when I’m not busy teaching). She has other DK weight washable yarns in stock as well.

To sign up for the baby set class, call Rae at 517/336-9276 or email info@raesyarnboutique.com

Next week (Friday May 2, 6-8pm) I teach Needlefelted Embellishments at Threadbear. This is a fun, no-sew method of adding color to a purse, hat or other item you own. It works well on felted or non-felted items. Wool works best as a base, but I’ve seen folks needlefelt on T-shirts and denim jackets, too. (On this photo, I used yarn “squiggles” on a purchased felted beret. Click above link to see Linda’s class project from last year.)

Saturday, May 3, I teach Polymer Clay Foils and Translucents at Yarn Garden in Charlotte, Michigan, from 11-3pm. (See pink button in first photo for one possible look.) Call Lindsay at 517/541-9323 to register.

Facing Reality

In my mind, I think I don’t do routine well. In fact, in some areas I have none. I get ready in the morning every day, but the things I do to get ready I switch around. I sometimes have breakfast first, sometimes get dressed first, sometimes prepare my class materials before any of the above.

Because of this, on mornings with a very short getting-ready time I miss things that should be routine. I typically forget to wear earrings or a watch, or I’ll forget to take my vitamins or some other thing that theoretically should be automatic for me to do.

Routine is My Friend

However, on a larger scale I have a weekly schedule or routine. I seem to have trouble when it gets disrupted.

Monday nights I teach computer classes at community education. Tuesdays during the day I’m home, typically doing computer/writing work (occasionally I have a class or guild meeting at night).

Wednesday I have CityKidz Knit! program followed by Habibi Dancers’ practice. Thursdays I’m at Rae’s. Fridays and Saturdays I teach random classes or work at home, and when we have music performances they often are Saturday nights. Sundays I teach at Rae’s.

Recovering from Schedule-Chaos

So far this year, I have not fallen into that routine. Since January things have been too intense to run on my familiar schedule. January we were coming out of holiday season and our friend Rev came to visit for three nights. February I was sick almost the whole month.

March, fortunately, was busy with the release of the ZigBagZ pattern collections and making up for lost class time… plus there were taxes to deal with. April we had Bosko and Honey as guests for two nights, and I performed in (and therefore rehearsed heavily for) the Habibi Dancers‘ 25th anniversary dance concert.

Whew! Whirlwind! I’m looking forward to some change. Change in favor of routine, regardless of what I have previously thought worked for me.

Big Plans

I’m hoping to schedule some new classes and new musical performances for the next few months. If anyone out there reading this wants a particular class, do let me know and I’ll do what I can to schedule it, hopefully at a time that works for you and a handful of others. I can’t always do what you want, but I will see if I can work it out.

I have some promises to make good on, a list of four tasks (two of which have been waiting for months) for other folks who can’t do these things for themselves. After that, I’ll be free to focus even more on my business.

There are some patterns I need to finish up, and I am hoping to get some dyeing done in May. Therefore, I want to get these to-do tasks out of the way soon.

Thank You

On another topic, thanks to everyone who is sending me photos and other content for this blog. I’m drowning in wonderful photographs, which have been coming in at a rapid rate as I’ve been distracted elsewhere. I hope I can post a good portion of the photos coming my way.

The photos today I took a week ago, the first signs of spring, growing things in my own yard. The daffodil is a tiny variety that comes in early, and now the bigger ones are following suit. Also shown here are my beloved violets (others call them weeds but they may be my favorite spring flowers), and a few myrtle/periwinkle blossoms. It’s actually truly looking springlike today, there were even golfers on the course at MSU!

Sriyana is on my ColorJoy! Ravelry discussion group (please join us, you will need to join the free Ravelry site first). I’ve mentioned her tapestry-crocheted mandalas here before. This time she has been crocheting spring into existence, and it appears to have worked, at least in her part of the world.

She participated in an art show where the theme was chickens (I can not help but wonder what the show as a whole looked like), and made this piece with a hen and wonderful textured leaves. I’m not good at crochet, but those leaves make me want to learn more, and fast!

She lives near Asheville, North Carolina. This is a wonderful community on a mountain, where they get a lot of sun. It doesn’t get too hot or too cold, and it almost always avoids the cloudcover we see here in Michigan so much of the winter. My brother nearly moved there not too long ago. I’m glad he is closer to me right now, but I know he would have loved it there, had he made the move.

So… spring has arrived in the mountains. I am very happy she has chosen to share her photos with us. Thanks, Sriyana!

Deb of Scarlet-Zebra has taken on the Knitting-spring-into-existence project, too. She is knitting some socks in a tulip colorway (zillions of colors in one skein) and she also is painting her house and painting on silk. You might want to see her photos: check out this entry on Scarlet-Zebra’s blog.

I have known Deb for several years. We met on the internet, I think the Socknitters email list, but we’ve hung out a zillion hours, had uncountable four-hour lunches (halfway between her house and mine, we both drive about an hour), and met at places like Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan, Ann Arbor Art Fair, and Great Lakes Folk Festival in East Lansing.

We had a point where our lives changed and we did not connect enough… but now with her blog, we are reconnected once more. I am really happy about that.

Deb loves color at least as much as I do. She knit these kissing-cousin sock pairs, as a matter of fact (five years ago… amazing how time flies). The pattern is my BarberPole socks. Yarn is Cascade Fixation (DK weight cotton/lycra). But the choice, combination, and the knitting were all Scarlet-Zebra!

Um, I think maybe she was knitting spring into existence when she knit these, as well. Actually, I posted the photos originally on my blog, January 30, 2003. That is a bit early for thinking spring, but the colors surely go with the theme quite well!

I love old neon signs. We wandered all around Chicago, mostly between downtown and the very far north. I don’t know where most of these signs were found, except that the fish sign was in Andersonville which historically was a Swedish community.

Wherever they were found, whatever their condition, lit or not… they make me smile.

The last several hours we were in Chicago, we decided to stick around and wait to drive out until the rush hour had mostly passed. Since Brian is fond of maps and likes to look at how things (roads, bridges, other transit) fit together, we decided to ride the elevated train that the City of Chicago calls the ‘L.’ (Some folks spell this “el” but the City uses the stylized ‘L’ in its literature.) A ride on the ‘L’ is a little bit like a walk through a 3-D map, and a lot like being a fly on the wall, peeking and listening without being noticed.

An elevated train is a wonderful perch, literally up in the tops of the tallest trees, from which to see the lay of the land. You can see the back sides of businesses, back yards, junk areas not visible from the street. You can also see spectacular vistas, peeking down a busy street or viewing an important downtown landmark from a distance.

We were amazed at how close the train goes to some of the buildings. It looked in places as though there was a clearance of less than two feet. Considering that an elevated train makes a *lot* more noise than a subway, and goes by much more often than other types of trains, it must be a significant disturbance to normal living (you have to stop talking when the ‘L’ passes by) to live there. However, the real estate surely would be more affordable for places that close to a high-noise source, and that might be a welcome tradeoff in a high-priced city real estate market.

I have uploaded 72 photos (yeah, really… and I deleted all the blurry ones) of the ride, to my Flickr account as a set. I only added comments to the last photo, noting that it was taken after we had exited the train and walked several blocks north from the station. All other photos were taken starting on the Brown line (north) starting at the Western stop, and on the way to the loop/downtown. My camera ran out of storage space just about when we hit the loop, so I took no photos on the way back up.

Since there are no comments on the photos, you will lose no information if you run the photo set as a slideshow. You can imagine *you* are on that train looking out the window as I was just Monday.

I saved a photo of a beautiful plate of “sushi” (smoked salmon sashimi and avocado roll). Then I viewed it in the recent photos area of my computer. The colors look remarkably similar to the towel-rack “still life” I posted very recently. Check it out.

I am not sure what this means. I can leave it a mystery but it made me chuckle.

Here is another photo of my real house, real life, real colors that I choose to live with. (Yes, I live with different colors in my home than I wear on myself; houses look better in coral than fuschia, in my opinion.)

The duckie is tiny, the very far bottom left corner of the photo. I got him in Montreal the first time I went there (alone, and I don’t speak any French at all). He doesn’t float well, he goes around on his side with one eye in the water and one facing up, but it makes me really happy to have a rubber duckie to go with my claw-footed tub.

I finished taxes. I’m very happy about that. Now I have only 2 computer-work deadlines (one for Mom, one for Altu) and a dance concert (tons of rehearsals in the next 2 weeks or so). And the normal teaching schedule, of course. That feels like a light load at this point.

But it means I have to dance at 9:30am. I usually wake up at 11 (because I get on a roll and I typically finally go to bed at 3am, not because I laze in bed forever). I need to stop typing and go to bed.

In the meantime, enjoy these colors. This photo sort of reminds me of my colorful dishes (a few days ago on this blog), you know?

I found these towels just the way they are hanging, did not touch them or rearrange for the photo. I looked in the door of the bathroom and it was so pretty I stopped and smiled. Then I figured you might smile, too. After all, you all seemed to respond well to the colored dishes. At least two of you bought Fiesta dishes after that post. Dang!

Oh, and I’m clear that usually a still life has something that is alive or once was… a rubber duckie is as close as I get in this shot, but I gave in to the amusing title even though it was inaccurate.

Ravelry is an online community for knitters and crocheters. It is something like MySpace, but in my experience a much more personal environment.

It has databases full of yarns, patterns, designers, books. You can have a yarn you want to use, look it up and see what others have made from it. You can have a pattern you like and look up what yarns people have used when knitting that design. You can look up a designer and see all the patterns associated with that person.

Or you can find groups (something like Yahoo Discussion Groups) where you can chat about things you have in common. I moderate a group on Ravelry called ColorJoy! which is full of creative folks from all over the world. We talk about any creative projects, not just yarn-related ones. The “spring into existence” projects I’ve been showing you this week have come from people on my Ravelry group.

So today I checked in on Ravelry to see if I needed to do anything there as a moderator. And I saw that everyone’s photo (avatar) was embellished with a hat of some sort. Diana/Otterwise got a hot green hard hat with a yellow star on it. I got a “Cat in the Hat” striped red happy lid. There are newspaper-folded hats, bishop hats, witch hats, wool toques with pom-pom, wizard hats with stars and moons, chef’s white hats, I even saw one parrothead! I love my hat. Such fun!

Things like this are not uncommon on Ravelry. There is a group there called Completely pointless and arbitrary and some time during the winter they all drew blue nosewarmers on their photos/avatars. Just for fun.

If you are interested in participating in this community, go to http://ravelry.com and sign up to be added to the list. They will send you an invitation in a few days, I’m told (at one time it was a several-month wait while they were getting the system up and running).

Susan in California contributed three photographs she took on the way to Yosemite National Park, in my “create spring into existence” project. I am having a less than chipper day, but the photos help me a bit. How could I resist these sunny images???

Thank you for these wonderful images, Susan! It’s good to know that it’s spring (or springlike) somewhere right now. We got a bunch of snow yesterday again, it will be a while before we see daffodils, tulips, poppies or their friends. I figure we will get some violets within a few weeks so I’m holding out for them.

I’ve said here before… I’m not very fond of cooking, but I love to eat. I like cleaning the kitchen afterward even less than the cooking part. However, last weekend I was a wild woman in that kitchen. I made several extra meals and froze them. I experimented with baked goods, sometimes very successfully and once very poorly (it looked pretty, anyway).

But when all is said and done, the only thing better than eating the dinner I made, is looking at the beautiful colors of my dishes coming out of the (half-sized) dishwasher. I’ve done 3 loads in 4 days… but this particular scene just made me happy. (Hmmm, look at those colors, am I cooking spring into existence here?)

My Interior Designer friend Kath told me years ago (when I wanted to buy a set of turquoise dishes as my only dishes after my divorce) “Lynn, go for it!” She figured if I loved that color as much as I do, I’d continually enjoy having dishes that color. She could not have been more right.

So I took her advice to heart. If I love the color of something, and it’s an item I need, I go for that color rather than a safe neutral (which is always available). On the top rack is a frying pan I got at Marshalls a few weeks back, and it is the nicest pan I have had in years (maybe ever). And it’s spring green!!!

The color makes me smile even when I’m a bit grumpy from “having to cook again.” Never mind that sometimes what I make is significantly better than most restaurant food. And food I cook doesn’t have hidden ingredients that might make me feel crummy. Cooking at home is the answer most of the time, and for good reason. The colors reward me as I work.

I have said it before… if you wait for “big deals” to make you happy, you will wait a long time. If you can find little things (like this load of pretty-colored dishes) to make you smile, your life can be very fulfilling. And you will have a heck of a lot more happy little things than big deals, relatively regularly, you know?

I found myself answering a post on the Socknitters email list, about using easter egg dyes for dyeing yarn. Someone in the UK couldn’t find the easter egg dyes, so I piped in about other ways to dye with food-grade colors.

For the record, this does not work on cotton or plant fiber. It does work with protein fibers such as wool, mohair, alpaca and other animal fur; silk, and nylon which is a synthetic that acts like wool for dyeing purposes (although it does not take dye as well as animal fiber, in my experience). Other synthetics such as polyester and acrylic are very hard to dye in a home setting, they are typically colored in solution before the fibers are created in the factory.

If you are dyeing yarn it needs to be able to absorb dye on all surfaces. This means dyeing in a commercially-wound ball or skein will result in the center yarn not taking color. Wrap around your forearm or a chair, to make a large loop. Secure ends loosely (a tight knot makes a tie-dye where it’s white under the knot). Use a few pieces of yarn to tie the loop/hank loosely (most dyers/spinners tie it in a figure-8 shape through the strands).

Then soak the yarn for at least a half hour in warm-not-hot water with a little detergent or soap in it (this helps break the surface tension and allow water into the fiber). When ready to dye, press the fiber gently between clean towels and proceed.

This is what I wrote to the UK member of Socknitters:

Cake frosting dyes are no doubt something you *can* find? You can use those with vinegar and they come in more colors than egg dyes, as well. It’s all “food-grade dye” and you can use any of them with some vinegar (mild food-grade acid).

In the US and Canada we also have “Kool Aid” and other powdered drink mixes which contain dye, flavor and citric acid, so they do not need vinegar as do other food colorings. Of course, it can be hard in some areas to find the drink mix packaged without sugar (in tiny powder packets), and it again comes in very limited colors (the US purple is very disappointing/grayish, Canadian purple is like reddish-plum).

Here you can get only a few colors of liquid food coloring dyes, but the cake decorating dyes come in small gel packages in lots of colors. I’m in love with the turquoise Wilton’s dye, along with a spring green. Beautiful. I know there are other companies making frosting dyes, but Wiltons is the brand I find most often.

The goal is to put dye, acid and heat upon your animal-fiber yarn, and allow enough time for the dye to bond with the yarn. Assuming you did not use more dye than can be bonded with that amount of fiber, usually in 45 minutes or so you will have dyed wool and **totally clear** water. This is called exhausting the dye.

Many folks dabbling in food dyes do not know this part and stop too soon because they are eager to get on with it. (They also may be more familiar with cotton dyes which never exhaust and must be rinsed after dyeing.) When I dye yarn professionally (with commercial acid dyes), I leave the steaming hot wool covered in towels to keep heat in, overnight or at least until it comes to room temperature. This really makes a difference to the washfastness of the product. Color, Acid, Heat, Time. These are the four elements to a good dye experience.

Note: after I posted this I’ve had more questions and correspondence with many folks. It turns out that frosting dyes are not a gel but an oil-base, at least some of them. I never experienced any trouble with the oiliness and I expect that is because I soak my yarn in water with Dawn hand-Dishwashing liquid (a very strong grease-cutting product). If you have any problems with getting this particular coloring agent to work into the wool, try a little more soap or detergent.

Someone asked if the yarn has to go into a large pot with dye dissolved evenly, or if the dyes can be squirted/painted/poured onto the skein. Either works but do be careful to not put too much dye on it if you want color to stay in particular areas. After soaking you can use a salad spinner or the spin cycle of your washer to remove most of the water from the yarn. Then put it on a safe surface (Saran Wrap works, or a glass cooking pan) and apply dye as you like. Press the yarn to distribute the color better, and steam or microwave.

Someone asked about how long to time the microwave. This is a dangerous question, if I were to answer in minutes. I have two microwaves and one is gentle, one mean. You can burn fiber if you do it too much, so do take care and watch, especially when you are inexperienced. I always put a vessel of water in the back corner of my microwave to sort of be a “heat sink” and take the extra heat if the fiber dries out. This I do after one spectacular disaster with silk (silk burns quickly, maybe because it does not hold as much water as wool).

The ideal is to hold it at just under boiling, for about 45 minutes. In my dyeing microwave, this means heating it for anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes depending on how much yarn I am working with (I often dye several pounds at once), then letting it sit for a while, turn the pan the yarn is in (if there is no carousel in the microwave), then zap it again, then rest, then zap. Rest longer than you zap, maybe 10 minutes of resting between 3 minute heat cycles. Be sure it’s hot but not burning. Too hot and your yarn will degrade, especially if it has nylon in it.

May you find something fun to play with…

ChezCarla in Florida is the first to send photos in my spring group concept. She had some freshwater pearls and Tennessee River Stone beads, and decided to bead her spring into existence.

Here are the pearls:

Here is the necklace using those pearls:

Here are the stone beads:

Here is a necklace and earrings from those beads:

Carla, thanks for playing! You inspire me. I must confess I found that I “had to” finish my wintry super-warm alpaca/wool socks (pair #160) before I started on spring. Now I need to dig through and see what inspires me, to join my own project!

My project will definitely be from fingering-weight (sockweight) yarn in greens. I am thinking right now either Colinette Jitterbug wristwarmers, or super-fine alpaca-blend socks. Both yarns are gorgeous.

But first I must finish taxes. Then I get a reward, I get to knit spring into existence with the others who are playing this little game.

Sue sent some wonderful photos to support the spring project, and I’ll share those later in the week. Now, back to taxes.

Vicki/KnittingDragonflies has tagged me… in a meme to share 7 random (or weird) facts about me.

Actually, she tagged me on February 7, the day I was so sick with the influenza/nausea that I was trying not to breathe or move at all. I totally missed the tag until today.

So here it goes. I am choosing to share color memories. Some people have no memories of this sort, so I’m thinking they are “weird” facts. I’ve wanted to share a few of these stories, anyway. It is great that they fit together well here.

1. My first memory is of color. I was about 2 years old (according to my mother who can piece together my story into the fact we lived in Minneapolis at the time). We walked to the house of friends who had many children, mostly older than me. They had a game which was a set of rings in sort of a coliseum shape, where you put marbles on the top ring and players took turns pushing the rings back and forth.

   The goal (I found later) was to make the opponents’ marbles go to the bottom faster than yours.I was too small to understand the rules but I did understand that pushing the rings would move marbles down one round at a time. But the important thing, the reason I remember, is because of the blue and yellow alternating rings of color on the toy. It was so beautiful!

   They would not allow me to play with it because I was too small. I was crushed. It was about color!!!

2. As a child I was delighted when told I had been born in “Golden Valley” Minnesota. It’s a suburb of Minneapolis, but it sounded so beautiful to me. And, one more time, it was about color.
3. When I was very young and playing house, either alone down in my basement or with others, we had to make up names for ourselves. I would insist on being the Mommy (what fights we would have when the first-borns would not give up on being the only Mommy in the game). And being a mommy meant that I needed a different name.

   I would work through possible last names. Black? Boring. Brown or White? Boring, too. Gray? Same. Green? OK, that sounded much nicer. So I always said my last name was Green. It did not occur to me that I could choose a last name that was NOT also a color.

4. When I was in elementary school, the mid-to-late 1960’s in small-town Michigan, the color purple was something of a a joke to my father. He would sometimes say he was the Purple People eater. Or he’d say while we were waiting for a railroad train to cross the road, that THIS one surely would have a purple caboose at the end. He was always wrong but we would hope.

   Now, my father never hit us but he loved to tell stories and make them sound extreme and dramatic. So somehow one time he said if we were bad during the year, Santa would bring us a Purple Whip for our stockings (rather than coal). I don’t know why he started this, but once he started he did not back down on it.

   So, one Christmas season we all went as a family (Mom/Dad, Eric and I) to the five and dime store to get small presents for each other’s stockings. And I went with Mom to get presents for Dad and Eric, then we switched parents. And while I was with Dad, the store lady approached Mom and Eric to ask whether she could help them.

   Mind you… at this time, about 1964, it was nearly impossible to find any commercial item in the color purple. No clothing, no pens/pencils, trinkets, nothing. These days many girls say it’s their favorite color but in those days girl clothing came in standard pastels, red and pink but not purple.

   So when the lady came up to ask, Eric (toddler of age 4) asked “Do you have a purple whip?” My mom was floored and embarrassed. So Mom explained Dad’a joke to the lady. And the only thing they could find in the entire store under a dollar, with purple on it, was a washcloth with a tiny purple stripe and wider lavender stripes, on white. So it would have to do.

   Mom had to clue Dad in to the joke ahead of time. Dad laughed as he should (and it was truly funny). And Eric was very pleased with himself. Clever. He still is.

5. I always wanted to play flute as a child. I remember the first time I saw/heard one, Mrs. Gibbs/Music teacher brought one to school and played us records (vinyl) of music played on flute. I was in love.

   I do love the sound of a flute, but I think now that the shiny factor was also very big. I ended up playing Clarinet for 5 years, Dad did not want me on flute (long story). I never loved clarinet.

   Now I realize why. It was black. Flute is shiny. Now, a bad-sounding flute also sounds much nicer than a bad-sounding clarinet, which did not help things. But I remember I also loved banjos at the time and I knew almost nothing about them other than they were silver-bodied. Shiny.

6. I have always loved the colors I still love. My fave colors are turquoise, fuschia/magenta, purple, and hot green. I also sometimes wear bright cobalt blue, emerald green, black (my colors look great against black) and very occasionally red.

   As a small child, my favorite crayons were in the same range of colors I love now. I have a drawing I made when learning to print, and the colors I chose were magenta and purple crayon (see image). I am not sure where the magenta came from, as typically in our house we had “only” 8 colors of crayons.

7. My first knitting project was in 5th grade, in Mr. Johnson’s class (1969). I remember it was a Barbie pink headband with many “hiccups.” Who knows what happed to that project, but my mom amazingly took me all the way to East Lansing to get more yarn after I made that.

   I was allowed to (only) choose 2 colors. It was painful choosing two out of all the choices. They had small skeins of acrylic Red Heart, and I took home one skein in turquoise (go figure) and one in emerald green.

   To this day, when I see those two colors near one another I go back to the day I chose them out of all the possible choices, at the five and dime (same one as the purple story above).

I am not big on choosing people for a meme, but if anyone wants to play who is reading this, please do go right ahead and dive in!

I love the Spanish language. If I could live my college years over again, I would major in Spanish, in one way or another. That is past, but I have occasionally taken Spanish I over and over again, as an audit, at the local community college. I have sometimes taken Spanish II though for some reason it does not fit my schedule as well.

Once upon a time, in the days before Brian, I planned to move to Mexico. I know that if I lived somewhere like that, I would be up and running without too much delay. I just take to language well, if I allow myself focus.

But now I’m in Lansing for the long haul, it appears. When I find myself lucky, I get to read Spanish here and there, and I recognize maybe every 5th word. I can sort of figure out what is going on but not with any certainty.

Sometimes I go to Mexican restaurants or groceries in Lansing. I just love listening to the sound of the language flow during a conversation. There is such a happiness in me to hear people just plain chatting (or asking where they keep this or that item on the shelves). I love the sound of the language even when I can not tell at all what the subject is.

So today while surfing too much I found a website, Tejemanejes, (labores laneras para internautas hispanohablantes) which is apparently an online knitting magazine in the Spanish language. And the first pattern is wonderful, a cashmere sweater (la perla negra/black pearl) with v-neck that is modeled on a man but I can tell they believe it to be unisex. I’d agree… I would love to have that sweater in my closet (even in black). The bottom “hem” is straight, no ribbing but no hem either (must be the stitch pattern allows it to lie flat).

There are other fascinating photos of pattern (patron) projects. No doubt some of you reading this will be able to use these patterns (and articles) without a struggle. In my case, there is no way my limited Spanish will get me through the very specialized knitting instructions.

I don’t make many sweaters, but this Black Purl one is really right up my alley. I guess in this case it’s good that I have an excuse that I can’t even start to make it!

There are some other interesting designs as well. There is a cabled moebius scarf, what appears to be crocheted colorwork socks, a hair net that appears to be silk/stainless steel from Habu, and a toy; a crocheted “rock star dinosaur.” One of the dinosaurs has an eyepatch, very fun.

(Woohoo… I just looked in the archives, and a wonderful hat based on an Egyptian sock motif, includes guidelines in English for knitting it. It’s not a full pattern but it is a guide and a chart. For me, that would work great, and I bet it will be enough for a few of you out there as well.) Actually, in the archives there are a number of items with English help.

I hope I translated the tiny bit I dared, correctly enough to not embarrass or confuse anyone. Let us face it, many knitters love looking at pictures of knitted items. This will work well in the pictures arena, even if you are, like me, Spanish handicapped when it comes to knitting patterns.

Photo? I took this in 1996, in Tulum, Yucatan, Mexico. Can you see the small squarish pyramid top and left? The water at right is the Caribbean Ocean. It is an ancient and holy place, one of the few places in the world where I literally can find no words.

It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen, and I’ve had the great fortune to travel a bit. This photo was taken with film, printed on photo paper, scanned in, and manipulated for the web when many computers had the capacity to display merely 16 colors on screen. Please forgive its lack of detail and darkness, that’s the best I could do at the time.

Vicki of KnittingDragonflies has given me (and my mother) both a “You Make My Day” blogland happiness award. Vicki, I am absolutely honored to be on your list.

Leeann of Wool & Chocolate awarded me this same honor in late January (just as I was heading into the month-of-low-health which we just finished up. I did mention the award when she gave it to me.

I find it impossible to name 10 people. Some of those I might choose have been chosen dozens of times already. I look at my Google Reader (blog organizing system) and I have 20 blogs listed under “friends.” There is no way to do this without hurting someone who I think is fabulous.

So I will specifically decide to exclude every single blog which is knitting or wool related. And I will not choose exactly 10. But I’ll put a few here I have not seen elsewhere (I mostly see knitting blogs awarded, because I am frequently reading knitting blogs).

I am making sure to list only blogs that are updated several times a week. Right now those are criteria that bring my list down to something somewhat manageable. I think these are listed approximately in the order I discovered them.

If you write a knitting or related blog, please know that I wanted very much to choose your site for this award but it was an impossible task.

OK, here are the non-knitting blogs I read regularly, listed under my first list “Friends” in Google Reader. They all do make me happy for Blogland, so this is as reasonable a choosing system as any I can imagine:

The Iceland Weather Report - A woman born in Iceland, raised in Canada, tells of the everyday and the unusual back in Iceland where she has lived for the last 14 years of her adult life. I love her candid and observant writing style.

The Cooking Adventures of Chef Paz - This writer is also a gifted photographer. Her passion (for food, cityscapes of all sorts, cilantro, rice, and life) keeps me coming back. Photos of New York City every Monday.

Kathleen’s Vegetarian Kitchen - My Sister-in-Love Kathy (Brian’s sister) lives in Florida, cooks vegetarian, even shows how to make mozzarella cheese at home. Also traveling/restaurants, both in the USA and out.

Doug Berch - music friend who posts about his music performing and recording, his instrument building (lap/mountain dulcimers, really beautiful to the eyes as well as ears) and sometimes poetry. He’s a fine human being, too.

Ukulele & All That Jazz - Howlin’ Hobbit, a ukulele player in Seattle. I met him through this blog (a report on one of the regional ukefests brought him the first time). He talks about his city, about performing, recording, and geeky interesting things. Never a dull moment.

And here are two blogs about house renovating that I read less often, but when I do get there they can keep me up till too late reading every single word. They are not friends, I may not have even left them any comments before, but I have shared the sites with interested friends:

Stucco House - In the twin cities of Minnesota, a little 1920s bungalow. I used to own a bungalow in Lansing, and I was born in “The Cities.” I’m fascinated.

The Petch House - a Victorian in Eureka, California, which was pretty much gutted and subdivided when the current owner moved in. Reclaimed lumber from warehouses, vintage tile laid one tiny hexagon at a time. Vintage-era light fixtures, re-wired up to code. Absolutely riveting to me.

And a blog I am really new to, but which has exotic and beautiful photographs. I think I followed a food link to this but I do not see food when I look today. I’m not sure I can say that this fits the original essence of the award since I’m still figuring it out. However, what I’ve found so far (living outside the USA, fascinating architecture, embellishment, clothing, photography) sure makes my heart sing when I go there (Yarnstorm fans will enjoy this photography with certainty):

My Marrakesh - You will have to figure this one out yourself, but the photos are worth a peek if you do not read a word.

Thanks to blog reader Patch, I got referred to SaraJane Helms’ website where she and other polymer-clay-artist friends are making a miniature quilt store (scale works for 11.5″ dolls, I think that’s like a Barbie). It is truly wonderful. I have met some of the artists involved in this project, back when polymer clay was new and it was my only artform. They have continued with the clay as I have proceeded first to soft block printing and for the last 6 years, knitting.

SaraJane’s husband Bryan Helms also does some amazing collage work. He uses small polymer clay pieces and affixes them to found objects, often musical instruments which no longer are able to make proper music for whatever reason. He is a musician as well. I think he thinks something like I do, he made a wig head into a polymer and glass bead sculpture (I’ve made both mailart styrofoam heads and polymer clay-embellished glass heads).

If you are interested in where creativity can take an artist, checking out their site is worth your while. Have fun!

I’ve been grumpy today. The weather is crummy, the squirrel got back into the attic and my legs are like rubber bands so I can’t stand or walk long at all. When I try to do anything not sitting down I need a 2 hour nap very soon thereafter.

It is very easy to get into a funk in a Michigan February anyway, and I have work to do. I can not stay with the grumpy spot my brain is in right now if I want to get anything done at all. Therefore, it’s time for a gratitude list again. So here it is:

• Brian.
• Tapioca pudding.
• Sweet potatoes, baked with butter and nutmeg.
• Friends who call to see how I am doing.
• Friends online who write and make me feel better.
• Every single one of you who comes by this blog… especially when you take the time to comment, but that is not at all necessary.
• Brian.
• My wonderful 1998 VW New Beetle, Joy Bug. I love that car. I love her soooo much. She has 130,000 miles and needs some tender loving care sometimes but I am still in love like I was in 1999 when I got her. She doesn’t show her age at all, not a single rust spot.
• Wool, alpaca, mohair.
• Music.
• Brian.
• Health insurance, thanks to Brian and his workplace.
• Everybody I work for, every shop, every student.
• Ravelry… what an inspiring place this online fiber community has become.
• My family… the ones I was born to and the ones married in.
• The wonderful relationship I have with my Mom and my Brother after all these years… earned the hard way.
• Brian.
• This house. It’s quirky like me. Brian picked it before we met but it’s very like what I picked for myself, and with prettier wood trim (and much better parking).
• The porch on this house. Heaven.
• Lansing and all the creative people in it.
• All the travel I have done in my life… 250,000 miles on my former car, Martha G., and trips out of the country mostly as gifts or windfalls, each trip as magical as the one before.
• Good foods, especially “ethnic” foods.
• Fun clothes.
• Wonderful yarns in my house ready for me to knit with them.
• My career(s), both knitting/fiber/art and music.
• The sense that I am no longer an outsider in my own town. I belong.
• Brian.

The New York transit authority (whatever it may be called) has a web page listing public art in the subway system. It is fascinating, and seemingly never-ending. Good for New York!

I have known about Black Purl magazine online for a little while. This online magazine is about handwork, not just knit and crochet, and looks quite a bit at what are sometimes called “ethnic” artforms. You may enjoy perusing the back issues of their newsletter, Essentia, when you get a minute.

There is an article in the current issue, about African Folklore Embroidery (South African, bright colors on black backgrounds, right up my alley). There are kits available and they are seeking out teachers to pass the artform forward. Do check out the African Folklore Embroidery website for a visual feast.

Some of you may remember that I had some fun making small holiday gifts by knitting and felting tiny 3-D hearts. First I made one with dreadlocks for Brian, then a more straightforward one for my Goddaughter, Sara, as a tree ornament.

I posted the projects to Ravelry and the designer, Anna Hrachovec, noticed. We have had a few very nice emails and she asked me if she could use my dreadlock heart on her blog. Of course I said yes… thank you.

Mind you, there are over 200 projects on Ravelry from this pattern alone. Anna had a good number of choices out there. She just spent a week on her blog showing all sorts of variations on the heart (which is a free pattern… I recommend it highly… have a finished heart in 45 minutes and smile for at least a week).

So Wednesday Anna finished her whirlwind tour of Ravelry hearts, with my dreadlock dude and a totally clever heart-as-potted-plant variation. I am honored by the company I get to keep on that blog entry. Woohoo!

After a week of emotional and physical blahs, illness and inertia, this is the perfect antidote. For the record, I cooked and I made myself eat more food than I thought I could eat… and I got more energy Wednesday night than I have had in a week. I should only wonder why that seems so surprising. It’s obvious, is it not?

But then I get this great note from Anna, and I go back and look at not only my hearts but a whole bunch of others’ interpretation of this very simple and fun pattern. And my week is transformed very quickly indeed.

Thanks, Anna!

If you like the heart, try it. If you like the idea of knitted toys, check out Anna’s site where she has all sorts of fun and amazing projects waiting for you… some free, some for pay, all worth time and money.

I need your help. You see, I have been in bed since two Mondays ago. I am tired of being tired. My fever is gone, I am officially not contagious, and yet I can hardly stay awake in the middle of the day. Every day is wake up, rest, nap, wake up, eat, sleep again.

I have no energy. Standing upright is a tippy prospect, I need to be where I can hold on to a wall. For those of you who know me, this is just not Lynn. And no, it’s not mono. been there already, thank goodness it can not repeat.

Brian was funny today. As a background note, I once knew a cat named Amanda who acted like she owned the world… Queen, not pet. She would sit there looking superior, and the family she lived with developed this funny joke (to them) where they would turn to Amanda and say: “Poof! You’re a cat!” And she’d look around like something unpleasant had happened, not liking the change in energy.

So I tend to say “Poof! You’re a cat!” Or “Poof, you’re a ________!” When I need a change in perspective. I find it quite amusing, in any case.

So today Brian sat in his chair and said, “Poof, you’re LynnH!” Because, boy oh boy have I not been my normal high-energy LynnH self lately. I wish his magic had worked. In time I am sure, but not as quickly as we might have hoped.

I realize that the first line of defense is good rest, and that I have done. I can’t take standard vitamins because of all the allergies I fight, though I have an iron pill I can take every couple of days if I have a tummy full of food to avoid a stomach ache from it. I know that the standard advice would be to eat beef or some sort of mammal product but that just does not work for me, though chicken remains in my arsenal for the time being.

So tonight I am planning to make some chicken broth into something or another. I will take “Emergen-C” powder to get a few vitamins in me. I ate something like a third of a cabbage (stir fried) which was tasty but not exactly an energy factory. It took me till dinnertime to get out of bed, to even make that. Thank goodness I had some soy tapioca pudding already made which I could eat until I got today’s energy together.

Any advice for me? What do you do when you need energy and it is not coming from within? Please pile that comment bin full of options. I will not be able to take all the suggestions because of my fussy food allergy situation, but if I do not use the advice, perhaps another commenter might learn from it.

I want to be LynnH again. This lump I have turned into is a boring gal. Please help.

(Oh… gratitude: my car started today after sitting still for more than a week of very cold weather. I did not go anywhere but that was gift enough.)

I’m still down for the count. I was able to eat today, more than soup, but still have a raised temp. That’s six days on my back, and I am allowed to feel grumpy about that. I’m doing all the right stuff, thank goodness I love tea. It can’t last much longer.

I opened the door a little today for a tiny bit more air, it’s supposed to get mean-cold tonight. Any fresh air is good at this point.

A Masterful Diversion

So, while my life is significantly boring… I suggest you go check out the work of Dave Cole. He is a man who can not be categorized and I love that sort of person. He did the project where construction equipment knit a huge American flag. He also knit a wedding dress by hand, with 1/8″ strips of dollar bills. It is spectacularly beautiful, many women would look gorgeous in that design.

He even knits lead teddy bears. I have seen the flag, the wedding dress and one of his teddy bears in person.

Cole does a lot of projects that are not knitting, but this is a knitting-focused blog so I’m highlighting things with more interest to my readers.

For the record, he also co-wrote a book, Learning Outside the Lines, about how to get through high school and college if you are ADHD and Learning Disabled… during the time he was getting his degree from Brown University. A personal-experience sort of book.

I had some time to burn so I really looked at a lot of Mr. Cole’s site today. He not only dreams of improbable creations but finds the resources (inner and outer) to get what he needs to make them come about. I admire that.

What I Haven’t Done Yet

I’m the first one to admit I could benefit from a little meditation or slowing down. It seems that everyone around me is finding some way to calm their inner selves with Yoga, some other Meditation, Chi Gong, Nia, Tai Chi, whatever. So far I just can not go there.

(Well, Brian is already calm, he needs none of this. He won’t understand why I needed to write a whole column about it… which is why he is so perfect for me. Not sure why I’m perfect for him, but I’m glad, anyway.)

I tried one yoga session one time, and I wanted to run away half way through the class. However, I’d come with a friend who was a regular attendee and I had to stick it out. That instructor was big into “feel your muscles” and I was not interested in that sort of awareness.

The closest thing I’ve ever found to yoga was adult ballet class, when I was lucky enough to take it from Diane Newman (Director of Happendance Troupe and School). I found that when I had inner conflict, I found it very hard to balance my physical body. I had immediate information about my psyche when I stepped away from that barre.

Luckily for me, Diane allowed for the adult class to be less strict than a normal ballet class, and when I’d fall over and laugh out loud, she didn’t flinch. In fact, she’d tell me how beautiful my foot was. She would find the one thing I had done right and make sure I knew about it. What a loving person she is, and it shone through in class.

What I Do

So in order to get in touch with my physical self, I now study mideastern dance (AKA belly dance) and rehearse with the girls. With lots of music and other women around me to distract me from the effort it takes.

I have never been strong physically and pushing my muscles hard is not pleasant, no matter how much others might like working out until they can’t push further. (Photo is me dancing as Eudora, at New Aladdins Restaurant just Friday. A blur, my camera does that, but it’s sort of wonderful to show the movement here.)

I do love to walk, but I admit that this is also an activity with distractions. I love the distractions. Especially when the grass is green and there are flowers of any sort, I walk the neighborhood and observe gardens as they change through the months.

I find it hard to walk when there is snow on the ground, though. I don’t like cold any more than feeling my muscles.

A Stitch/A Mantra?

Knitting has a repetition I adore and which makes it somewhat akin to some sorts of meditation. However, I am all about knitting in circles around and around, knit knit knit without any pattern or counting at all. And I can do that without looking at my hands.

So I read blogs while I knit socks in circles. It’s good for getting the fidgety nerves out of my fingers, so to speak, but it’s not about paying attention or anything.

The Real Practice in My Real Life

So Saturday night I made tapioca pudding. This is a real treat for me, something I truly enjoy as comfort food and have absolutely no allergy problems with. Currently, I make mine with soy milk, brown sugar, tapioca and a tiny bit of butter or ghee (there is nothing like dairy fat to satisfy, I must admit). Not even vanilla most of the time, just four ingredients. (I published a partial-coconut-milk tapioca recipe here once. It’s reeeeally good. Doc says no more coconut, so it’s your recipe now.)

But tapioca pudding requires stirring pretty much constantly until it boils, slowly. It is very hard for me to accomplish. In fact, I must admit that one day I burned two batches. Two. Sigh…

Striving for Serenity/Grasping Straws

Saturday I had to dive in and use Adobe InDesign. I worked on it one other long day, and that is it. I must say it is so unlike anything I have ever done before that I am really struggling. I cried at one point (drama queen that I am) but recovered and pressed on.

Maybe it is harder for me, because I am an expert at Microsoft Word, I’m very good at PowerPoint and Excel, I’ve done web page design since 1996, have done programming in dBase III+ and DOS and MS Access. I am used to being the expert. None of these programs are anything like a layout program. It’s start from scratch time.

I have tried to “grok” three different page layout programs over the years, even sat in on classes and it didn’t sink in. Others say how logical these programs are. So far they have not made much sense to me. Why they exist, I totally understand. how to use them, not so much.

I’m grateful for my friend Deb who uses this program a lot (to lay out whole books, not just patterns). She surely has discovered things about it the hard way, many things I will never need to know. Or so I think today. She at least explained a few things to me this weekend while I was whining and whimpering. I’d do drama queen, she’d do resource librarian. Just the facts, ma’am. Exactly what I needed.

I took a class in how to use the program, back in October. I remember a few things from that class, and I do have the book we used as a reference which has been quite helpful. Today I did something I learned in class, and my computer flipped out. It flashed and blinked and in the end went almost entirely gray with a few words still left on the screen.

Somehow I lucked out and it did not stop running. I gave it about 5 minutes, then waved my mouse across the gray screen, and as I did the words under the mouse started to appear. I clicked Cancel in a dialog box and got everything back. Whew. But as Brian says, I was sort of in a dangerous energy or something.

Stirring is a Mantra…Maybe?

I didn’t feed myself enough because I was focusing on other things. So I realized after dinner that a little comfort food dessert would be a very good thing. I wondered… do I dare to make tapioca pudding? The closest thing to focus, to meditation, to yoga that I ever accomplish? On a good day, anyway.

I took the challenge. And I stood there and stirred and stirred, and watched that pudding. I talked to it, told it “nice baby” and all those things you say to a child or a kitten, or an unsteady car. And I did it. I did a perfect job of tending to my comfort food. I did not burn it, I did not so much as turn my back on it for a minute.

It was good.

On January 31, NPR put up a web page (I’m reading into this that there was a radio spot on it also) about what they called Extreme Knitting. This includes so many ideas and expressions, there is no way to explain it without looking at individuals and their specific works. (In December 2005 on this blog I pointed to a Flickr photo of a tree encased in a multicolored “tree sweater,” for one example.)

It surely is beyond wearable garments, in any case. I watched the “Audio Slideshow” which is photos and narrative. I loved it.

Then I followed several links given on that page. I went to KnitKnit and from there clicked on the KnitKnit book that has only been out since September. I clicked on names of featured artists in the book, looked at photos of them and/or their work. And I am so in love, so inspired.

It took me to a good number of knitting names I already knew, and also new ones I had not known yet. Some of the names I have mentioned here before are Debbie New, Freddie Robins, Annie Modesitt and Althea Merback (of Bugknits, where she is called Althea Crome).

Oh, it makes me feel good to know that people are truly following their hearts. They are letting knitting be a method toward a message rather than the thing you do to get X product.

Mind you, I knit socks all the time for a product. But I also love it when folks are artful and follow their instinct. This is really inspiring to me. Perhaps you will enjoy it, also.