I was going to ask you today if you have any friends who make things, and then I remembered that you’re (mostly) all knitters and mostly you all have a knitter friend, so yeah. I guess you have friends who make things. More specifically, I was going to ask if you have friends who make things and give them to you… which is a whole other kettle of fish and one you would consider yourself lucky to be in.
I have friends who make things and give them to me. I have a cowl Denny knit, a scarf Rachel H made, Abby sent me her book Respect the Spindle
I have sort of a yarn "thing". I have a hard time knitting it. I love and respect yarn for what it is, and that can make it hard to use it up, because as much as I love knitting and knitted stuff, I feel like yarn is this massive ark of potential. It sits there, and it could be anything. There’s a whole story embedded in it and there’s no way to know what it is, and I just love that. Once you knit it, that story is told… and you don’t have yarn anymore. Sure, you have something else (or Rachel H does, if it’s another sweater I’ve knit that looks better on her than it does on me) and that’s great too, but it isn’t lost on me that yarn stops being yarn when you knit it, and if someone gave me yarn, then I really often have a hard time knitting it up, because yarn is forever baby… but socks get holes.
This yarn "thing" creates a huge problem if one of your friends makes you yarn- like my friend Tina does. Back when I was buying her yarn all the time it was bad enough, but now that the occasional skein arrives here that she dyed just for me… well. Those skeins don’t hardly ever get knit. Tina sends me skeins of yarn the way that other people send letters or postcards. It’s like communication for her. Other people might tell you that they’re thinking about a trip to the sea, Tina just mails a skein of ocean coloured yarn. Other friends might tell you that they loved making gingerbread as a child, Tina sends you a skein of gingerbread inspired yarn. It’s like a bizarre sort of fibre-based post-it notes or something. I love it. I love it so much that I signed up, years ago – before we were friends, for the Rockin’ Sock Club, sensing, I think – that dyeing yarn was more than just dyeing yarn to her… that it was extra nifty. I’ve been a member for years, and as we’ve come to have a friendship as well, the sock club has become more than that to me. I even designed for it a few times, and that added another layer of fun to it. The one thing I noticed though, is that my yarn "thing" really comes into it. Tina sends the packages, and I open them, and look at the yarn and read the dyers notes and see what they designers have cooked up to go with her yarn and then… then the little yarn fetish kicks in, and even though there’s always more to be had, I can’t knit it. I hoard it. I have a whole bagful, and I keep the patterns all organizer in a binder and I look at them all the time, but there they sit.
So then this year (the year of our new plumbing, furnace and appliances) I thought that maybe this is the year that I give it a rest. I thought that if I’m not going to knit the stuff that comes (or at least, not knit it much) why not skip the club this year- and then it hit me. (Let’s not complicate it with the fact that the club is really cool this year, and I’d be a fool to quit the year that she has Meg Swansen) I can’t skip it. It’s stuff my friend makes, it’s a little postcard from her every two months, and really…
I just like seeing how she thinks. It’s her making stuff. It would be like telling Denny I didn’t want a cowl, or Rachel that I didn’t want a scarf, or telling Abby or Yarn-a-go-go Rachel that I don’t want to see their books. It’s Tina’s stuff, it’s one of a kind, it’s the little piece of her that she’s putting out in the world and dudes, I love it. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Signing up. Again. We’ve all got our reasons for being in yarn clubs… those are mine.
Send the yarn.
Ps. sorry for the lack of pictures. I can’t find the stupid camera cable. Here’s a picture of Hank and Megan’s gingerbread house for this year to make up for it.
They had snowman shaped sprinkles. It was a masterpiece.
I love how you think. I too think there is yarn in my bin that I just cannot knit – thanks for justifiying that for me 🙂 I too hate love stories – I guess this book is a must read. So glad you are blogging 🙂
Vanessa in Upstate NY
Very cunning. I’d been meaning to take the leftover twiddly-bits of one-ply from that cabled sock yarn and cable *them* for toe and heel yarn but somehow, um, hadn’t quite gotten around …
Cabled toe and heel yarn a’comin’. Just as soon as I find an archival bell jar for it…
Many of my friends (and family) actually don’t make things that they give away, but I understand the problem with yarn so unique that you hate to commit it to a particular object.
BTW, I used some fiber to patch a sock on the brink of getting a hole. So if you hate to darn, there are other options.
Can I be Tina’s friend? 🙂
I did hint broadly that people buy me yarn and I did receive a fairisle lap top bag knit up my daughter-who-loves-a-challenge. It’s not quite finished yet and she has to steek it which is where she is braver than me. I’d have to lie down at the thought of steeking anything.
Great to see Hank again!! Nice picture of Megan and Hank with the masterpiece!
I have a friend who makes and gives me jewlery…!!!!
’tis the season to consider thinning the stash, I recognize, so maybe your friends who communicate in yarn could send you bobbin-sized yarn messages. You can always buy it from them (in Tina’s case…) if you are inspired to break the bond with the yarn, and make something amazing with it. But if not, you can store a more manageably sized memory box of yarn on bobbins, or something to that effect. I am actually picturing a bolster pillow type flower box with ample buds of yarn pinned to it. Mmmm. A sight to soothe sore eyes!
No, I do have some friends who make stuff, but I’m the one who makes stuff for other people. But I know what you mean about the yarn/handmade thing being like a kind of postcard though.
“Yarn is forever baby… but socks get holes” is a good example of why I love your blog and your books. What wonderful use of language! Notice that I didn’t use an actual term because I can’t decide exactly what applies–metaphor and what?
I have a ton of yarn like that – it’s like I am waiting for it to tell me what it wants to be (I know you are sock yarn – are you sure that’s what you want to be? Think it over. There’s no hurry.)
Also: I LOVE HANK!!!! And Meg is v. pretty also.
After meeting Tina and watching her create at Knot Hysteria, I can certainly understand your feelings about knitting up her gifts.
We dyed a lot of yarn there and my first hank was dyed with colors that I thought were ugly but they have grown on me. I cannot bring myself to knit up my ugly duckling yarn. You are right, knitting is so…permenant.
I agree. And, Hank is the cutest little boy ever!
I’m just the opposite with gift yarn – I’m always so excited to use it (and show the giver how much I love it) by casting on right away! Even when I already have a great big pile of unfinished projects waiting for me. 😉
I totally get this.
I’m happy to see Hank again; he’s such a sweetheart! He always looks so happy! And I completely understand the “can’t knit with gift yarn thing”; it’s as if I’m afraid to cast on the wrong thing. What if I totally mess it up? Yarn has such potential, what if I consign it to being something less than what it could be, something mediocre? So much pressure. Besides, it looks so pretty in the skein… 😉
I absolutely understand. Yarn is sometimes for knitting and sometimes just for being. It’s complete in itself, it’s art, it’s inspiration–especially Tina’s. Keep the yarn and don’t apologize.
PS How adorable is Hank!?!
WOOOOOOOOOOOT!
I sometimes wish I had friends who make things and give them to me, but alas I’m the only real crafty one in my group of friends so I’m the one who makes and gives.
By the way, you helped my husband push me over the edge into weaving. I had been looking and talking myself out of making the jump and then I read your post on the scarf on the Cricket and almost made the retreat one last time. My husband caught me looking and pushed me over the edge. He bought me a Cricket for Christmas. Thank you Stephanie. I love it.
Go to eyefi.com or amazon and get the eyefi card for your camera and you’ll never need to find the stupid cord again. It uses your wireless network to upload your pictures from your camera to your computer and it’s totally amazing. I’m assuming you have a wireless network in your house. Hope so because this little SD card is the coolest.
I stopped getting Tina’s sock yarn club b/c I wasn’t knitting it either (although touching and admiring it greatly). But I just can’t afford stash enhancement any more. I miss those bimonthly packages so much I can’t even tell you. Unemployment sucks.!
That is one fine gingerbread house and two fine kids.
I’m being ruthless with the yarn thing. When I couldn’t close the closet doors enough was enough, plus I want to move this year and yarn, while light, takes up lots of room in the moving van. So one of my Mission 101 goals is to knit out or otherwise clean up my stash. And there are two lots of yarn in there whose colors and textures I love — and for which I just cannot figure out a pattern to use. But I have to.
There is some yarn (and fiber) in my stash like that. Since I’m really trying to shop stash first, I’m thinking that those special yarns and fibers could be used, but that I could put a bit aside to save for the memories. The thought just occurred to me that I could actually make up a swatch and turn it into one of those cute little bunnies. Then, of course, you have a whack of little bunnies, but no plan is perfect.
I recently knitted up a much-beloved yarn into a scarf, finished it, blocked it, and knew I’d never use it. To honor the yarn, I carefully frogged the whole thing, and reknit a completely different scarf which I love and will wear! I don’t know that I’d do this for a yarn I didn’t LOVE. I don’t even read books I love more than once…
I would knit the yarn and wear it proudly just because I want everyone to see what beautiful things my friends can make. Even though I would knit it up, I would wear it to show off the yarn so I would be happy that I’m showing off my friend’s talent.
Knit it up! un-knit yarn ends up stuck in the dark where nobody sees it.
Hank has grown up so much – what a cool dude. And your daughter. Oh my. I have one of my own, so I understand. It is a wonderful thing to watch them become women, and most especially women that we like. I am glad you are back online, and hope that your challenging year has brought you (even greater) strength and at the very least some stories that will bring a few laughs in the telling, once they have had the chance to marinate with the passage of time.
Your yarn (story) is great, too. I hardly ever knit from my own handspun for the same reason – then the yarn is gone. I guess the plus side to that is the useful garmet and the space liberated in the handspun bin for MORE YARN.
This year my daughter-in law gave me her 12 days of Christmas Cookies ( a huge undertaking since last November she gave us a grandson) and my son gave me some pear-ginger jam he made (also a huge undertaking since his just a tick over one year old is getting his molars). I am hoping to take care of mister man so I can give them each a nap. The said sock club is getting slammed with people reminds me of another day. Glad you all are so popular.
Please add $55 to “Doctors Without Borders” Also, know that you are enjoyed and supported, with much appreciation.
Wow, this describes my feelings for my stash so well! I always want to find the perfect project and it makes it hard to actually knit with my favorite yarns… Skeins are just awesome! Wish I had friends who sent me yarn in the mail… maybe a yarn club is in my future…
You are Awesome!
I guess I should count myself lucky that I don’t have friends who make me things… just friends who ask me to make them things!
I call my stash wall “The Wall of Potential”!
I have yarn like that too. Pet yarn? Memory yarn, too special to knit yarn. 🙂 I have yarn I’ve bought that was purchased just because it was different,excruciatingly beautiful,or called to me. I have trouble turning skeins into balls sometimes, because they won’t be the beautifully wound skeins, then. I love the infinite look of a skein. I’m happy to discover that I’m not alone in this!!! I have a bag of amazing soft green baby alpaca that friends brought me from their native Peru! They inquire as to what this yarn has become! How can I explain that it might be too special to knit? It is perfect as it is. And extra wonderful because it came from them, from Peru! I know lots of yarn comes from Peru. But this yarn came right from Peru directly to me. It makes a difference somehow.
Forgot to say how much I loved the gingerbread house and the two smiling faces. For years we made them every year,walls and all. My son’s always ate them starting the day after Christmas. They are now 29 and 32 and I think the houses are coming back for next year. We put a light in them and they made the house and they made the house smell like Christmas.Thanks for sharing with all of us.
I have a new work friend who makes jewelry. I was amazed and touched when she gave me a beautiful matching set of earrings and a necklace for Christmas. I am often hesitant to give people knitted gifts because I don’t want them to feel obligated to where it in my presence, or to tell me they like it when they don’t. But my jewelry-making friend helped me realize that getting a gift from a craft category that you don’t participate in is a beautiful moment – now I can’t wait to knit something for her!
I’m there with ya, sister. Some yarn is just too pretty to look at as is.
Also: just when I was getting used to the concept that your daughters are changing and growing into young women, you show us Hank again, who seems to have gotten twice as tall overnight! What a charming photo!
Happy New Year! Remember to breathe!
Am I first? Really?
Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie – you spelt Rachel’s name Rachel, and her book spells Rachael’s name Rachael. Which one is correct? Usually with names it is one spelling or another – or perhaps Rach/ael is so amazing that she has ?American/English spelling to her name. I’m sorry, I can’t help it, it is the typist in me.
No, I don’t have friends who make me things, but I do have friends/relations who enable me to link to, or give me gift money so that I can buy beautiful yarn for myself, however this does lead to many hours dreaming of yarn, but I think that goes with the territory. I also have ‘online friends’ who lead me into challenging territory – yes, I could be talking about learning to knit socks and view yarn online.
I forced myself, after many months of your very own reasoning, to knit your very own one-row scarf from your very own handspun. It’s been out in the world, but then it began to show tiny signs of wear. I couldn’t help myself — I took it off my coat, folded it very precisely, and put it in a clear plastic bag. Now it’s back in the shrine from whence it came.
Shrine yarn is okay with me. The trick is making sure that it’s not the whole stash.
I’ve just accepted that some yarn is too pretty for me to knit. I have big glass vases and vessels around the house showing the yarn off. It is too beautiful not to be on display. I swap out the yarn once in a while to show things off. Tina’s yarn is frequently the subject of honor.
Megan looks so grown up! And Hank, well, i just really love him! Of course, i don’t actually KNOW him, but as the mother of sons… i feel the connection! 🙂
Hmm. I do have yarn that is incredibly gorgeous in the skein, but I dunno, thinking yarn is too beautiful to knit is sort of like thinking handknit socks are too precious to wear, isn’t it? Of course, gorgeous yarn needs the perfect matching project, so it can take time…
The creation is great, and I got a loom for Christmas so I am going to be a weaver soon. How is your weaving? I’d love to see pics of what people got for Christmas if you can find the cord.I know you are a friend who makes things and the rest of us want to peek.
My great aunt would always make beautiful things & insist that they were made to be used. I try to follow that but 18 years later I have still not been able to use the cream coloured cutwork lace tablecloth she made for my 21st birthday. It had been a WIP for her for almost 20 years!
I understand how you don’t want to destroy the yarn’s potential. I often feel that way too.
But look at it another way.
How would you feel if a person you knitted something for would not wear it because they were afraid it would eventually wear out.
I love to give the things that I have knit to my knitworthy knitting friends. Generally I give them something that they have gushed over at SnB. And, for me, that makes it doubly nice when I see their expression as the realization hits them that I made the socks, or whatever, for them.
I, too, have yarn that I have always felt is too pretty to knit. But this year I am going to make a sincere effort to find the perfect pattern that the yarn needs and knit up some things that are too pretty to wear. It’s a battle, isn’t it?
I love the gingerbread house. It is so much better than mine have ever been. I’m sure that you’ll find a use for the postcard yarn….even if it’s just insulating you with love.
I have no trouble knitting up beautiful yarn, but giving away the end product???? Give away my BABIES??? I can’t seem to do that. I have a drawer FULL of scarves and shawls, and two drawers full of hand knit socks. I can’t even bring myself to wear some of them, let alone give them away. I have my own special kind of crazy.
I would love for anyone to make something for me. Most of my friends are non-knitters, but there are a few. Some of my friends are beaders. But in both groups, the feeling seems to be that since I have more experience and make things, that I wouldn’t want what they make. And that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
I love what technikat said…my husband did that with the socks I made for him and I finally had to tell him that the best compliment that he could give me would be for the socks to get holes, because it meant that he loved them and wore them so much. I finally convinced him, after he saw me hug my younger son for wearing his out because he wore them to death (they will be darned, don’t they get that?).
Hi! I have added another layer to this sort of thing – I have yarn that I take out and look at and swatch and plan for. Then the project get several layers more complicated – it needs another color or the pattern I want won’t happen in the gauge of the yarn I had in mind… Consequently the yarn seldom gets knitted. Just hangs around and gets admired and dreamed of…
That said, I’d sign up for Rockin Sock Club in a heartbeat if finances permitted. Maybe she would take yarn in barter?
Hand knit socks don’t have to get holes if you just admire them. I sort of seem to admire them more than wear them. Maybe like you and the yarn thing.
I have friends who make me things, BUT only one who knits me things. That one friend also gave me Knitted Lace of Estonia and I gave her Respect The Spindle. I haven’t enough nerve to try Nancy Bush’s patterns yet. I keep reading them and salivating over the designs. However, I LOVE Tina’s Socks That Rock lightweight and today was the red letter day that I joined the Sock Club for the first time. I’m half excited and half scared out of my mind. Here I am-waiting, waiting, waiting; it’s as bad as Christmas. Which reminds me-I must take down the Christmas tree soon. Cheers and red wine, Hazel.
That’s a fab gingerbread house!!!
I get like that about yarn too, and I buy mine, it’s not treasured gifts from friends, so I totally get where you’re coming from with that!
I was lucky enough to get two handmade gifts from friends – a fab pair of fingerless mitts from Lisa, and a cute little christmas pudding from Kathryn – and I do consider myself very lucky………I know how much work went in to these things, and I’m blown away that they spent the time and effort to make them for me.
Yes, a skein of yarn is vast potential! That’s how I felt about my babies, too. Everything was possible, and then things start to narrow down until they get to be who they’re going to be. But from the first “boy or girl” question, to being born, to realizing you can’t control what they’re going to be…fascinating.
And even I, the non-stasher, have a few skeins that I just can’t knit. I got them at Sock Summit!
“A massive ark of potential”…ouch a) that’s why our stashes happen..”I’m waiting for just the right pattern is really an excuse.” God forbid you use the yarn for a pullover and it turns out to be just the yarn you should have used for the dynamite cardigan pattern you find,and b)if you’re not careful that can become your life. It took me over twenty years to finish my degree becouse there were too many potentials out there and heaven forbid I close the door on any one of them! This is why our children inherit stashes of ginoromous sizes!
As to handmade gifts….when I was pregnant with my daughter only one friend made me something. Everyone else said, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly make anything as nice as what you made for my child so I didn’t even try.” They just didn’t get it. Lucky you! The only person who makes things for me now is that same daughter, now 31 years old who gives me a beautiful pair of socks every year for Christmas (Honey, are you listening?) as well as the occasional scarf, hat or shawl. She’s an exceptional knitter even though she wouldn’t let me teach her when she was a kid. It took college and THE KNITTING GODDESS (I think that’s the title)to get her going.
By the way she has an eat her cake and keep it too solution. All leftover sock yarn become small balls destined for a large display jar in the living room.
“yarn is forever baby… but socks get holes”…Genius!
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to learn how to darn socks. This is something I don’t tell most of my friends.
“A massive ark of potential”…ouch a) that’s why our stashes happen..”I’m waiting for just the right pattern is really an excuse.” God forbid you use the yarn for a pullover and it turns out to be just the yarn you should have used for the dynamite cardigan pattern you find,and b)if you’re not careful that can become your life. It took me over twenty years to finish my degree becouse there were too many potentials out there and heaven forbid I close the door on any one of them! This is why our children inherit stashes of ginoromous sizes!
As to handmade gifts….when I was pregnant with my daughter only one friend made me something. Everyone else said, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly make anything as nice as what you made for my child so I didn’t even try.” They just didn’t get it. Lucky you! The only person who makes things for me now is that same daughter, now 31 years old who gives me a beautiful pair of socks every year for Christmas (Honey, are you listening?) as well as the occasional scarf, hat or shawl. She’s an exceptional knitter even though she wouldn’t let me teach her when she was a kid. It took college and THE KNITTING GODDESS (I think that’s the title)to get her going.
By the way she has an eat her cake and keep it too solution. All leftover sock yarn become small balls destined for a large display jar in the living room.
I dare you to show us your whole stash.
😉
I’ll show you mine.
😉
I feel the same way about geodes..never crack them open….just in case there is not much there…far better to imagine something spectactular
This post made me smile … having finally persuaded my family that yes, I’d really love more yarn, I know I am never going to knit up the first skein of silk and cashmere my daughter bought me for Christmas (nor the hanks bought by my son!).
The other thing that makes me smile, is that I sit here in the UK, pleased I have yarn, pleased I am knitting and then a little tweet comes in and I know that a long way away there is another knitter, who experiences similar paths to some of my life’s journeys … it’s like invisible knitting across the globe.
I love it!
Hi Stephanie,
Is it possible that this post not be posted? I know that sounds awful, but it’s just that this would be private.
You have be thinking about my own stash, which is monstrously large.
I am not looking to simply give this all away, and quite honestly I do enjoy having it all. However, I am trying to de-clutter the house and so…
I was wondering if you were to find yourself west of Boston (I live in Boxborough, MA) if you might like to come for a cup of tea and see what you’d like from my stash.
Please forgive me if I’m bothering you. I was just thinking that you knit like a demon and I have a ton of yarn…
Any interest?
Peg Van Andel
Sorry to be so gabby today. The yarn that I always hesitate to knit up is Hand Maiden’s Casbah. The colours literally leave me breathless. I want to have those skeins in front of me so that my eyes can feast on the colours. I don’t even want to turn them into balls or cakes. Eventually I do knit some of them, but I always order more so that I have lots of eye candy on hand. Once it’s knitted into a sock OR a Pretty Thing Cowl I revel in the softness and the density of the fabric that I’ve created. With Tina’s yarn, I want to cast on a sock immediately. E strano….
I have lost beautiful yarn to cats, moths, and water damage over the years. So my goal from last year is to no longer hoard it. I am trying to knit up some of my favorites, give away the yarn I can’t imagine using anymore and more judiciously purchase only yarn I have an immediate plan for using. Time will tell how successful I am.
So glad you are back posting. Have a blessed New Year!
My DD (dearest daughter) the Art Teacher has given me pieces of her artwork for the last three Christmases; this year it was a cube shaped ornament made and painted in the style of Mexican tin work. But the most precious thing about it was that the design on each side was in the shape of one of the cherished Christmas cookies we have made in my family since I was a little girl. The tradition continues; how special is that? Here’s to homemade gifts….
I get it. I have maker friends who gift me with goodies, and I come from a maker family (on mom AND dad’s side), so I have lovelies from family, too. I think those of use with maker friends and/or family are so lucky! Here are a couple yarn ideas: use a few skeins as a centerpiece in a pretty bowl. Change them out every month or so. Or, open up one of the skeins and wear it as a multi-strand necklace/cowl. A friend of mine bought a gorgeous skein of art yarn at a retreat and wore it this way the rest of the day. It looked fabulous! Double the skein up if you need to, so it’s not getting caught on things as you go about your business.
My family is awesomely crafty. My sister designs and makes fabulous jewelry, as well as all-natural soaps and herbal lotions. My mom sews and quilts and knits. My dad does leatherwork and woodwork, restores antique furniture and builds boats. (Look on the bright side…gift yarn is a lot easier to store than a gift boat! Really!)
I must admit I don’t have any yarn that’s too special to knit, it’s just not one of my quirks. My thing is books…I have to really struggle to get rid of books, even if they were awful and I’m pretty sure…really, almost positive…practically certain that I’ll never want to read them again.
I am primarily a scrapbooker, rather than a knitter, although I do occasionally knit something (and then scrapbook about it), but I feel the exact same way about a really beautiful patterned paper or embellishment. Like I could never make a page beautiful enough to be worthy of that product. And I’ve never had a scrapbooking friend make me anything. Hmm, it must not be the same as knitters….
Just trying to knit faster to get the stash manageable. I have problems w/figuring out what to knit w/gift yarn. I always plan my purchases around a pattern/plan for use. Love the idea of putting small balls of scrap yarn in large jar or glass lamp base. Also have heard of putting snippets of yarn in glass ornament bulbs(balls).
I had an art class (of sorts) a few years ago and got really interested in the difference between yarn as linear and yarn as object. I’ve probably put more thought into it than is of practical value. Myself and two friends did a project exploring these concepts that involved a long walk on a chilly day, dirtying up some yarn and got some amazing images out of it, overall a good piece. Knitting things up is a pretty interesting process, I agree with you on the “yarn thing”.
Hope your situation is resolving itself in the most positive way possible. The internet is quiet when you aren’t around.
I’m not a stasher by nature, but there is some yarn that is just too perfect to knit. I usually gift that over to my stasher friends, though. 😀
My bff gave me a quilt this year – thie first quilt she has EVER made. I was so incredibly honored I hardly knew what to say other than babble “THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!”
I’m looking for this sock clubs pictures… I can’t seem to find any…
I’ll miss Tina’s yarn postcards this year but the financial situation won’t permit a yarn club this time around. I’ll survive but it won’t be easy.
Get some handy friend to make a shadowbox for you — some sort of blond wood-framed, glass-enclosed thingie that can be opened and closed, and set anywhere — on the mantel, next to the bed, in your lap. Roving eye candy. (Which isn’t roving, but this could be another thing to do with roving.)
Or knit up the patterns and then put the results in the shadowbox. If you do knit some of it, then you have the option of displaying it as art or just plain USING it as wearable art — like a quilt. I’m guessing it’s a pleasure to knit.
Process, not product … you can become part of the process by knitting the yarn. You can also unravel it and skein it back up if you want. What a flexible, crazy gift! I might have to join.
Is Hank a swimmer? Is that swimmer hair I see? Kid needs a hat for the meets.
The smiles in their eyes, with their creation in front of them and the two of them having worked on it together, says it all. This is why we knit the good stuff when we do knit the good stuff. To see the faces of our loved ones light up like that.
…Which I remind myself of while wondering why some of my favorite yarns are still waiting, just like yours…
I know exactly what you mean about the yarn. A skein of yarn is full of infinite possibilities. It can be ANYTHING. And once it’s knit, it’s not yarn anymore. I feel so good knowing there is someone out there who feels the same way I do. There’s someone out there who “gets” me.
Here’s a thought…if you can’t knit up all of that wonderful yarn goodness, just feel free to send it down to Florida. Your friend will never be the wiser as I can keep my mouth shut. The yarn will get knit up, your guilt will be eased, and I will be happy too! Think about it. Let me know what you decide. heehee
I found a great way to reduce my stash: During January, I make hats for chemotherapy patients. In 2007, I made 44, and I made 42 in 2008. So far this year, I have 6, and am hoping to be in the same range as last year. I then take them to a local oncology clinic for distribution to patients. This seriously reduces my stash, and helps keep those tender heads warm at the coldest time of the year. As you can see, my stash never gets too far out of hand this way. I have a similar feeling of establishing a personal relationship with my yarn, but try to balance it with the knowledge that textiles have a limited life. Ultimately they will turn to brittle straw. It is important to do something with them now, so they will get a lot of use and admiration during their limited lifespans.
I modified the EZ Watch Cap pattern for the winter hat. This is made with triple strands and size 15 needles. I can make one in an evening. It is fun and interesting to blend yarns. I am thinking about putting buttons on some of them. Last year, I made one hat for a child, and will probably do so again this year. Recently I found 2 ravelry patterns for summer chemo hats. I will try them and decide which is better. If one of them works out, I will be able to thin out the cotton stash as well.
Good lord, Hank is so CUTE!
Snowman sprinkles! Why do kids get all the good stuff?
I have “that” kind of yarn, too. And the souvenir yarn. Just don’t tell my husband, okay? He thinks every skein I buy I intend to knit it into something. Silly, silly man.
It’s good to have you back. I hope that all is well for you and your family.
Snowman shaped sprinkles are awesome! I need to find some of those.
I have a few skeins that I’m sitting on right now, that I almost don’t want to crochet anything with. They’re just so pretty, and soft, and smooshy…
*cough*
This is why I make shawls with sock yarn. I get to touch it constantly, and, unless you’re using it to taunt bulls, it’s pretty hard to wear a hole in a shawl. ^-^
Thanks so much, you just deftly put into words my attitude toward yarn. Nice going!
Don’t give yourself a difficult time about cherishing the items from friends that you adore. I am one of those sad people that does not receive items from my friends – I am not the only knitter in my circle but apparently no one sees fit to gift .. so really you are very fortunate!
I envy you Tina! If only I had a friend to send me yarn like post it notes! 🙂 Hank is so cute, I think you should knit him something with some of Tina’s yarns. Anything knit for a child is sure to continue in some kind of story!
My attitude toward this is somewhat different, I guess because I make and sell yarn. When someone buys yarn from me, I hope they’ll make something from it. That’s what I made it for — to be used. Each skein of yarn is like one of my children. It goes off into the world to lead its own life and live its own adventures. I want it to have a good life, not just sit on a shelf.
Handmade gifts are the ones that count the most and are cherished the most in our home. There are some yarns, some that I’ve purchased, some that were gifts, that must be held in reserve until just the right time. Furthermore, as someone who knits and receives many requests from non-knitters to make something for “a friend’s, daughter’s baby”, etc. I’ve come to cherish those special skeins even more and tend to hoard them. If, and only if, I feel the recipient will truly cherish my time and the materials will I even consider using special yarns.
OMG LOOK HOW GROWN UP HANK IS!!!!!!!
I can’t believe how big Hank has gotten!
And here I was dithering over whether to sign up for the sock club again this year for the exact. same. reason. You may have tipped the scales…
I love seeing pictures of Hank because my son is almost the same age. Aren’t kids funny when they first get their grownup teeth, but their heads haven’t grown into them yet?
Lovely tribute to your friendship with Tina. I give away handknit things, and books I have read and loved. I never have any of the good ones (handknits or books) myself because I give them away. Have you ever read “Ahab’s Wife?”
All kid-made gingerbread houses are perfect masterpieces. The men in my extended family were foolish enough to set up a “competition” between the kids. The results were: the crazy boy one with upside down trees and so much frosting that the roof fell down 5 minutes after judging, the incredibly perfect girly-girl one with each shingle outlined and perfect sugar cone trees, and a tomboy one that was sugarcoated fun – all candy all the time, wherever it could be stuck. How to judge? The men back-pedalled wildly and declared 3 prizes, which satisfied no one! kids are smart…Anyways, it’s all about respecting the creative process.
I think I want Tina to be my friend, too.
OMG –I’m so in that space. Roxie and Needletart and Galad have all sent me yarn. I can’t use it. It’s hand spun, it’s beautiful, it’s hand-dyed… it’s FROM THEM! Can’t do it. Sorry. It’s precious and I will not use it.
Oh my goodness! Hank is getting so big and handsome. 🙂
Gee, thanks for posting this, Stephanie. I wasn’t going to sign up this year, either. Now, how can I NOT sign up… sigh!
XOXOXOX
Maria
I have one skein of (I think) Thistle colorway Lorna’s Laces from Baadeck yarns. I got it when we were on a trip there a couple of years ago. “Socks,” I thought. It still sits, wound into a ball, a reminder of a wonderful trip and a wonderful place and a time when the light seemed just perfect as it hit the basket of yarn. One of these days, I really need to send them an email and order another skein or two of it so I might actually be able to knit some. This one is the best postcard or picture I have of that trip. You’re not alone. And yay for the RSC–I got signed up. Whoop!
I don’t get gifted handmade things either — but I love seeing how much my gifts to others make them happy. In the interest of saving my financial life I wasn’t going to re-up the NSK sock club this year — but like you — when I saw that Meg Swansen was designing . . .
how could I not? But this is the last 6 skeins of yarn I am buying this year!!!! (I hope)
You got me … I was going to take a pass on the Rockin Sock Club this year – what with my huge stash after SS09 and my membership in the 09 club and a couple of other sources … but your post persuaded me that in spite of the stash I didn’t want to miss the new club ! Tina owes you a few of those random skeins for sure !
I love anything about Hank, including this picture! He just makes me smile
Someone else who feels about yarn like I do! I have all this hand spun that I’m reluctant to even swatch — because if I like it and knit it up, then I won’t have the yarn anymore.
I think it must be how hoarders feel. “Can’t use that; I might need it later.”
Patsy
Those kids! Such cuties! Hug them both for us!
Maybe it’s like Michaelangelo and you have to see the statue in the marble and knit it out….
Love the gingerbread house. Looks like Hank and Megan had a blast making that.
For what it’s worth, Two of my most treasured childhood gifts were made for me by folks who loved me lots. (It doesn’t hurt to come from a family full of people who like to cook and do crafty things, either.) Actually I seem to be fairly surrounded by such folk. That said, just within the last two hours, I completed a shawl for my nearly 97 year-old gran. I made it out of yarn that has been storing its potential for a good three years at least. It briefly considered becoming a sweater and had a very brief stint as the beginnings of a hat, but none of that seemed quite right. Then over the holidays I realized Grandmother needed something super soft and cozy and it just clicked. Now that I’ve made it, I can’t imagine the yarn being used for anything else. Sometimes I think the yarn knows better than I do, so until it dawns on me, I just buy the fibre I’m pulled toward and wait for the woolen epiphany.
My problem is the yarn that I buy for my own personal self. I’ve made some pretty fantastically well received things for family , and I just have yet to find the projects that I will be that insanely happy about. If I’m going to splurge for yarn for myself, the project I pick is gonna have to be pretty darn good. Especially because no one really makes stuff for me.
And Megan and Hank? So cute, both of them. Love the gingerbread house.
LOL! I have a ROOM full of beautiful yarn (no kidding – all in well-organized see-through pull out drawers)that I sometimes go to for projects (like Christmas). But I MAINLY use the room and the yarn to go to after a hard day a work (I’m an infection control nurse, nothing more needs to be said!)or when I need a “lift” – I open the drawers an feel the wool and look at the beautiful colors and suddenly, all is right with the world again! I believe that I was meant to buy yarn for the purpose of making me feel good, not necessarily to always use it. (Note: My husband does not understand this). Glad to hear from you again Stephanie!
no I get it – we all do this organizing stash thing, put it out so we can see it and think people with a house full of figurines are crazy but really, we’re the same! I have to stop myself from getting more yarn when moremore and more project ideas get abandoned every day! yarn is a million possibilities though, and i do like it that way.
Hank! How we have missed you. You look great (as does your cousin, too – of course).
I hope I can say this without sounding totally creepy, but I have a bit of a crush on Hank.
A masterpiece indeed! Although Meg and Hank really hold those titles.
Hank is still the cutest kid EVAR! (bear in mind I raised a boy, too….don’t tell him I said this!)
oh, hello to the beautiful faces of Megan and Hank – what an exquisite pair. Yes, I love yarn, as yarn. Sometimes I feel as if my heart is breaking when I just know a certain skein or skeins are perfect beyond perfect for someone. Sometimes, even then, the yarn remains and I am inspired to find go to the wool stores and look for that same song…and hopefully knit that up 🙂
I know what you mean, but this article about “pleasure procrastinators” is pretty compelling:
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/procrastrinating-pleasure/
There are stories waiting to be born!
No, no, no, you CAN’T just save a little bit of a yarn you love; you have to save the whole skein! I refuse to admit how much String Theory and Blue Moon and Fleece Artist I have but don’t knit with; it’s my own personal yarn museum, and I love every gram of it.
It really is the best kind of postcard. And I haven’t knit any of my club yarn either because if I’m going to hang on to some inspiration yarn it should be from someone who feels color to the very center of her soul.
I know exactly what you mean about the Sock Club because I’ve done the same thing with mine! I’m always afraid that I’m going to screw up the STR yarn and pattern and ruin it. It cracks me up. I’ll try and knit up your Pretty thing in cashmere, but I just can’t quite get myself to knit up the STR kits LOL! As for friends that knit, I’m really lucky in that regard. I have a friend who is a really amazing sock knitter and she’s has given me quite a few pairs of socks and a really cool scarf that I love. She is a very fast and accomplished knitter who is a very generous person also, and I’m very fortunate to have her as a friend. I also have several other friends who have gifted me with great handmade items. I love them all. The only bad thing about getting great handmade gifts from other people is that it makes you greedy and you want to get more of them LOL!
My grandparents and my mom were all makers, and they kept giving us things they made. My mom, knitted, my paternal granma knitted and crocheted, my maternal grandparents made gorgeous clog tops, and other things from leather… It seems all their “maker genes” got stuck in me… ever since they left I don’t get handmade presents.I give them, but I don’t get them.(Not that I give to get…)
Anyway I believe that there are yarns like that, though I think that sooner or later a pattern/project would come along and the yarn would scream, it wants to be made into..
Those kids are cute! And the gingerbread house looks perect!
Despite not having knitted up half my STR kits, I remembered the pleasure they gave me last time I joined. So I took the deep breath, and rejoined.
It scares me that there are so many of us with this -er- affliction?
Yarnophilia?
Yarnphilia?
Yarnaphilia? – I think I like this one because it also sounds like affiliation.
I have many wonderful, caring, amazing friends; but none of them are crafters of any sort. None. Not one. They ooh and aah over my knitting and think I am magic to be able to produce hats and scarves and various other items, which can be a great ego boost for me. I do not receive hand made items as gifts except in swaps. My friends do seem to appreciate the effort I put into their gifts, however, which is fine compensation in my book!
Just have to say – you have such a beautiful daughter!
Thats a great picture! I love that Hank – he is such a cutie!
Sometimes I think that the yarn was much prettier before I knit it up, maybe thats why I hoard certain skeins. Great Gingerbread House.
My mom knits, but won’t knit for me, because I also knit. So when my sisters opened their hand-knit sweaters for Christmas, I was a tad miffed. I convinced her her logic was flawed, and promised I would not be examining any seams, so I’ll be getting some mom-love this year. And I don’t care that I had to ask for it.
Yarn is like a story. Once it is written or told it is not yours any more; it is the reader’s or the listener’s, just like the knitted piece belongs to the wearer and the potential (story) of the yarn is now the story of the piece. Yes, yarn lasts forever and the socks get holes, but those holes tell great stories.
I’m pretty amused that your idea was to “not join sock club” rather than “knit from my stash”
I used to be that way with fabric. It’s not uncommon. We save stuff for the right project or just because it’s beautiful. Lately (at 62) I’ve realized that there is always more beautiful fabric (or yarn) and that what I’m doing is exactly the right project for the stuff I want to incorporate. You’ve probably heard the line, “So and so’s dead. . . . When’s the yard sale?” I’d rather enjoy my stash while I can, wearing it, giving it away or using it in my art. Enjoy!
Dear Steph, I may have to stop reading your blog. I fear you may be a bad influence on me. By identifying with your yarn-hoarding tendencies, your ADD approach to mult. projects OTN at one time, and your justification for the sock club membership, I am afraid that I am validating my worst weaknesses, and under your spell, I may soon succumb to the spinning-my-own-yarn-thing, and that book you featured gave me that getting-too-close-to-the-vortex feeling. (Darn Amazon for letting me look inside the book!)
I have learned to avoid quilters for this reason.
So please Steph, can’t you write a post without reinforcing some aspect of my lack of self-discipline?
(Love your blog and look forward to every post.)
WendyBee
That gingerbread house looks really familiar, almost exactly like the one at my house. Isn’t Loblaws wonderful? I love kits, gingerbread and knitting type, because they give you the basics, but no two turn out exactly the same, kind of like snowflakes, eh. I thought of you and your family a lot over Christmas and will be glad to see your posts whenever they appear!
I wish I had your friends . Mine never send me yarn.
Some of my first handspun yarns included a bright blue/purple rambouillet that was so soft and squishy that I just loved it, even though I had no clue what I was going to make with it. So it just sat there looking pretty, and I was totally pleased to just look at it.
I just decided to make a bainbridge scarf out of that yarn, and I am totally jazzed at how it came out! I love it! I hope to get this experience again. It has made me love knitting, where before I thought of it as the slow, time-consuming, tedious red-headed stepsister to crochet, which even though I don’t love it, goes much more quickly.
Using a beautiful yarn for a great project is not the worst part to me. My worst part is when you decide on a project for a yarn, begin swatching and realize that the pattern you specifically chose it for is not going to work, so you have to find something else that will or give up the project altogether. I hate that feeling. That’s a major “waste of my highly valued leisure time” feeling.
While I don’t feel the same about my entire stash as you do, I admire your restraint, as a person who seems to have none.
I also have to thank you for writing this, because a friend of mine who makes some awesome bead necklaces and bracelets, was just talking about how she loves getting handmade items from her friends, but nobody really makes her anything.
I decided I am going to make her a knitted gift this year, since I know she would appreciate it, but I’d forgotten about it.
I have a very few things my mom made for me and even as a child, I hid them from my sister because she seemed to deliberately ruin things. I wouldn’t let my daughter wear them either. But I was able to knit a lot more than my mom and so my kids grew up with everything made just for them. They got so used to that, that they respected nothing and the handmade things ended up tossed on the floor just like the store-bought junk. Eventually I stopped making things for them and now most of what I make is for me. I gift out a few things to people that I hope will care for them, but I make a point of not finding out. Wearing something out is different. Walking on a cashmere cowl like it was a rug is like being spit on. I’ve only received one hand made gift, a crocheted scarf from my grand daughter. It was the first thing she made and her tension was perfect. I don’t crochet that evenly. However, she got “bored” I guess, and that was the end of the handiwork. I don’t understand that kind of mind set.
I do have a person who makes me stuff! My mother! And I knit stuff for her too! Last year I knit her a shawl, this year a pair of socks. She only had socks she had knit herself, so I thought it was time to put an end to that. She has given me three pairs of socks before, a lace-weight shawl, a mini sock on a mini sock-blocker key chain, and two sweaters she made for herself that fit me better. Oh yes, and one pair of felted clogs. Which she knit while the whole knitting felted clogs things was driving her up the wall. Now THAT’S love…for a process knitter to slave over a pattern for the up-teenth time!
*sigh* I love my Mom! And I’m surprising her with a knitted gift for her birthday in March too!
I love that feeling of connection with someone’s special project. While I have friends that make things, I don’t have any that make things for me. I’ve really wanted to do the STR or other yarn club. I should look at the bank account and figure it out. Yarnie mail is might stop me from buying so much at the store.
There’s a great column about postponing pleasure in the December 29 issue of the NYTimes: “Carpe Diem? Maybe Tomorrow” by John Tierney. (You can get it free online at the NYTimes website.) When people postpone pleasure (wait too long to use the gift certificate, etc. etc.) they often end up with regrets about what they didn’t choose/do. His advice for a New Year’s Resolution? “Have fun… Now!”
I think I’ll try this, maybe next week….
Awwww It does warm my heart to see those two so happy with their lovely creation. two budding ::arteests” in the making. Yarn that does not have a pattern is my Waterloo!! I should definetly get a pattern FIRST and then the yarn as some have become pets for some time .
You have a yarn thing?? I hadn’t noticed.
I grew up with a mother and grandmother who sew. My grandmother also baked cookies and sent dried apricots from her tree for Christmas (YUMMY!). So naturally I enjoy making things for others. I have one friend who made me a necklace for my 40th birthday. I totally get the yarn postcard thing and just admiring the potential. I’m glad you have such good friends.
omg, hank get cuter and megan gets more beautiful every time i see them; look how grown up hank is . . .
I’m the gifter in the family. I’ve tried infecting, I mean, teaching, several friends and family members, but I’m a solitary knitter. Although my mother in law DID give me an ugly novelty yarn necklace, because ‘I like that sort of thing right?’. I made her daughter a huge, complicated cabled tree afghan for a wedding gift. Sure. Exactly the same thing.
Thank you, Stephanie, for sharing your life and writing your blog. Reading you is truly a bright spot in my day. Happy New Year to you and your family – I hope it is a good one.
I make stuff for people, my friends. Not only knitted stuff but tatted lace stuff. This holiday I made felted hats that I fell in love with and stash busted- a very cool feeling! So far it was well received. The tatted ornaments were also a big hit. I even added some to my already bulging tree. It is quite impressive, ornamets from tatters around the world, from the 2 tatted ornament books I wrote, and the crocheted bells from our wedding (18 years ago) and several other beaded ornaments from my youth, pine needle ornament (which I make). Well, you get the idea there is a lot on the tree.
You should have seen the tree at work! I have tatted some garland for it, as well as several fair isle stockings (in lace weight) some vintage hats and mitts (all miniature). Many of the customers have added various mini sweaters and socks through the years as well. This year I added a little knitted reindeer. Too adorable for words.
So I am passionate about what I can create and love to teach and share it with others. What can I say? Here is to a new year of gifts and giftings. New fibers and yarns and the trill of shopping in the stash! God love ya!
This is why I really love to read your writing, because I have a different perspective. Knitters are all different, and I have very different feelings about yarn than you. To me, it is a means to an end. I can go in a yarn store a dozen times (to knit), and never buy anything. I have a really tiny stash (Only 4 skeins of sock yarn at last count, and they will be knit up this year.) I pretty much only buy yarn that has a pre-plan, and once I get it, I can’t wait to knit it up! I was a member of the same yarn club that you speak of, and yes, each and every pattern was knitted up in that yarn that year! So thanks for giving me a glimpse of how other knitters feel about yarn. I wonder if it will ever happen to me?
I am incredibly lucky to have a best friend who creates little (or sometimes big) extremely well thought out gifts for me. This Christmas, I received a handmade lamp with several books as the base. Every book was hand chosen to represent me in some ways. He also made me some hand-painted (and then embellished with little drawings) magazine files to hold my knitting magazines in an organized way (I’m a librarian and get anal retentive about that kind of thing).
*sigh* Anyway – I’m really looking forward to the RSC this year. Yee haw.
“Little Hank” is getting to be not so little. He’s going to need a big stick to keep the girls off!
Could you bring yourself to make a “coat (or wrap) of many colors” out of Tina’s yarn to ease your guilt? It wouldn’t be socks then, so fewer holes, and you could wrap yourself in a Blue Moon rainbow when you need a hug.
Love the photo of Meg and Hank! I know what you mean about using gorgeous yarn for socks, but there’s plenty more skeins in the stash when you do get a hole. And you could of course make a sock yarn blankie so that you have a little bit of each skein to treasure. You are so lucky having that STR yarn so readily available. I have never seen it on sale in the UK. It’s on my list of ‘try to get a skein’, along with Wollmeisse!
Hello,
I am looking for an old pattern for a baby sweater. It’s made of baby yarn on size 0 and 1 needles, it has ribbing on the bottom, cuffs and neck, at the yoke of the front and back were owls that were made by cabling. You would sew tiny buttons on for the eyes of the owls.
I first made this sweater in 1965 when I was 9 years old. I made it for numerous cousins and neices and newphews. My only pattern was a very old, poor copy.
I am now expecting my first grade child and would love to knit one for his April arrival.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Renea Tutt, Odessa, Texas
Fab gingerbread house!
There’s no guilt in loving yarn in its pure, unadulterated state – maybe you could hang skeins from a (robust) twig tree or something – an all-year-round christmas yarn tree?
Renea – you might get more help if you search for your lost pattern on the knitting site Ravelry – there are lots of forums there full of people whom I’m sure would help you track it down, or maybe even recognise it themselves.
I have a question now that the holidays are over. What do you tell to people who do not knit, that insist on buying you yarn that you know you will never use.
For example the past 2 Christmases my Aunt has bought me yarn from hobby lobby that is eyelash yarn or has various knobby things. Often they are various bright colors like highlighter pink or leprechaun green.
I am lover of yarn, i love to knit and crochet and i do use this type of yarn a little bit for amigurumi dolls but i doubt I will use the 6 skeins of yarn that i got just this year from her.
So how do i politely tell her to not buy me yarn or to suggest a well thought gift card from knitpicks would be better without offending or confusing her that i do like yarn, but not just the yarn she likes?
When I make dolls and such (cloth or knitted) for children, the hardest part for me is doing the face. Without the face the doll is free to be anyone. Once facial features have been added the personality is largely decided. The skeins of yarn that I come to view as mementos, works of art, or treasures, are like a doll without a face – open potential. It’s the same thing you are saying. The surprising thing is the compulsion we feel to justify and reclassify something as intentionally utilitarian as yarn as sacred object.
Only connected to this post in a sideways sort of way through socks but … a friend just sent me a link to the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto and I was wondering if you had ever thought of getting in touch with them about doing a companion sock exhibit with the sock museum socks.
🙂
I haven’t even read this post yet – I just want to say how happy I am to see it! Apparently I’m an addict; when you weren’t posting and people kept saying you might stop altogether I felt like I had lost a friend, or my dog had died (even though I don’t have a dog).
I can’t believe what a hole it left in my days not having a new Harlot blog post to read – and it took less than a week to start missing you terribly!
Having said all that fanatical fan stuff, I want to add that I completely respect your right to privacy. Your schedule during 2009 didn’t give you much time at home, and you and your family need that, no matter how grown up your girls are. So take all the time you need. I’ll be sad, but I’ll get by. 🙁
In response to Elizabeth, above: Use those 6 skeins to make hats for chemo patients (my current obsession). For 6 skeins, get compatible worsted weight yarn, and use it as 2 strands (1 thread each), or 3 strands (2 threads worsted weight with 1 thread wacko yarn), whichever looks best. Then donate them. Or, you might be surprised that they actually look oaky. It takes a few evenings to make the hats, the yarn has not been wasted, you are not stuck with it, and your aunt will be pleased you used it. In fact, offer her one of the hats. And, most importantly, very tactfully educate your aunt about the kind of yarn you like over this next year. It sounds like you would prefer 1 or 2 skeins of good quality yarn, instead of 6 skeins of trendy sale yarn.
Right there with you. Stash beyond belief (at least by non-knitters). Love the photo. Enjoy seeing your family grow up on this blog. I’m thinking you need rams and presbyteria (sp) to start a Wednesday are for Kit Knits like Tuesdays are for Spinning campaign. Maybe I should start that?… Hummm? Tina’s and many other dyer’s yarns are worthy of becoming personal museum pieces. But club yarn? Anneli dyes thousands of them. Take it to the streets and maybe make them some of your public knitting.
Hope 2010 treats you with more respect than 2009 and is maybe less event filled. Not that I don’t like seeing and hearing about your adventures.
I love the picture of the kids. I remember Hank in his sock monkey hat, long ago.
I love to gift handmade items, but it’s hard to find the right giftees. A grandchild arrived this fall, and has been the recipient of many plain ‘workaday’ items like socks, t-shirts and hats, as well as a bunting that was meant to be special. I know from babies and everything is machine washable wool, designed to withstand spitup and worse. I machine washed each item and told the new mom that “the curse is off, you can wash this, in fact it’s been through the machine already”. I don’t care if they get worn out, chewed or anything – as long as they get used.
They’re not being used, they’ve never been used, and I don’t know why. Colors are subtle, not screaming; classic designs. Some of them don’t fit any more (they fit at the time). I’m trying once more, with a sock monkey hat. After that, I guess I’ll take the hint & give gift certificates.
On the plus side, I did a full series of felted ‘beer slippers’ for the trio of musicians I play with. I drink Guinness, the whistle player drinks lager and the mandolin player drinks ‘Black & Tans” (awful name for a drink). Each pair was colored appropriately and topped with a ‘foamy head’. It was a big hit.
I have a secret stash of special yarns that normally is just for petting…cashmere, handspun yarn from Lisa Souza, special colors, etc. But this year I have made a pact with myself to start using it and all the other special stuff I have stashed away (and blogging about what I use). There are no other knitters or weavers in my family so when I someday join the great majority, all these special yarns will end up on a table at our estate sale. So my motto for the year is — Use it NOW — don’t save it for the estate sale!
Just be glad you don’t have the fetish a step further back from yarn and therefore, a whole yard of sheep. While I adore yarn, the color, the feel, the process, the art ( all but the price) I LOVE the knitted up yarn. It’s like receiving a piece of the person who knows me THAT well. I smile every time I pick which pair of socks to wear from the beloved friend. Art made just for me. Wowee.
Funny, I was on the fence about signing up for RSC again this year (I’ve been in it since the first year) only because I am sitting on unknit kits from the past 4 years, including ALL 6 kits from last year. Then, I started thinking of a year without those kits arriving every other month, the beauties I would be missing out on, and the glimpses into Tina’s color brain, and I couldn’t bear those thoughts. And when the info was posted for RSC 2010, I knew I had to be in it again, so I signed up yesterday. I can’t wait to see what comes in the mail.
Can I be your friend too? You would make a great friend. I am really good at listening to friends rant and I’m good at making sympathetic noises and patting hands! So can we be friends?
Actually I do feel like you are my friend and I look forward to “letters” from you each day. You inspire me in lots of ways. Sorry that our friendship is so one sided. 🙂 Happy Knitting.
Hank has grown so much! Is he still knitting?
I love yarn. I can browse yarn stores, both online and brick & mortar for hours. I love the colors and the softness. But once a skein enters my house, I want to knit. I have many skeins waiting to meet my needles, and I long for the day when that happens. What magic, what mystery. And if I don’t like the result, I’ll just rip it out, wind it up and store it until I find the project that will best bring out its beauty.
I got Respect the Spindle as a Christmas gift — it is FABULOUS!
Just as I’d decided not to renew, I had to read your post. So, more unknitted yarn for me this year. Not for the same reasons as you, but I too find it hard to bring myself to knit those beauties. I just love showing them off, touching and smelling them, and just looking. Maybe that should be my first 2010 resolution: knit 1 skein of STR yarn.
I don’t think that the story ends with the FO. A hand-knit item gathers narrative for years and years. At least, as long as it’s a yummy one and not an ugly acrylic hat.
This year darling daughter Sarah gave all hand made gifts. She knit little stocking ornaments for everyone; she made her mother in law a beautiful angora scarf; she made some jewelry pieces; and she made these adorable gift certificates for fun things to do in the coming year, like movie & lunch, a daughter/mom day, a weekend helping with some big chore at our house, etc. These are the best gifts of all.
You make me laugh. I love reading your blog.
Sometimes yarn is so wonderful, it’s hard to find a pattern deserving of it. That’s why some people make beautiful baskets. Arrange the fabulous fiber in the fabulous vessel and viola! soft sculpture! You can pat it when you walk by, while waiting for the perfect pattern. Nothing wrong with collecting yarn, and if I don’t use it all there will be one hell of a sale when I die. And I hope the next owner loves it all as much as I do.
I have friends who make things. I occasionally make things myself. I also have a huge amount of yarn, much of it bought with at least a vague idea of what I might make with it. The “yarn as potential” problem really resonates with me. I think I am coming to the concept that yarn is _still_ potential even when knitted up, because it can always be ripped. People buy completed sweaters in thrift stores to rip and reuse. So really, if I use it, it’s only being stored in a different form. Like energy.
P.S. Ugly acrylic hats have their uses. I have a very drafty, cold, old house, and thin hair (no chemo involved, thank goodness). This winter I am wearing at least one hat at all times indoors, and often two. They don’t need to be wool – they aren’t getting wet outdoors – and because they can be machine washed, they stay clean despite being worn 24/7.
Yeah, me again.
The “Owlet” baby sweater is at:
http://needled.wordpress.com/designs/
I agree. Woke this morning to start a new pattern and the thought was I don’t have any yarn for this. Which in it self is quite funny. I have been boldly told I have to much (too much really) not if you collect it. Just to let you know that person will receive wool under pants for life.
I think beautiful yarn that could be anything and eventually will be nothing (or food for moths) is a bit of a waste of the dyer’s efforts, myself. It’s not that a project is good enough for the yarn, it’s the yarn that makes the project special. And I will use all my stash eventually; might need to get re-incarnated to do that, but I will.
oh you teaser, so want to join the sock club now! But it is a want not a need!
I have a friend who makes and gives me both jewelry and knitted / crocheted items. I have lovely scarves that she made. I also make jewelry and knitted items that I give to friends. Last year for everyone’s birthday – about 26 (I am blessed to have lots of friends and female family) – I made a little knitted bag from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I could make it in my sleep!!
I too have a hard time making my beautiful skeins into something else. And I tend to hoard the most beautiful for myself. I just love to take them out and hold them and pet them.
I received my only hand-crafted gift this Christmas, from my 10 year old grandniece who crocheted me a scarf. My knitting friends don’t send things my way. One of my friends did give me some yarn she dyed with her mother (who is an amazing knitter/spinner/dyer). But she was hoping I’d knit something for her own self with it. Come to think of it, she also gave me a scarf her mother had knitted for her. Hmmm. So, I received by proxy.
I have been avoiding joining the sock club because I have enough sock yarn to knit a sock for my house. And a binder with sock patterns a few inches thick. And a few bazillion sock patterns stored on my computer.
Yarn is good.
I love that you went into all that explanation about your “thing” for yarn, but truly, it needed no expansion or explanation. I’m like that with fabric, or certain pieces of it. I’m a quilter first – have been since 1986. I’ve been a crocheter longer than that, but it doesn’t make my heart sing the way quilting does. I’ve been a knitter for about 3 months. I can identify with all the things you said in so many ways.
My very favorite quilt? One that my friends gave me when I moved away, too far to stay a member of our Wednesday night quilting group. I miss them tremendously. I have this gorgeous quilt to remind me of them. Just like you have the things your friends gave you. Isn’t life WONDERFUL!?!?
My mother-in-law makes things..she’s a papercrafter so for birthdays and other special days we usually get handmade cards from her. I also have a necklace made from two glass medical slides, a stamp, some paper and some silver stuff (I forget what it’s called) that she helped me make one weekend when a bunch of her papercrafting girlfriends were over for a weekend.
Ok – I gave in and joined the Rockin’ Sock Club. Meant to a few years ago but was too late…so now I am so excited. Thank you, you have enabled me!
The picture of the gingerbread house brought back so much nostalgia for the days I made them with my children. Somehow I don’t have time to do it anymore, and besides, they are grown and gone. Have to save my gingerbread farmhouse mold for when there are grandkids…
I read this last night, and then forgot about it. I woke up this morning and while showering realized that I’ve had the same feelings about yarn too. Sometimes it just seems as tho the finished product just doesn’t live up to the expectations I’ve had of the yarn, while in the skein state. Interesting. I just thought it was me, being negative. Now we have proof that it is a real knitting emotional phenomenon!
How can I get on Tina’s mailing list?!!!!
All the great, yarny stuff aside….and books added to amazon wish list…just have to say…HANK IS SO STINKIN CUTE. Swear to God, cuter every year. 🙂
All the great, yarny stuff aside….and books added to amazon wish list…just have to say…HANK IS SO STINKIN CUTE. Swear to God, cuter every year. 🙂
I just found you and we are now friends.
If your yarn stays yarn, it never gets to go anywhere. When it becomes a scarf or mittens or bookmark, it gets to have adventures and really live. How often does a sheep get to go to a museum; or a cotton flower to a birthday party?
Give them lives again.
A quilt guild friend died a few years ago and her husband gave/sold all her fabric to our guild. Another member determined then that she was going to start using up the good stuff, because if she didn’t then it would all find a new home for practically nothing after she died. Just sayin’.
My girls make a gingerbread house every year but they can’t just make a gingerbread house. One year it had been hit by a tornado ala Dorothy. Another was in foreclosure with a For Sale sign. This year, ah, this year it was an Iranian nuclear reactor with a gingerbread Iranian with a gum drop beard and scarf thingie. The other gingerbread person was a UN inspector with a gum drop tie and graham cracker briefcase. The final touch was a sign in the correct Farsi. This all took a great deal of research starting with “What does a nuclear reactor _look_ like??” I have pics if anyone is interested…..
Do I ever know what you mean. I have a craft room full of yarn that I just can’t bring myself to use, because once I do then it’s gone and I can’t pet it or oogle it anymore.
ps. – hoping you got the handspun I left for you at Pt. Ludlow. Made me nervous having to leave it at the front desk!
Once again, you have put into words something I’ve felt all along. As long as you have a yarn “thing” as well, I know I’m okay. Thanks. 🙂
Hi!
How did you end up felting all of your slippers? In the bathtub? How did it work?