Well, what a blessing it has been today, we have had full sun and it is so encouraging. I’m such an optimist when the sun shines. I’m listening to my Tiny Tim CD again, something that is just plain optimism as well, and the sun is shining through my two cut lead crystal pieces that hang in my office window. I have rainbows circling on the walls as I type this. How wonderful!

I’m still really frustrated with my allergies, I woke up with a headache so I first went back to bed and then when I got up I took a long hot bath with epsom salts. Hopefully that got me re-set so to speak, to get the headache out. It didn’t hurt me to put all that steam in the air, I expect.

But now even with a little headache remaining, I’m an optimist listening to this incredible music and watching the rainbows circle around me.

Buy your Blackeyed Peas Now!
Tomorrow is New Year’s Day. In the southern states of the US, it is tradition to eat blackeyed peas on New Year’s Day for good luck. I love blackeyes, I think eating them any day is good luck, but I like the tradition. Make sure to get your blackeyes so you can join me in the good-luck, good-taste festivities. (By the way, blackeyed peas are actually a bean, not a pea. They are pretty small and somehow are called peas by tradition, not by science.)

I make something called Hoppin’ John at this time of year. There are as many ways to make it as there are people making it, but basically you combine cooked blackeyes (I buy them already cooked in a can, they are excellent this way and much easier), and cooked rice, then you add seasonings. In the south you would put bacon or ham or some other salty, smoked, high-grease-content pork meat in it to flavor it. I have found that adding olive oil to replace the pork fat, and soy sauce to replace the smoke and salt, makes it just as flavorful without the meat.

I also like to add whatever vegetables I have in the house, often red bell peppers and carrots. In the south you are most likely to see onions added and not necessarily much more. When I worked at Black Child and Family Institute I brought in my version of vegetarian Blackeyes, and one woman I worked with (from Mississippi) was just amazed that I put all those veggies in there… she liked it a lot, but had never imagined to do that herself. (And oooh, what a cook she was… she brought me fried cabbage and hot-water cornbread one day and it was pure heaven.)

So here is an approximate recipe for my version of Hoppin’ John:

LynnH’s Hoppin’ John
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup fresh vegetables, chopped (red bell peppers or celery or carrots or a combination)
1 clove garlic, minced, optional
1 can cooked vegetarian blackeyed peas (or purplehull beans or crowder peas)
3 cups cooked rice (I prefer brown rice but use what you have)
3/4 cup boiling water
1 small bunch fresh parsley, chopped fine (or chopped tops of one bunch of green onions), optional
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp soy sauce (Or Bragg’s Aminos, a non-fermented Soy Sauce)
1/4 tsp coarsely-ground black pepper
Red pepper southern hot sauce to taste, if you like it. Brian likes it and I don’t, so he adds it at the table.

In a medium-sized saucepan, place 1 Tbsp of olive oil and saute the onions and vegetables (and garlic, if used) until tender. Drain and rinse the beans well, and add to pot, along with rice. Add all the remaining ingredients. Simmer and let it boil down (stirring occasionally) to a thick, casserole-like texture

Please feel free to adjust anything according to your whim. I don’t ever measure, I just sort of use whatever I happen to have in the house. It is pretty hard to put these ingredients together in any odd combination and not have something wonderful.

This can be a main dish, as we do it at our house. Once an elegant professor friend (raised in the south) invited me to her house for New Year’s Day. She had a whole feast with just a small cut-glass dish of Hoppin’ John for a side dish of good luck.

As with anything of this type, it is even better the second day!

May all goodness, health and contentment come to you this coming year. May gentleness abound and may your loved ones flourish.

I got to see my friend Tony today for the first time in a while. He had visited a sister out of state for Christmas. I have been missing him a lot. It was just great to see him.

He said that his knitted gifts went over well with his sisters and nieces. I am sure they did, they were very fine pieces. He’s a good knitter and he really does think about what the recipient likes.

I played some Tiny Tim for Tony on the way home from the airport. It’s pretty amazing music in any case, but my lovely New Beetle has a very good stereo so it is particularly amazing to listen in the car. We laughed and listened and talked a bit about unusual but brilliant performers. I tell you, Tony is good company.

We are going to get together on Friday morning. I am not sure if we’ll just sip tea in my kitchen or if we will be on the road doing a yarn crawl. I need to find 1) sport weight or DK weight yarn 2)preferably in non-wool blends, or if wool a very soft superwash. I’m doing some sox for a publication in sportweight, plus I am trying out my Singer HK100 knitting frame as a possible tool to make a bunch of socks for a friend who is sensitive to many wools.

I put fingering/sock weight yarn on the HK100 at the smallest setting and it came out to 6.33 stitches an inch. Now, this is a bulky machine so that is pretty amazing… but it is not a firm enough gauge for socknitting. It would make great baby clothes, perhaps.

So now I want some yarns a little thicker than fingering to try at that same smallest tension. I want to see what gauge I can get there, and then I can start (in January that is) try some sox on the machine with those yarns. I know my friend really does well with alpaca, so I’ll be looking for at least one nice alpaca either in my stash or at a yarn shop sometime soon. And anything else I can find that will make a good gauge on the machine.

My Kidz
Oh, another cool thing… I went to a local discount store (Value City) today looking for a pink slip or nightgown for underneath my upcoming mohair dress. (Thanks to Irene of Mid Michigan Knitting Guild who suggested that a nightgown might work if I can’t find a slip.) I had no luck finding a slip, but I found some other great items at great prices. The kids in line in front of me were fascinated about my socknitting (I get a lot of knitting done in lines, I tell you). The boy looked about 3rd grade and he kept saying it looked hard. I told him it wasn’t hard if someone explained it to you in just the right words so you could understand. That I’d taught kids as young as 5 to knit. And that he was welcome to come to my program at Foster Center.

Then the cashier piped up. She said her son learned to knit at Foster this summer, and then this Christmas he had made mittens for his baby brother. How cool is that? It turns out that she had a 5 yr old boy and a 9 yr old girl in my program this summer. The boy had some difficulty at first, as kids that age do. But the sister learned and helped the brother. And he figured out how to make mittens. How adorable is that? I encouraged her to send me a photograph so that I could put it on my wall by my room, where I have several of the pictures of my kidz that you guys see here on my blog.

Today I had 7 kids knitting. I taught two new kiddos how to knit for the first time. One didn’t get it enough to take hers home but she seemed to enjoy being there. The girl who made the wonderful purse last week was there, but she and several others left before I got a picture. The ones who stuck it out sure look pleased with their tiny bits of loopy fabric, don’t they? I think “my children” are absolutely beautiful! I’m sure you must agree.

Well, I neglected to tell you all some cool news. Brian and I, as “The Fabulous Heftones,” are on the front cover of the current Elderly Instruments catalog. I’m holding a very beautiful guitar rather than my usual Heftone Bass… because Elderly sells guitars and doesn’t sell Heftones. But hey, being on the cover allows for some flexibility.

Many people don’t recognize me in this photo. For one thing, I nearly always wear my hair back in a braid when I’m being my normal self. When I’m “Lynn Heftone” I often wear it down, but many people in my regular life have never seen me that way. Also, I’m wearing some earrings that have long white dangles and with the angle of my head it makes my neck look like someone else’s, somehow. Again, I figure Brian looks great and he’s friends with the photographer and catalog production department. They loved the photo because they were looking at the big picture, not whether Lynn would look like Lynn to her friends.

It is pretty cool news, don’t you think? Cover Grrl! I like it.

By the way, if you love music and have never checked out Elderly Instruments, you may want to do so. They are a large mail order house which among other things does a great job with used acoustical stringed instruments and lots of music, mostly of the “unplugged”/acoustical department. They have some great world music (I get middle eastern and african CDs there) as well.

If you either want to be on their mailing list, or want to see the picture larger, go to the Elderly Instruments Catalog Page. If you click on the small photo on that page you will be taken to a very large, 800×600 pixel image of Brian and I… if you are inclined to wait that long. Do seriously consider ordering a catalog… it is full of musical goodies you certainly need to know about!

Elderly is a good karma place, housed in Old Town of Lansing, on Washington Avenue a few blocks North from Oakland. It’s funny, people in other countries know the place sometimes more than people in Lansing. I remember buying guitar capos from them in the late ’70s when they were one room in a basement on Grand River in East Lansing. Now they are in an old Oddfellows hall, a wonderful red brick building with its architectural integrity intact. Check it out. (OK, disclaimer: Brian works there… but I don’t and I’ve been a customer for about 25 years, longer than Brian’s been in Lansing.)

Well, I just got a very exciting announcement. Sharon P., knitter, contradancer and she-who-also-teaches-kids-to-knit, now has a weblog called Knitknacks. Do please check it out. She has lots of pictures of projects, both hers and those of others.

One of the kids that Sharon and I both work with, was the girl who made the excellent dark blue bag last Tuesday as a Christmas gift for a favorite adult. Sharon and I have now shared two knitters. I’m sure we will discover more as time goes on.

Wow. I have two days off in a row, and they make a standard weekend. Imagine that! I did get a call from JoAnn today to ask if I’d come in, but for once I declined the offer. I need to do some work of my own, and I’ve ignored that too long. I have a publication deadline for January 1 and I am still working on my last 3 gifts. That’s enough!

Tomorrow Brian and I will be busy together, but today he’s at work and I’m alone at home. I just love my alone time at the house (I used to get a lot of these days but they are rare now). I’m listening to Tiny Tim over and over, and I vacuumed (unbelievable I know). It is 45 degrees F outside right now, but snow is covering the nasty mildewy leaves that bother my voice, so the air is very fresh and clean. I turned the furnace off and opened doors and windows to air out the dust in the house after vacuuming. I am hoping this will help me fight the cold as well.

I have my extra heavy handknit September-to-September sweater on, and longjohns (not wool, unfortunately) and legwarmers and heavy sox plus bedsox and a hat and earmuffs, and a scarf around my neck. Indoors! I actually had my wristwarmers on but I got them horribly dusty when I changed the vacuum cleaner bag and had to wash them, so my hands are bare as is my face. the rest of me is bundled up like crazy! I must look a sight. But hey, the house is about 60 degrees inside now… with pristeen air. I’m loving it. (My allergy nurse encourages me to do this a few times each heating season… I always have liked doing this but wasn’t sure if it was smart. She gave the A-OK… but I can only do it when Brian’s out to be fair to him.)

Happy Music
Tiny Tim is amazing. I’m just so happy listening to this music! If his aim was to help people be happy, it worked. I smile half the time listening to this.

New Fiber
I got surprise package today when I went to the Post Office. I had ordered dyes and superwash roving a few months ago. I got the dyes right away and I sure thought they cancelled the roving… but today I got it. Cool biz! It feels soooo soft!

I’ll be very interested to see how this dyes up and whether folks will want to buy it for sock yarn spinning. We’ll see. It will be a while before I get a dyeing day unless something changes this week. I have so many plans for my dyeing it will take several sessions to get through them all.

A Balancing Act, Different Routine
I tell you, the holidays are a nice time to celebrate our loved ones, but it really messes with getting things done. I mean, I don’t get vacation pay when I don’t work. I need to have work hours or I don’t pay the bills. The last few weeks of the year are a real stress that way, because I lose work days for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s eve/day. I’ll just do my best to appreciate my friends while I’m unable to work. I do love my friends… I’m really missing Tony but he’s coming home very soon and then I can make him a pot of tea and we can sip tea and knit and chat again. Soon! Very soon, I hope.

I realized the other day when I had some yummy goodies to share, that four of my favorite friends to share food with were out of state. My friend Anne is still here but she is the mommy of a 1-1/2 year old and quite busy with holiday stuff of her own. So I had to find other ways to enjoy the goodies, without a buddy other than Brian. That was OK. I just felt sort of alone when I realized my first FOUR choices of friends were gone. Boo hoo. We’ll get away this year sometime. Mom always issues an invitation to come visit in Florida, and I usually get down there. This year we may go play music in San Diego but heck, maybe I could still work in a weekend with Mommy. It’s a long time to go without her company if I don’t go down there.

New Sox Started
I started a new pair of sox for myself in Trampoline, a stretch fingering weight yarn, today when waiting in line at a zillion places (pharmacy, grocery, Staples, post office). I got it not realizing it was stretch. I’d heard of Trampoline when Dawn Brocco did an article last year in Heels and Toes Gazette on stretch yarns, but I had not seen it at that time. This one is mostly dark blue/purple/gray but with nice bright bits of purple, grass green and a very nice blue-turquoise. I thik I will really enjoy wearing them. However, now I’m home so I have more businesslike creative work to do. Home is where I can actually think when I knit, rather than knitting around and around in circles meditatively as I do in public.

A Beautiful Day
I’m really loving the mostly-sunny day today! I may even go for a short walk around the block. I’m just trying to keep those windows open in the house as long as possible, I really need fresh and clean air to breathe. The cold seems to be better this afternoon, so I hope that is a good sign. I could barely get to sleep last night with the coughing. I’m ready to feel a little better.

I hope you all are enjoying this Saturday as much as I am. Music and sunshine, what else could a person want? And tonight we jam with the Abbott Brothers! Perfect, I say.

Well, we had a simple and lovely Christmas holiday. We stayed home all day, ate food I bought at Aladdins which was wonderful, and listened to music.

We have been doing simple gifts lately, and it pleases me. It seems that simple gifts can be so perfect, there is no need for fancy. Maybe I’m an idealist… after all, if someone gave me a trip to a faraway country, I’d love it. But I think it is great to take pleasure in small things that are really about the recipient.

Brian got me two CD’s. (I love how he created bows when there were none in the house, don’t you?) This is great because for some reason I never seem to get myself CD’s even though I listen to them at home most of the time I’m alone there (which can be a lot some weeks). He knows I really have an interest in African music but I mostly know South African bands. He got me King Sunny Ade, a Nigerian musician who plays a style called JuJu. I like it very much. Sometimes the only music I can handle while I’m working, is music in a language I do not know. Words get in my way sometimes. Yet I really don’t enjoy music that is just instrumental, I really love the instrument that is the human voice. So this will be one more great choice for those times that I’m working alone at home.

The second CD he got me was Tiny Tim Live! at the Royal Albert Hall. It is a live concert from 1968. I have been playing the cassette “Got Bless Tiny Tim” in my car nonstop for weeks now. I am delighted to have this new CD to add to my small collection. There is something about Tiny Tim. He was an oddity, no question about it. He would sing duets and trios with himself, doing different voices (my all-time favorite is his version of “I Got You, Babe” on the God Bless Tiny Tim album). He was dead serious about it, musically. I mean, he went at this thing head-on, doing incredibly unexpected and almost embarrassing things but doing them full-out. The thing he wanted most was to make people happy with his music.

He did a lot of tunes from Vaudeville. Well, vaudeville happened with no amplification. It required excess to get the point across. Many things were extreme and full-out. It is as if Tiny was decades too late. Except he brought some great tunes to this generation because he came along when he did.

Here’s a quote excerpted from the album notes:

“I have been singing ever since I can remember, years ago appearing in amateur shows in Brooklyn, and just all over the place. I sang in hospitals, and for the poor in the streets. I even sang in back alleys and subway trains, just to sing whatever the people wanted to hear. All I wanted to do was spread joy all over. I always bring my little ukelele along in my shopping bag which my dear sweet father bought me. After all, you just never know when a song might come along.”

I am really adoring this CD. It’s funny, the only thing most people know about Tiny Tim is that he sang “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” Well, that is a most wonderful song indeed (although Tiny consistently did it without the introduction and with several lyrics quite incorrect). But he did other things and it is the big picture that makes me respect this very unusual man. He was who he was. Totally. Without apology or regret. How many of us every achieve that?

It was hard to meet that gift’s greatness, really… but I gave Brian a set of fake fireplace logs for our inoperable fireplace we have had for several years. Up until now I’ve had two strings of hot pepper lights in there, which looked a lot like hot coals on the grate. But we always thought it would be great to find a 1960’s-era set of fake logs if it were possible. We know that many “retro” things cost a pretty penny if you can find them at all, but hey, you can wish.

Well, I recently joined an email list in the Lansing area called a Freecycle list. People post things they own and don’t want anymore but don’t want to put into the dumpster. Other people post what they are looking to find. And when it works, it is a wonderful thing.

So not long after I joined the freecycle list, someone posted they had fake fireplace logs. Woohoo! They have a red lightbulb behind a grating covered with something looking approximately like coals. The logs in this set are actually wood logs, just cut away for the glow to come through. And when you turn it on, a little motor in the back spins a small metal brush that rubs against a little plastic grate to create crackling noises and also change the light reflecting, so it looks a bit like flickering firelight. Very cool. And that was Brian’s gift.

All it cost me was a 50-mile round trip to a town where I used to live for a dozen years. A most pleasant drive. And now we have the perfect setup in our fake fireplace… and this man in Williamston doesn’t have an unwanted thing in his basement anymore. We all came out ahead, didn’t we?

My wish for this season is that we find bits of gentleness in the bustle of it all. I had a bit of that gentleness on the 25th.

Well, I’ve been a slow socknitter lately. The last pair I finished was Brian’s Halloween Socks, which I finished October 31. I did finish a pair of legwarmers since then.

I finally finished a pair of handknit socks, for myself, last night. They desperately need blocking, a result of knitting them waiting in line and at doctor’s offices… each time I pick them up I knit a slightly different gauge. Thank goodness that washing and blocking really evens out a lot of that. Wool is such a gift! A little blocking and they will look great.

I also finished one child’s sock, the first I’ve ever done on a knitting frame/machine. I used a free pattern on the internet intended as a pattern to crank out socks for the charity Children In Common (CIC) which sends warm clothing including vests, hats and socks, to children’s orphanages in Russia and nearby areas. These orphanages are barely heated, about 60 degrees&nbspF indoors, so good, warm wool really makes a difference in the quality of life for the kids.

I had tried this pattern before, but I just couldn’t follow the instructions at that point. Machine Knitting (MK) has a whole new language and way of doing things, that makes a competent and intelligent person feel incompetent trying to figure it out. I have had my machines since August and I finally was able to follow a pattern to do socks… the thing I understand best when handknitting! Amazing.

I made the sock in what I think is Plymouth Encore (75% acrylic/25% wool). It is left over from the batch of yarns I got for knitting a charity hat for my Mid Michigan Knitting Guild in 2002. I figure I’ll make charity socks with the leftovers. If it is Encore, it’s only 25% wool which isn’t up to the standards of CIC (they want at least 50% wool if I remember right) but I’ll find some way to give this to a child in need.

I don’t like how the very top of the sock was done. It uses a mock ribbing and a cast on that is very loose. At the bottom of the mock ribbing there is a hole (like a yarn over or one-stitch buttonhole) for every “purl” column. It’s not at all attractive, but it sure was fast to knit if the point is to crank out a bunch of socks fast for charity.

It’s just that I don’t like that mock rib. It’s a sort of hassle to make ribbing on a basic knitting frame because it only makes knit stitches, so you have to go in and re-form any stitch that should be a purl. Now, I don’t mind doing this… I actually do it even on my handknit socks at times. You just let go of a stitch and pull to run it down as far as you want, and then you chain it back up with a crochet hook (or a latch tool if you are a machine knitter, but I just can’t make friends with the latch since I’ve done it with a crochet hook for decades).

The heel is really great, it is what a handknitter would call a Dutch heel. This is the basis for my LynnH No-Purl Heel that I prefer when hanknitting. Most MK socks I’ve seen have what is called a “short row” heel in Hand Knitting circles (odd, since most heels have short rows unless they are afterthought heels). I like the Dutch heel a lot, so this is great to learn on the machine.

Overall, the pattern worked out just fine and was quick compared to handknitting. The next time I do a pair, I’ll cast on a different way and I’ll definitely make a real rib by chaining up purl stitches.

The sock is knit flat, but I sewed the side seam with a mattress stitch. You can not tell from the outside that it was seamed (see picture which shows seam side of sock). I see that on the home page of the Knitting Anyway website by Catherine Goodwin she has a picture of seaming using a latch hook and the edge stitches (without sewing with a threaded needle). I like this idea, so I’ll try that on the next pair I knit with the frame.

The sock I did from the CIC pattern has this beautiful mattress-stitched seam, invisible on the outside *but* it is a ridge that can be felt on the inside. I would like to make a week’s worth of sox for my sister in law who has hard to fit feet and only two pair of sox I’ve knit her (which fit better than any other sox she owns). It would be so cool if I could knit her a whole “suite” of sox on the machine. I just can’t do that if I handknit them. I’m really willing but hey, it took me almost 2 months to finish the pair I finished last night.

I guess I’m really slowing down on handknitting for fun while I’m stepping up my fiberart business and temporarily working the retail job. I have made what seems like zillions of boa scarves as gifts and for sale. I guess that is what has taken all my knitting time lately. And now I have a publication deadline of January 1 on top of all this. A high-class problem for sure… but it will keep me from knitting for myself a little longer.

I was just sure I would crank out most of a mohair dress on the frame today but this cold is really in my way. I slept until 11am and then after our late lunch I took a long nap. I need it, but I’m really bummed I didn’t get a day for creating. I guess I got a day for resting. I’m sure other people would give anything for that sort of day, so I’ll do my best to be thankful.

I guess it’s better to get a sick day at home than to have to work when I feel crummy. It won’t last long, this is day 3 of the cold and usually the worst of it lasts merely 5 or so days with another 5-7 that are much easier to take. I guess resting will probably help me get to the second phase of the cold sooner… I hope. And if I have a cold, I might as well be home with Brian listening to good music and napping. That’s sort of a perfect day, really.

Well, I’m off to heat up a salmon dinner, with hummous and tabbouli and vegetables and rice. I got this at New Aladdins’ restaurant yesterday. We usually eat Altu’s food on holidays but by the time I got out of JoAnn, Altu’s was already closed. I love Aladdin’s so this is a grand treat. I was thinking about making a pumpkin pie, but I don’t have any brown sugar and am not in the mood to go get some, much less make it when I get home. We’ll have soy ice cream for a treat, instead.

Well, it is a white Christmas today. Here’s a picture I took out of my side window. It was fun to watch the teenager shovel the snow. He has long arms and legs, and lots of energy. He was not at all efficient at how he went about the task of shoveling, but it got done pretty quickly because of his youth. The only time I move that fast is when I’m dancing!

I’m pretty lucky, though… Brian almost always does the shoveling for us. We have a corner lot so there is more shoveling than normal for a small house. Brian takes pretty much everything in stride, doing what must be done. I shovel but it’s a lot of work and I usually do it in two phases, with a break in the middle. It isn’t very cold actually, it is just sitting at the freezing point right now, but that makes for wet and heavy snow.

We do get cold weather this time of year but it goes up and down. We have had two days of rain in the last week, so this was a nice treat for the kiddos to get snow on Christmas morning. Last night we had s slight dusting but right now it is coming down slowly and steadily. It is very pretty, other than taking most of the color from the outside world.

Fiber Plans for the Holiday
I have really planned to make my mohair dress today, for a long time. However, I just am not happy with my choices right now and I’m going to sit on the problem until I get a good solution. I really wanted to do the pink floaty mohair but it definitely needs a lining or slip because it is so transparent. I looked around JoAnn for slip fabric and didn’t like anything I could find. The best I found was stretchy swimming suit fabric but that is thick synthetic. It would stretch well and keep it from sticking to me but it would also feel like wearing a plastic bag. So I’m still thinking on that.

I dug a coned wool/nylon fingering yarn out of the stash that is the same color as the hot pink mohair. I did a swatch using them held together as one, on the largest setting on my HK100 frame. It ended up more opaque but not very floaty at all, and the stitch count went up so the gauge would require a lot of refiguring. I didn’t like it enough to do the math, although it is amazing how the colors are nearly identical.

The turquoise mohair I have in stash comes up with the right gauge and is not transparent. However, it is a blue-turquoise that doesn’t go with the greenish-teal/turquoise yarns I chose for the suit coat.

I have the gift certificates to Yarn for Ewe which I could use to buy yet another mohair but the colors available aren’t what I want. There is one purple which is sort of on the side of a redddish/plum purple and I prefer a blue purple for this. There is also a mohair which is very pretty but I don’t know if it would work out. one strand is a sort of light pinky-raspberry and another strand is a bluish purple. That may work out, but it’s not as electric-color as I had wanted. Boo Hoo.

The book (The Purl Stitch, Sally Melville) calls for LaGran Mohair by Classic Elite. I saw a very wonderful purple in this yarn, at Old Mill Yarns in Eaton Rapids several months ago and considered it for a hat. Looking online they also have a turquoise which may be more warm (turquoise is very hard to duplicate on a monitor so I would have to order some to know). I could get it from Threadbear Fiberarts also, but I really a) wanted hot pink and b) don’t want to buy more yarn without the gift certificate.

So this idealist is stuck. The problem is that I allow myself idealism when I am creating visual art including knitting. I know I can’t have perfect everything in other parts of my life, but I do control my visual output.

This week I had a two-hour special session of CityKidz Knit! I always have a different crowd on holiday weeks and this was a mixture of a bunch of kids I knew (one new one) but some who don’t come around if school is in session. I had one flit in and out but had four stick it out for pretty much the whole time.

About a year ago a wonderful soul on one of my email lists donated a box of shetland wool sweaters to be intentionally shrunk/fulled in the washer and dryer, as a project for my kids. At first I was sure we would make slippers but I did one sample on my own sweater and found it hard to make them fit, and very slippery. Not a good idea, huh?

I also had a problem with trying to get a special time with the kidz. Summer is so changeable, I have different kids every day and as I mentioned before I had 32 kids who came merely one time to my knitting program. I wanted the kids who did somehow come more than once or twice, to actually get practice knitting. So this has been the first time I could work it out with Foster’s schedule and some more stable kids, to do this project.

I started the day with a black sweater that I thought the kids would not pick as a first choice, to make a sample. I cut out two mittens (three pieces each) and blanket-stitched one together with some bright turquoise sock yarn. The mitten turned out just HUGE. It looked more like a potholder than a mitten, but the sweater had not really shrunk fully so once I sew both mittens I will throw them in the washer again. It might even make the seams more strong that way. My intent is to sew bright colored buttons on the back of the mitten as decoration, as well. I will show you when it is done. Right now it is at Foster Center which is locked for the holiday, and I’m at home.

I realized that for me, it was not hard to make a mitten in a reasonable time. However, with some of the kids’ attention spans and relatively coarse sewing skills, I was afraid they would end up with unuseable or unfinished mittens.

But what we figured out quickly is that the sweaters that really shrunk down tightly and were really small, made great bags if you cut them straight across from one armpit to the other. For two of the kids (three made bags) we folded and tucked the edges in a little to create some shaping, and then they turned their sweater inside out to sew a strong seam with sockyarn at the bottom. They used the overhand whipstitch, the natural stitch a child will use if not taught otherwise.

One girl finished her navy blue bag for a special adult. She was determined to finish in the two hours we had. In fact, she called home to be sure they would let her stay until the very end of my session. Once she sewed the bag shut, I found some blue cotton yarn (sort of denim) and we cut nine lengths of it, and she braided it with three strands held together as one, into one large braid. We knotted each end and she sewed the handle to the seams for strength, and she turned the bag inside out. I might have liked a button closure but it did close up pretty well with the ribbing at the top all by itself. She was very pleased, and left with a gift ready to wrap.

A boy who came, chose a heather cream/green and sewed the same way with hot green yarn I had. He finished the bottom seam but did not make a handle before he had to leave. He asked to take the rest of “his sweater” with him and I said he could. He hugged it!

A girl I think is in 4th grade, does a lot of handwork already at home, and was quite confident in her decisions. She chose a very heavily shrunken natural gray cabled sweater, about the size of a handbag. She chose some light blue embroidery thread for her sewing. By the time I was ready to get her started, she had sewn halfway across the piece already. She liked it flat rather than tucked for shape, and she really wanted her blue stitching to show on the outside. She finished her sewing before leaving, but did not finish a handle. I sent her home with the rest of her sweater, if I remember right. Her mom will help her finish the project, I’m sure (I know the mom).

Another girl sort of dove in to her project while I was distracted. First she found a pretty heathered purple sweater that had shrunk about to her own size. She cut the sleeves off and then cut the cuffs off of those. She put the cuffs on her ankles as ankle warmers and the sleeves as wrist/arm warmers. She cut a line up the front (a steek without reinforcing sewing, that even made *me* nervous and I have done that before… but of course this was shrunken/fulled fabric and it worked fine). She thought as she left that she might like to make a sewn beret of the sweater if not a short sleeved cardigan. I’m thinking about how best to help her if she really wants it to be a cardigan. I do have a pattern for a polar fleece hat I picked up at JoAnn today (they were on sale for $.99, perfect timing) in case she still likes that idea. We’ll see.

A last girl had not seen me since summertime. She has clearly been knitting at home. She can figure out how to knit but not how to bind off. I showed her how to bind off by knitting two together when she asked how to end the knitting. She got going on what she wanted to be a scarf, and took home three smallish skeins so that she could make it. It was good to see her again, in a less distracting environment than she had in the summer. (By the way, I’m not describing the children in the order of the photos, and two of the kids are not pictured at all.)

I did have one more girl flit in and out. Some days she sits well and some days she just can not sit still at all. I figure this week with all the changes in routine and food, probably makes it even harder for kids like that. She found a yellow cabled vest, very small, and cut it preparing to make a bag. Then she left the room and did not return. She comes to the center every week so she will eventually finish hers.

But hey, it was extra cool that my newest person finished a project and took it home ready to wrap it! I’m proud.

Yesterday was the winter solstice. Today we have a bit more sunshine than yesterday, and I am soooo ready for that!

I took four boa scarves to the charity this morning. They seemed genuinely delighted. Either they are just as cool as I remembered they were, or they act well. I think it is the former. They also went on and on about the stole I was wearing. I loved it. I do hope that the people who get my scarves like them as much as I do.

My voice was doing well for the handful of days we had snow on the ground. It started melting again a few days ago, however. Now not only do I have a weak voice again, but I appear to have caught a cold. Ugh. At least I can talk. I can’t talk very loudly and I can’t sing, but I have a voice.

I worked with the kids at Foster today and they did a nice job, but I’ll talk about that another time. Right now I’m going to eat a nutritious dinner and then get horizontal as much as possible. Tonight I had planned to go to a knit-in but I need to be quiet and restful here at home. I have tried to be good to myself as much as possible during this crazy-busy season, but working retail is a very physical job and it has changed my routine, both meals and to a lesser extent my sleep.

Hey, everybody… remember that no matter what the songs say (It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, yadda yadda), it’s a time when we try to do too much and we can easily stress out our emotions or bodies. Please be gentle with yourselves out there!

Bow-tie pasta with red tomato sauce for dinner tonight. Comfort food! See you tomorrow with pictures of my knitting kids.

Well, I have now given all my holiday gifts except for three, those for my godchildren and their mother. It feels good to be that close, especially with all the work I’m doing out of the house these days. I have little time for knitting.

Last night after JoAnn Fabrics closed, I went to Barbara’s house for our annual Abbott Brothers band jam session and holiday party. I chose to do “gifts lite” this year, and give food items that can be actually used and enjoyed without the “where does it go” issue.

I gave Bob a box of Kukicha tea, my favorite tea in the world. It’s roasted twigs from tea bushes, and it is sort of smoky and rich but it has very little caffeine. Yum. Bob likes tea a lot, so we share that appreciation and I wanted to get him this tea.

Larry got roasted red bell peppers in a glass jar. These are wonderful, somewhat smoky. They are great in a sandwich, pita or rollup… with hummous, or refried beans, or flavored baked tofu (yes I really love that stuff), and no doubt people who like meat would like it with ham or turkey. I am thinking it would also like a slice of avocado or some black olives, mmmm.

Edna was there with us last night, although she doesn’t perform with Abbott Brothers (she jams with us occasionally). She was the one who first started inviting me to concerts in the folk community in Lansing, back when I was a sad and different person (around 1990). I feel in part she is responsible for me finding Brian and I will ever be grateful. She got a jar of Michigan cherry butter. Michigan raises a lot of the world’s cherries. Cherry butter is soooo good, on good bread or elsewhere. I like it with almond butter rolled up on a flour tortilla.

Barbara got some Indian cuisine that comes ready to eat in a boiling pouch. It was Rajma, kidney beans, in a sauce. This actually tastes a bit like chili… but I definitely wanted her to know about these wonderful Indian “fast food” items that can be purchased at a few places in town. Barbara has been a vegetarian for many years, and Indian food has some of the best vegetarian food there is. She was intrigued. I hope she really enjoys it.

I also gifted Barbara with the blue striped boa you see here above on the right. It was sapphire fun fur and a sort of periwinkle microspun (from Lion Brand, also) for the smooth areas. I wasn’t absolutely sure she’d like it, but the colors were certainly right and I just had to give her one of these scarves. So she got a second gift. As it turned out, she just loved it! How cool is that! I’m pretty good at giving and then letting go of the results… but it is always gratifying when I get it right.

The other two scarves you see here I did so that my client Jennifer would have a few to choose from today. I went to her office Friday with gifts for the group but she was out. I went back today so she could pick a scarf. There were two red scarves and a pastel one left from last week. Then I did these two so she’d have more to choose from (the right side one is a lot like the one I made for Sara). I knew the whole time I was knitting, that Jennifer would choose the one with purple stripes, on the left. I just knew it. The yarn is Patons Cha Cha curly eyelash and Lion Brand microspun purple for the smooth stirpes. She loved it. I’ve known her a while, and I figured she would!

Tomorrow (well, later today… I’m writing this after midnight), the four scarves I have left (two red, the gold/copper, and the pastel/hot green) are going to a local charity I know fairly well. This organization does excellent work serving their clients (and families of clients) with health issues, and I have done a few things with/for them in the past. This year what I can do is give them a few scarves so that folks don’t go without gifts this holiday. And people do genuinely love these scarves, they feel good and just make you feel special. I hope the recipients love them as I do.

I didn’t get a chance to show you a picture of Saturday’s group at Altu’s, Hot-Toe-Mitty. This was a special treat, because this band tours the region and was just too busy this summer to play here. However, Brandon and I kept on corresponding all summer and finally, they were able to play this last weekend.

Unfortunately, I had to work at JoAnn’s from 3pm to close, which was after Altu’s closes. I was worried I would miss the whole thing, after all that work getting them in. Luckily, my supervisor gave me my “lunch” break (which is merely 30 minutes) during the two hours they were playing. I rushed to my car and drove the half-mile to the restaurant, listened to maybe three songs, and then had to rush back and work again.

It was totally worth the effort to get there! The band is made up of five excellent young musicians, who play mandolin, banjo, guitar, bass and flute. They also have superb harmony vocals. I was lucky because one song they did was a waltz, so Brian and I got up and waltzed about one verse just before I had to go. I just love waltzing with Brian.

I am so pleased that the group was able to make it out to Altu’s. It sure was one highlight of our musical year there!

I’m at the point where I really have a need to FINISH and FINISH and FINISH things. I know I’ve been finishing scarves, but those are not for me. I knit because I love knitted items. I love to touch them, wear them, dream about more of them.

I am pretty close to finishing a pair of sox for me, so maybe that will actually happen in the dribs and drabs of time I have. I have a lot of partly done projects, and normally that doesn’t bother me. However, when I spend time knitting a good handful of items partway and then stop, I sure spend a lot of time knitting but not finishing. I hope I will have some time to finish things soon.

You know, Sally Melville talks about process and product as the two elements of knitting. I say that for me, there is another one and it comes before the two. The Dream is big for me. I touch and plan and scheme and Dream. I pick things, I start. Then I am into the process part. I like that just fine, but the Dream keeps me going. When I finish, I sort of see my Dream come true. That is the fuel for the next Dream, and the cycle continues. Of course I have a lot of these things going at the same time, but I tend to do a lot of starting all at once and a lot of finishing all at once. I think that is about the space in my life to ream. If I can Dream a project, I can get going.

When I don’t have a dream, I grab a few balls of sockyarn and some sock needles, and I just do process. Typically, these would be socks for Brian. I pick out yarns that I know I’ll enjoy knitting and he would enjoy wearing, and I just sort of do meditative loop-making.

Maybe my need to finish is my need to touch the dream again. These days I’m doing more knitting without thinking than I am planning. I do enjoy the legwarmers a lot but that was mostly Sally Melville dreaming for me. I had to pick the two yarns, but she already indicated Noro Kureyon so I just had to pick 2 colorways. I really love wearing them, by the way.

I’m thinking about that Cascade Indulgence I got from Rob and Matt this fall. I have two skeins each of both purple and hot pink. That stuff is warmth and softness, times ten! Yummy stuff. Maybe a hat and wristwarmers? Maybe really warm and exotic bedsocks? It’s so incredible it intimidates me. I would LOVE a beret of the stuff but it has to be the perfect beret and I don’t think I have one mapped out for that large gauge. We’ll see what happens here. Tune in again, same channel…

Today I’ll show you some knitting Tony did for the holidays. Since his family doesn’t know me (they are all out of state), it’s unlikely that they will see these photos so it’s OK for me to show you now.

He made two hats for his neices. These are just wonderful knitting. He washed them and so they fluffed up just great. One is Ballybrae yarn and the rest I can’t remember what he said they were. Super cool and very well executed, don’t you think?

He also did three scarves. This Noro Kureyon scarf was knit on the diagonal, a favorite pattern for Tony. The yarn just looks wonderful fluffed up after washing! He actually used two different colorways but you can’t really tell, they were related enough to just look variegated in long repeats. I love this scarf. I don’t love knitting with this yarn, but I must admit it feels a lot nicer after it has been washed a few times.

Tony also did two diagonally-knit chenille scarves that just did not photgraph well. They were the same pattern but very skinny as fashion accessories rather than warmth-creators. One was in three colors, mostly a purple-blue with some warm green and one other color. The yarn was just beautiful. I think he said he got this from Sarah Peasley somehow, maybe at our guild’s year-end yarn swap perhaps.

The second scarf was a really dark purple (eggplant, on the brown side) in Touch Me yarn, a mostly wool chenille that just feels like heaven. I always want to buy some when I am in yarn shops, but since I don’t wear scarves I just can’t bring myself to spend what it takes to make something bigger with it. The stuff is sort of in the splurge department as far as price, and I haven’t justified that splurge yet. If it was just the right gift for someone (my mom is my primary gift-splurge recipient, she got cashmerino this year) then I’d consider it, but the stuff just doesn’t fit my lifestyle.

The chenille scarves will be elegant and beautiful. Why not have a stylish and soft skinny scarf, you know? I hope his recipient likes the gift as much as I think she might.

He washed the chenille scarves once as per Sally Melville’s instructions, but at least the Touch Me was still worming a little (worms are little bits of yarn that stick out of the fabric, and it happens a lot with chenille yarns). He said she indicated that sometimes you have to wash it two or three times to eliminate the worms. It was sort of a hassle for him because he was going to leave the next day after I took these pictures and didn’t really have a lot of time to wash and dry a scarf three times. I think he was figuring he might have to do the last wash when he got to his destination.

I already miss Tony’s company. I do get to pick him up at the airport when he gets back, so I’m looking forward to that. It seems many of my good friends are away for the holidays. I’m counting four of the people I regularly see and hang out with, two in Florida, one in Costa Rica and one in Hawaii. I don’t really mind being here, but I miss my friends. I do hope they have great trips. I get to pick up two of the friends so I can get the first-hand storytelling as soon as they get home. That will be great fun!

Meanwhile, I’m working a lot at the store until the holiday. I’ve been at JoAnn on Friday and Saturday, will also be there full shifts Sunday and Monday. On Tuesday I don’t work at the store but I have four hours at Foster Center. Wednesday I’m back for a long shift at the store and then we have Thursday off because the store is closed. Then I work again cutting fabric on Friday. I’ve got Sat/Sunday off that weekend. I may not know what to do with myself! If I get my mohair dress figured out, I maybe can work on that on the 25th and 27th (on the 28th we have social obligations part of the day).

Well, today was a day for relationships as well as work. I made a whole bunch of eyelash yarn scarves for my clients to choose today. I went there and let them each choose their own scarf. It is always interesting to see who picks what.

I also took a birthday present for my primary contact person, as her birthday is just before Christmas and I think it is extra important to celebrate someone when their own holiday tends to hide in the shadows of the big holidays that more people celebrate. For her, I took one of the journals by Susan Hensel that I got at her moving sale. The book was perfect for her… blue embossed paper cover with stars, blue ribbons to close it, and turquoise pages with a few white pockets to hold treasures. It’s sort of a magical thing, the journal. You have to untie the bow and it seems as though you are peeking into a secret space.

The boas went over well. I think they are great fun if not super practical. They feel good, they are pretty colors, and they just feel like a little luxury. I am glad I could do that for these lovely friends who also choose to work with me from time to time.

After the client, I went to work at JoAnn Fabric. I was surprised by a visit from the grandparents of one of my CityKidz who I’m teaching to knit. I knew they would probably stop by, but thought they were just picking up a scarf from me.

The surprise was that they brought me a gift! A gift basket (the basket is a very nice wire one that I will use often) full of homemade cookies (M&M cookies and oatmeal/raisin, comfort food rather than froofy holiday sweets). And on the bow there was a little snowman ornament. The snowman is swinging in a swing, from a snowflake. Very nice. On the bottom of the swing they wrote my name and her name and the date. I’m very touched.

I just LOVE my kidz. Love ‘em very very much. This child knows how I feel about her and she loves me as well, though we never say those words out loud. We just pay attention to the other person while we’re together. She is one of my younger kids but she knits a lot at home with the support of the family and is really doing well, learning in a very big learning curve these days. It is a delight to spend time with her.

I guess schoolteachers get gifts frequently and are used to them. For me, this year I have been gifted with a yarn gift certificate, an ornament in the shape of a musical note (with a bell as part of the shape) and now the basket of cookies and ornament. It means so much to me! These kids are the highlight of my life most weeks, and clearly I make a difference to them, as well. Sigh…

I’m staying busy today… I was at Foster for six hours (I adore my knitting kids, have I said that lately?) but before and after, I have been cranking out eyelash yarn boa scarves on my HK100 knitting frame/machine. I have a longterm computer client (perhaps 10 years now, I started when Windows95 had not come out yet) which is a small office, only 5 people. We have exchanged gifts for a long time. We really do like each other a lot, work or play, and they are very creative folks who appreciate my handmade items.

One year I gave them polymer clay keychains, two years polymer magnets (one year Millefiori and one year printed with a block print). One time I hand-carved erasers into personalized rubber stamps with their names/initials on them. I have made them packets of hand-blockprinted greeting cards. I think it was two years ago I made them tiny socks as ornaments/pins to wear. I think last year I tie-dyed silk scarves for them if I remember right.

So this year they get boa scarves. I always make a variety and then I let them choose. I like to make at least one more than there are people, so even the last person gets a choice. My contact person gets first dibs and then they sort of pass things around. So tomorrow I’m going over there with a basket full of boa scarves. It is always interesting to see who picks what.

These ladies are mostly practical folks. I’m pretty sure they would never buy themselves boa scarves. But I learned from my Mother that sometimes people just love extravagances they wouldn’t necessarily buy for themselves. So I’m hoping this will feel like a little splurge for my friends at the office down the street. If not, they do appreciate the time it takes to make things by hand. And most of them are new knitters in the last year or so, so they really understand.

I’m tired, but it has been a productive day. I’ll hope to get some photos taken before I give up the goodies tomorrow!

It is real! The article Carla Kucinski wrote about me was published in the NOISE today.

The NOISE is a free paper (owned by the newspaper giant Gannett) geared to the under-35 crowd in Lansing. It’s sort of nice to know that a woman like me (age 45, with bifocals and gray hair) would be interesting to this magazine. I was delighted that they were interested.

Someone who works at the NOISE found my weblog online and passed the address to Carla. Somewhere down the line she decided to write me and ask if I would consent to an interview.

She (and I) almost missed out twice. One, I actually deleted her email because at first glance the subject “Interview Request” looked like a junk email. Then I thought I’d better go get that message out of my trash and see if it might be legit. It was.

Then, I was worried she would misquote me. For one thing, I talk fast. For another, I know how hard it is to distill a long, lively conversation into black and white words. I sort of challenged her to not misquote me. She brought a tape recorder to the interview, undaunted.

She thought we’d talk for less than an hour. We talked for two. I don’t know how she sorted through all those words to make this article, but I think she did a very good job. Thank you, Carla.

Oh, and the photos by Jeremy Herliczek turned out very nicely as well. As mentioned in a previous blog entry, he owns a print I made several years ago, purchased at an art exhibit where I was not present. We clicked very well.

I have sometimes been critical of the NOISE for a few reasons, one being their fixation on whether things are cool/hip or not (I’m old enough to not care if I’m cool, and ironically now more people think I am), and another because they appear to not have any folks with dark-skinned faces on their staff (we all know there are plenty of cool/hip 20-35yr olds in Lansing who have dark skin, but they seem to not work for the NOISE).

However, this time I gave into the vanity of someone wanting to know about me. I mean, I love to talk about myself, I think my life is very interesting. Face it, lots of us like to talk about ourselves, it’s a common human trait.

Today for this article, I must say that quality is in place at the NOISE. Carla and Jeremy did a good job.

I feel like the song “On the Cover of the Rollin’ Stone.” I need to get 5 copies for my mother!

Today I had time to dabble in a few different possibilities. I knit swatches in three different yarns on my HK100 knitting frame, preparing for possible projects. I hope to do the Sally Melville Not Your Mother’s Suit Dress (from her Purl Stitch Knitting Experience book) so I swatched with two mohairs I have had in stash waiting to become sweaters for over a year.

I had really wanted to make the dress in the Hot Fuschia and I did get gauge on one of the tension settings, but the yarn is very fine with not much brushed fuzz, so the fabric after wetting and air drying is perhaps too sheer for a dress. I don’t feel like sewing a custom full-length slip in order to wear the dress, though I could do it.

So I swatched the other mohair I have in enough quantity to do the dress. It is a hot turquoise (again I am frustrated by the web’s inability to handle turquoise) which is very fuzzy and dense. On the labels, these both can accomplish the gauge Sally recommends for this dress, but I’m thinking the turquoise will be more appropriate for a dress. A floaty mohair sweater is one thing- when it floats and is sheer, I can wear a turtleneck under it. However, if it is a floaty dress I need a full slip which I would rather not bother with.

I’m still waiting for the turquoise swatch to dry. If that yarn works out, I hope it goes with the three yarns I had chosen for the “Not Your Mother’s Suit Coat” to go with it. I wanted a pink dress and turquoise coat. I have chosen three yarns that have three different turquoises (intense medium turquoise, teal and aqua) as my possible combination for the coat. That means either it will look wonderful with the dress or look like a mismatch.

It’s too soon to know since I haven’t dyed the teal yarn yet for the coat, but it doesn’t look promising. The aqua and medium turquoise I have already put together are warmer greenish turquoises, and the mohair is more of a blue. Unless the teal really unifies things in a magical way I think I won’t be able to wear them together. That is not to say I won’t make both projects and just wear them separately but it would be a little bit of a disappointment.

While I was at it on the HK100, I also swatched some wool/cotton/unknown fingering weight yarn for some possible longjohns or leggings. It’s boring natural with taupe but I don’t care what color things are if they are hiding under my jeans! I have two HUGE cones I got for I think $1.00 a pound in Eaton Rapids at Davidson’s annual warehouse sale. Nothing to lose but some time… although learning will come out of it even if it doesn’t work out.

Right now those wool/cotton swatches have been through a long machine wash cycle and are in an extended extra-hot dryer cycle to see if I can get a fabric I like that is washable. We’ll see how that goes. If it works really well, I’ll try to overdye it and see what 50% it is that is wool (I’m guessing the natural is cotton and the soft taupe is wool). I would love to make it “my colors” so I can make knit pants for outerwear as well. Maybe the taupe will overdye as a nice teal or eggplant. Time will tell.

Late Breaking News:
The wool/cotton swatches just came out of the hot dryer. I’m really pleased with how the fabric feels. It fluffs up to what feels like sportweight after washing and drying. I’m delighted. These longjohns will be soft and WARM Warm warm….

As promised, today’s pictures are from Sharon P. who is in my Mid-Michigan Knitting Guild. It’s funny how things go… she and I have several mutual friends. We probably had been in the same room at the same time but did not know one another. Then she started reading my weblog.

Well, one night I was at the guild meeting during show and tell, and I mentioned something about my weblog. She exclaimed out loud: Oh, YOU are LynnH! I have been reading your blog! (Remember, there are between 25 and 50 people at these guild meetings, so we don’t all get a chance to meet everyone.)

And thus a friendship began. Now it is interesting to see how often we are at the same music parties, for instance. In a crowd we tend to notice familiar faces, so I wonder how many times we missed one another in years past.

So… several months ago Sharon purchased some of my Cushy ColorSport yarn in the now-sold-out colorway called Seaside. She does a lot of sox so I think she imagined first that she would use it for that. But then she took a look in her stash and found a gorgeous ribbon yarn in similar colors, but a little more intense. She decided to make a scarf for a friend.

As she got going on the scarf, she asked me if I had any more of that yarn left, and I was all sold out. However, when she was at my house for my birthday party, she found some mohair loopy boucle yarn in the same colors. She made this hat with the boucle and some other stash yarns, to go with the scarf for her friend. I think she did a great job.

I just love hearing from folks when they have used my yarn or my patterns for anything. Even if you started with my pattern and changed a lot, but it inspired you, I’d love to get your photographs. Please feel free to send me photos and I’ll be delighted to give you your own 15 minutes of fame, right here on ColorJoy!

Oh, for the record, Sharon has recently started a small knitting group at the elementary school where she works. She wrote me this week to tell me that two of her kids had finished their first projects: wristbands. I really know what a victory that is! It is so rewarding to work with kids and knitting.

Off to prepare a blackeyed pea salad to take to the Knitting Guild holiday meeting. There will be loads of sweets there and things I can not eat, so I need to make sure I take food I really love eating. I’ll probably take some black licorice, one of the few prepared sweets I can eat, so that I can eat something sweet while others eat holiday cookies and goodies of that sort.

Well, today I actually finished my Maximum legwarmers (by Sally Melville from her Knit Stitch book, with several changes to suit my taste). It’s like wearing a rainbow!

I have to admit how picky I am about color. I am OK that they are a little different as expected, but I really had a problem with the yellow-orange that happened at the bottom of the legwarmers, especially on the one that started with a very bold blue. It was like a college team, the contrast was so bold. I actually went back with some of my leftover yarn and duplicate-stitched three rows on one legwarmer and one row on another, to make it less gold and less contrasty. I don’t mind a pinkish-orange with a strong blue, but I just couldn’t live with the yellow-orange.

Funny, I was worried that that much handwork would be a drag, but I rather enjoyed the hand needlework. I don’t like working in ends particularly, but the clean rhythm of rows and rows of duplicate stitch was very calming. Oh, then I went in underneath the duplicate stitch and took out the old yarn (it was very stiff with both yarns in place) by picking out each stitch one at a time. That was a little tedious. However, my results please me much more and it was definitely worth the fuss.

Tony tells me I’m too picky with my knitting. I say that this is my artform and it makes sense to be picky and specific about your desired results when expressing yourself in your art. I can see being too picky about housecleaning or about yardwork, unless those happen to be your artforms. But for me, color is my primary expression and being particular is why I succeed at what I’m trying to say.

That said, I don’t really like knitting with Kureyon very much. I love that it has more color than most Midwesterners usually wear. I love that people are celebrating color in this way. But it’s very thick/thin and very scratchy, and the colors change so differently from one skein to the other. One of my blue/purple skeins really changed color subtly, mixing colors together for long stretches. The other went from one bold color to another without any heathered spots between. I like color to be consistent in its intensity and the blue/purple yarn was not. I felt that the pink/orange skeins were much more consistent (thanks to Rob and Matt and Sarah for picking such a good set of skeins for me, they did a better job than I did on my other skeins). The good news is that the pink/orange skeins sort of unified the legwarmers even when the blue skeins were different.

I wore them to the allergist’s office today, my only public appearance of the day. With my voice gone I tend to feel invisible, but these legwarmers guarantee that I am not!

Tomorrow pics of Sharon P’s creations. Tomorrow I’m staying home and not talking until it’s Mid Michigan Knit Guild holiday party time. Last year I took a bunch of my CityKidz Knit children to the gathering but it was so stressful as I borrowed my mom’s car and picked them up and dropped them back off at home. This time I’m just taking care of me. Tony is on vacation so I’m going alone.

See you tomorrow.

Today I started my day with seven hours at JoAnn Fabrics. As usual, I really enjoyed it. There is something satisfying about hearing people tell their creative plans. I also love the puzzle of putting things away. It is a very big store, and there are so many items we carry that I may never know them all, but it’s fun trying. In the morning when it’s still a bit slow, we put away buttons and snaps and needles and other goodies of that sort. It is so interesting to me, to figure out how they organize things. I’m sure the newness will wear off, but for now it feels like a crossword puzzle missing one important word.

After work I just decided to really go for the total relaxation experience. I already had a warm bath this morning or I may have enjoyed one after work. Instead, I took a little nap right on top of the large heatvent on the floor. I just love my heat vent, I must have been a cat in a previous life. I wrap myself up in a blanket from Mexico (beloved, wonderful Mexico) and prop up on a few of our many pillows, and read until I doze. Today I got two magazines from JoAnn, and I read my Spin-Off until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. What a luxury, to have good reading about fibery things (imagine that, Spin-Off at JoAnn’s? Who would have thought?) and then doze when it hits me. Sigh… a good thing.

Brian went to a music party tonight but I just didn’t want to tempt myself to talk. My voice is feeling a little better today, probably because the ground has been frozen for two days. I didn’t want to push it when a few days of rest could maybe make the difference for me. So I stayed home and made comfort food: pasta with red tomato sauce and soy-italian sausage. OK, it sounds funny but it tastes wonderful and I adored every bite! Then I had some soy ice cream (chocolate almond) for dessert, a real treat..

I’ve spent the rest of the night listening to Annette Hanshaw and Sophie Tucker, fabulous singers from the 1920s, and knitting. I may finish my Maximum Legwamers yet tonight if I keep cranking. I forgot how fast I can knit if I just sit still and knit. This yarn is knitting up on large needles for me: size 5 for a small part (to hold up the top edge) and size 8 for the rest. The colors are wonderful. These are very much fraternal twins, these legwarmers, but that was expected… and I like them very much.

Oh, as I was leaving JoAnn Fabrics and going to my car, I looked over and there was Zia, the dancer who received my red scarf this last Wednesday at the Habibi holiday party. She was wearing her scarf and she looked so glamorous! She’s quite an elegant lady and I am delighted that she loves the scarf. It sort of floats along with her. She had no idea I would run into her, so it was a great pleasure to “catch her” wearing my gift. Whew. I did it right!

Coming Soon on this Blog
I have a couple of pictures of a hat and scarf knit by Sharon P. out of some of my handpainted yarns (and a few other well-chosen yarns) and I need to edit those pics so you can see them.

I also have some new exciting news about my teaching schedule, coming here soon. But for tonight I am going to end here and go back to knitting my legwarmers. Since I’ve had this retail job, I think I haven’t had a full lazy day off, so I am savoring my hours tonight.

Well, I let myself spend time napping today, and knitting. I acted like I had a sick day of sorts, even though I’m not really sick.

I did go to see some Working Women Artists friends (There were six of us, high schooler to retired… what a great group WWA is) for a little gift exchange and meal at Altu’s this afternoon… but only for about 45 minutes so I wouldn’t be tempted to talk much. Seated left to right, Me, Marguerite, Eva (of Eva’s Sox fame), Jane (she owns the first pair of Turkish Zig sox I knit), Marian (Eva’s mom, she has semi-matching sox) and Beryl.

I got the gift Marian brought for the exchange. She had bought some larger collaged/bound books from Susan Hensel’s sale and I got one. Mine has a wonderful collaged bound cover with two signatures hand bound in with beads on the edge. I was just thrilled with my gift.

Marian got my gift (funny how gift exchanges can work out) so she got a Cha-Cha scarf like the one I did for Sara, but Marian’s was mostly purples and blues. Cha-Cha is a curly nylon eyelash yarn that is very soft. She liked her scarf.

Last year she got my gift, too, and it was a pair of purchased gloves onto which I knit eyelash yarn cuffs (see picture). I actually used two strands of eyelash, a dense hot pink and a sparse purple. She says she wears them with a black leather jacket, which really makes the texture stand out.

I went home, changed into “Lynn Heftone” and went back to Altus with Brian, to sing as The Fabulous Heftones. That is, Brian sang and we both played our instruments. It was actually very nice… tonight one couple came because they knew they would hear live music at Altus but they didn’t know who we were. It turns out the man used to play ukulele and play some of the same songs Brian does. He sat in with us a little, singing harmony on “Just Because” and singing a little piece we had not heard before on his own. That was pretty fun.

I didn’t get any pictures of us singing at Altus tonight, so here is a pic from a previous performance there.

Wow, I just couldn’t post yesterday. I really try to keep things on my weblog upbeat and yesterday was just not an upbeat day.

It started well, as I had lunch with my dance friend Marie (who is also one of my supervisors at JoAnn) and her son Roland. After lunch we got some sockyarn, as she just finished her first pair, a shortie pair in red for herself. Now she wants to make some for her Dad. It’s such fun to have another knitting buddy I already sort of had in my life!

During lunch I gave my camera to Roland and he spent a bit of time pushing the buttons. Most of the pictures were of the floor or his lap, for none of them did he bother to use the viewfinder. He was just pushing buttons. But he got this photo of me talking with my hands behind my cup of anise tea. I think it’s a darned good shot! It has not been cropped or altered in any way other than lightening it up so that it can be seen better on the web. Go Roland! (Yes, I did get permission to post his work.)

I worked at JoAnn from 3pm to close (just after 10pm). My voice is really suffering. They were wonderful and let me put away fabric most of the time, which requires less talking than working the cutting counter. However, sometimes they need all hands on deck, so to speak, to cut fabric because of the long lines. And even when putting away fabric, customers approach with questions and it’s my job and my pleasure to help them. I love it when people ask questions about knitting! But that means I had a 7 hour shift where talking was not optional.

I got home and my voicebox actually hurt. Mind you, I’m not sick. This is a result of allergies. I have figured it would pass by now, but the weather has not frozen hard until yesterday. I have whispered on and off since the day before Thanksgiving, over two weeks. And my voice was starting to lose strength in October. I’m tired of this.

Last night I had a good cry over the loss and powerlessness I’m feeling. I do think it helped me feel better but the voice is still gone. Tonight will be the second singing engagement Brian and I have had, where I just had to play bass and we either play instrumentals or Brian sings. I really adore singing, I love being on stage. And a silent person in many ways, is an invisible person. I do not handle invisibility well at all.

The last time I needed to be silent it was because I had overused my voice on top of this sort of laryngitis. I mean, I was ordered to be totally silent, sign language and handwriting only, for 31 days. Doctor’s orders. That was before I started dating Brian, about 8 or 9 years ago.

Today I cancelled my intended trip to Spinners Flock guild. It was their holiday party today. I would have been tempted to talk to Tony in the car, and it’s a two-hour round trip drive. Then when I was there I would have wanted to talk to all the folks I knew (the guild often has over 100 people attending). So I told Tony I couldn’t go. I also cancelled my lab at Foster Center this afternoon. That is two more hours where I’d start out whispering and end up talking too loud for my voice to heal.

Tonight I’ll be at Altus and there will be some whispering involved. Tomorrow I have to work 9:45 to close (sometime around 7pm) at JoAnn. I’ll have to talk at least half of that time.

Luckily, on Monday I have nothing scheduled in public at all and will spend the day in my dyeing studio. Tuesday I have nothing scheduled during the working day but the Lansing knitting guild is having its holiday dinner/party in the evening, and I will go. I’m hoping that most of a silent day today and two silent days Monday/Tuesday, plus the colder weather which is freezing the mildewing leaves which cause my voice loss, will help me get back more to normal.

I have to keep remembering that this is a loss, but it is temporary. It’s not anything life-threatening. It chips away at my vanity and my feelings of belonging, but it is a small hiccup in comparison to other possible challenges I might face as a human being.

Thank goodness for the man who loves me. He can enjoy my company without much talk. In fact, at home we don’t talk a lot. This is a good thing, a real comfort. He loves me just as I am, animated and interactive or not. What a gift Brian is, and I know it.

I had a very good but busy day today. I spent the last morning with a computer client today, we said our goodbyes after working on this project for over a year. I’ll probably take them some baked goods for the holidays as a thank you for their business. It’s a small nonprofit where I did a database to manage their membership address lists. They won’t have the funds to hire me to come out, at least not much. I wrote them an instruction sheet and they have my email for questions. I’m going to miss them, they are fine people.

I then took myself to lunch at Aladdins where I had green bean stew and rice. That is my “I am so cold I’m unhappy” food. It cheered me right up!

After that I had Foster Center computers and CityKidz Knit! program. One girl brought her grandma who was knitting a scarf. Later a couple of dancers wandered in for a chat, and then another dancer popped in with my belated Christmas present (from last night’s party… the package arrived in the mail from Chicago after our party was done). It was so pleasant. I have somehow created this great space where people enjoy just being there, enjoying one another. I had 9 people today who stuck around, and 3 were adults. The kids really enjoy that, actually.

One girl is about 4th grade but she has really mastered textured yarns. Items some grown up knitters can’t handle, she knits in stride. She made a beautiful wristband today with four strands of yarn. One was a soft mohair and three were cotton or rayon blend yarns with a bit of texture and a lot of color. She is prolific at these small projects and really loves sampling all the textured yarns that arrive.

Another girl, the one who made a backpack not long ago, has decided to make slippers out of garter stitch rectangles (for herself). I think it will work just fine. Garter stretches well and will adapt to her foot. She wants to make a little knitted rosette as well and we talked about different ways she might do that.

I had to cancel my adult computer class that I was to teach tonight. I just didn’t have enough voice to even use my microphone and have them understand me. I’m praying I’ll have more of a voice next week.

So since my friend Marie, who is also a supervisor at JoAnn’s, stopped by my room tonight, she found out I wasn’t working at Foster. She told me they were short handed at JoAnn tonight and suggested I pop by if I wanted some hours. So I went over there dressed in my tunic-length mohair sweater, leggings, hand knit socks and hightop converse allstar shoes (we are supposed to wear a white shirt with collar and sleeves, and black, navy or khaki pants with athletic shoes). And I offered to work. And they took me up on it.

I had a blast. I don’t know why, but I had the time of my life. They were busy at the cutting counter but I couldn’t talk much so I only stepped in there once when the line got long, for a few customers. The rest of the time I was putting fabric away, tidying up, finding things that were put away incorrectly and moving them to the right places. Some customers asked me questions and I helped them. It was clear that they had been short handed and busy at the same time, because I had a lot to do. It was so rewarding. I mean, there is nothing like work where, once you have done it, you can tell what you did. And sometimes there is a fabric you don’t know anything about. It’s like a puzzle to figure out what it is and where it belongs. I just am loving this.