Friday, November 2, 2012
Shopping
Well this evening after dinner Ms. Thing and I went up to a Super Joann's and got the 1 skein of Lion Brand Tweed Stripes that I needed and some new stuff. I got 2 sets of needles, sizes 8 and 9 because I didn't have them. I wanted to go crazy but decided to restrain myself. Ms. Thing had a hard time walking away from the yarn, she loves petting the yarn. I picked up some Bernat Softee Chunky in Denim Ombre. It feels wonderful and so yummy. We played with Deborah Norville's Soft Worsted Weight and some Red Heart Collage. I wanted to take many skeins of both of those home and of course I had to feel the Bernat Roving, which is just SOOOOOOOOO yummy.
Who am I?
So you ask who am I? I am an admitted Yarnaholic. I love going into craft stores of all kinds and as my daughter and I call it, "Pet the pretty yarn". I started working with yarn when I was young, my mother tried to teach me basics when I was in maybe 4th or 5th grade, but I didn't stick with it. I took Home Ec. in Middle School and didn't do well with the embroidery projects and felt I had no talent for anything even remotely having to do with sewing, knitting or other yarn/needlecraft hobbies. Hence I started to turn towards photography, and while I took some amazing pictures, at the time I didn't have the patience to learn about developing the film, much to my own chagrin now since my father had built a wonderful dark room in the basement of my childhood home. I hope to eventually teach myself how to do it. I also started to learn how to bake and cook in Middle School, which I did well and continue to enjoy doing. The other constant in my life then was Music. I was in Chorus and LOVED it! I stayed in Chorus until Sophomore year in High School when I chose to take a Computer Programming class and did quite well. Then the following year the Choral Instructor was on Sabbatical and I tried the next programming course, failed miserably in part due to that teacher not giving me the manual for the newer computers we were using so I understood things better. I quickly soured on programming. The following year I learned our Choral Instructor was no longer going to teach Chorus and therefore never went back to it. I was not a big reader then but am now. We found that my eyes don't track at quite the same speed and the fluorescent lighting that is so affordable for schools to use gave me headaches. So we looked into anti-glare coatings, which were new back in 1987-88, and it worked quite well. I had a very close group of friends, we weren't popular, we weren't jocks, we weren't the off beat underground goth types. We were just average kids, fairly smart and walked our own line through school. I am still friends with most of them but a few have fallen by the wayside.
After High School I took a semester off before I went to college, and had some issues trying to get through it all. I had some thoughts on where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do but had a hard time sticking with it. Had 1 HORRIBLE Pysch. Professor, real pompous ass. Had a GREAT Sociology Professor, really fun! I had a very good History Professor and then transferred to another school and was blessed with a really fun Philosophy and Ethics Prof., the man was a blast!
In all of this I had this yearning to be creative, to express myself and it wasn't until I finally became pregnant with my first child did I start pursuing needlecrafts again. My mother was more of a knitter and I tried but couldn't get the hang of using needles. She suggested I talk to a family friend who was an avid Crocheter to see if that was something I could learn. Well yes I could, I learned it quite quickly and took off. I made a carriage blanket of sorts for my first project in crocheting. I had done a little with plastic canvas work but I wanted something more for my child, something I had made by hand. I have to say it was a gratifying experience and I started crocheting more and more. I found a fantastic book called the "Encyclopedia of 300 Crochet Patterns, Stitches and Designs" by Doris M. Smith. It expanded my understanding of the various stitches so dramatically and exponentially and I had a better repertoire of stitches I could use to make things. Then I noticed that there weren't as many clothing options made from Crocheting Stitches. This got to be a personal frustration over the years. It seemed like the only thing designers thought that people wanted to make was afghans, baby items and scarves. Slowly in the past 10 years more things have come down the line in the way of clothing for Crocheters. I still feel not enough is done for the Crochet Community and with the wider variety of stitches feel it is an under utilized art. One year I found a quick simple wrist warmer/ fingerless glove pattern and many family members got a pair for Christmas.
With all that being said I have learned to do some basic knitting this past February. I kept telling myself I would, I felt I need to learn it just to have a bigger variety of things to make. I felt driven to learn it because I had inherited my Mother's knitting needles. She died 6 months after my Oldest Son was born, and since my sister had no hobbies that involved needle crafts, and I didn't want to see them thrown out I took them and swore to teach myself, after all I had, for the most part, taught myself crochet. But it finally took my Best Friend Kelly coming down in February to visit for me to finally learn. She showed me on a pair of what I refer to as training needles, how to knit and purl. I finally got it. I was off and running. I used YouTube to figure out a few things that she hadn't had time to show me. Bless the internet for that, because I taught myself how to knit the now very popular Ruffle Scarf out of the various new ribbon yarns. I took off on those so fast it was addicting. I sold many of them. Still have several to sell and quite a few skeins of the yarn to knit up. Right now I am working on a scarf for my Youngest Son, from here on out referred to as Brown Eyes, and just finished one for The Oldest. My next project will be for my Daughter, who shall be referred to as Ms. Thing from now on. It is going to be a nifty hat I picked up over on Ravelry and will be done in Crochet.
I never understood the need for blocking in Crochet, since your projects don't tend to curl as much, I now completely understand the need in Knitting. I do hope to expand my knowledge of Knitting to compare with my knowledge of Crochet. I hope you have enjoyed this post of introduction. I will share that Joann's has 25% off your entire purchase coupon for this weekend and yes, I will be going to Pet the Pretty Yarn this weekend sometime with my daughter. I have to get at least 1 skein of yarn to finish the scarf for Brown Eyes because having reviewed my stock I know I don't have quite enough to make a long scarf. The yarn I am using is Lion Brand Tweed Stripes in Marble. I will let you all know what else I pick up, if anything. Let me say there will be other things posted on here, so please understand that though this is titled Yarnaholic's Diary, the fact that Diary is in the title means, to me, that there will be other things beyond my Yarn Addiction posted on here. I hope you come back.
After High School I took a semester off before I went to college, and had some issues trying to get through it all. I had some thoughts on where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do but had a hard time sticking with it. Had 1 HORRIBLE Pysch. Professor, real pompous ass. Had a GREAT Sociology Professor, really fun! I had a very good History Professor and then transferred to another school and was blessed with a really fun Philosophy and Ethics Prof., the man was a blast!
In all of this I had this yearning to be creative, to express myself and it wasn't until I finally became pregnant with my first child did I start pursuing needlecrafts again. My mother was more of a knitter and I tried but couldn't get the hang of using needles. She suggested I talk to a family friend who was an avid Crocheter to see if that was something I could learn. Well yes I could, I learned it quite quickly and took off. I made a carriage blanket of sorts for my first project in crocheting. I had done a little with plastic canvas work but I wanted something more for my child, something I had made by hand. I have to say it was a gratifying experience and I started crocheting more and more. I found a fantastic book called the "Encyclopedia of 300 Crochet Patterns, Stitches and Designs" by Doris M. Smith. It expanded my understanding of the various stitches so dramatically and exponentially and I had a better repertoire of stitches I could use to make things. Then I noticed that there weren't as many clothing options made from Crocheting Stitches. This got to be a personal frustration over the years. It seemed like the only thing designers thought that people wanted to make was afghans, baby items and scarves. Slowly in the past 10 years more things have come down the line in the way of clothing for Crocheters. I still feel not enough is done for the Crochet Community and with the wider variety of stitches feel it is an under utilized art. One year I found a quick simple wrist warmer/ fingerless glove pattern and many family members got a pair for Christmas.
With all that being said I have learned to do some basic knitting this past February. I kept telling myself I would, I felt I need to learn it just to have a bigger variety of things to make. I felt driven to learn it because I had inherited my Mother's knitting needles. She died 6 months after my Oldest Son was born, and since my sister had no hobbies that involved needle crafts, and I didn't want to see them thrown out I took them and swore to teach myself, after all I had, for the most part, taught myself crochet. But it finally took my Best Friend Kelly coming down in February to visit for me to finally learn. She showed me on a pair of what I refer to as training needles, how to knit and purl. I finally got it. I was off and running. I used YouTube to figure out a few things that she hadn't had time to show me. Bless the internet for that, because I taught myself how to knit the now very popular Ruffle Scarf out of the various new ribbon yarns. I took off on those so fast it was addicting. I sold many of them. Still have several to sell and quite a few skeins of the yarn to knit up. Right now I am working on a scarf for my Youngest Son, from here on out referred to as Brown Eyes, and just finished one for The Oldest. My next project will be for my Daughter, who shall be referred to as Ms. Thing from now on. It is going to be a nifty hat I picked up over on Ravelry and will be done in Crochet.
I never understood the need for blocking in Crochet, since your projects don't tend to curl as much, I now completely understand the need in Knitting. I do hope to expand my knowledge of Knitting to compare with my knowledge of Crochet. I hope you have enjoyed this post of introduction. I will share that Joann's has 25% off your entire purchase coupon for this weekend and yes, I will be going to Pet the Pretty Yarn this weekend sometime with my daughter. I have to get at least 1 skein of yarn to finish the scarf for Brown Eyes because having reviewed my stock I know I don't have quite enough to make a long scarf. The yarn I am using is Lion Brand Tweed Stripes in Marble. I will let you all know what else I pick up, if anything. Let me say there will be other things posted on here, so please understand that though this is titled Yarnaholic's Diary, the fact that Diary is in the title means, to me, that there will be other things beyond my Yarn Addiction posted on here. I hope you come back.
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