Legitimizing crafts

A friend of mine, who is a fantastic fiber artist, posted a link recently to a really great blog post at Ask Harriete about the tendency of people to copy the work of crafters, sometimes blatantly! You can read the original article here. (Thanks for the link, Liz, I'll be reading this blog more often, it's really good!)

I rolled it around in my head. I've been guilty of the same thing, and I wondered why. it wasn't hard to make the leap to the conclusion. Here is my response:

I've done it. In my head I've said, " I can make that." Sometimes I can (because it's not that original or cool) sometimes I buy the artist's work (because it is cool and original). It seems to me, though the very reason that people feel that it is ok to copy it is how we the artists put our work out there. We call them crafts. as they are, but craft in our society implies something very different. Craft implies accessibility, a hobby, something anyone can do or teach. Think about it, we have craft stores, craft groups, craft shows. At each and every one we show "crafts". This very fact implies to our customers that this is something anyone can do. 

I was once in a fiber guild who met at an art studio. They referred to themselves as artists and their items as art. They may have worked in a craft, but their pieces were all art. I found that people changed their attitudes when they looked at the pieces. They stopped being something "anyone" could do and started being the individual and unique work of an artist. People are less willing to ask an artist their techniques than they are willing to ask a "crafter" about them. I remember when one member of that same guild had knitted eyelash scarves in a juried gallery! These were the stuff of craft shows, but because she presented them as art, that is what they became. 

Now I'm not trying to negate the author's points, I think they are fantastic, actually. I cringe each time I hear "Oh, I could make that!" even though I myself have said it in my head. It's just rude. My thought, though, is that if we begin treating our own work as art and calling ourselves artists or artisans, and our work as art, we may see less of that "craft" mentality. 

Imagine as a weaver that you have a booth at an arts (never crafts!) show where you introduce your pieces as "handwoven scarves". Your next door neighbor markets hers as "one of a kind wearable art pieces" and makes her artist's resume accessible. It will absolutely change the attitude of the people viewing the items. It won't fix the problem, but it's definitely something to consider when we market our work. I think it will go a long way towards legitimizing our work as well.  

Gigantism and walking

In an effort to improve my health and reduce the size of my jeans I've begun a campaign of walking/jogging. I love walking. Especially long distances. It's weird, but whatever. You like weird stuff too. Stuff like shrimp and footrubs and footrubs while eating shrimp. Even weirder, eating shrimp while receiving footrubs from shrimp. You sicko.

I digress. In the course of my recent walks I've happened upon a curious phenomenon. It seems that there is a rash of freakishly large things appearing in people's front yards. I'm not sure how this happens, or how one prevents it. No one wants to wake up one morning to a 15 foot tall replica of the Titanic in their yard, but these sorts of things may be unpreventable. As evidence, I offer these:

A ginormous Ikea deer

Massive Snow Knight

These things were found in entirely different neighborhoods, so clearly this can happen anywhere. Protect yourselves, Protect your families, Protect your yards, lest you wake up one morning to a giant, angry shrimp front and center in your front yard. (I told you all that weirdness would come back to haunt you.)

Rules for Knitting with Confidence

1.      Gauge swatches really are important. And not just to use as coasters later….. They also come in handy when you run out of yarn or need yarn for a repair later. Bonus: they are good for checking gauge too!

2.      Mistakes happen! It’s OK. Sometimes it’s good to step away from a project for a time, then go back and determine what the mistake was. Sometimes it’s the knitter, sometimes it’s the pattern, and sometimes it is evil anti-knitting fairies who come mess up your knitting in the night. Hint: it’s usually number 3.

3.      You may not find the mistake until you are wearing the garment. At this point it is always “A part of the design”. Besides…. NO ONE WILL EVER SEE IT. Especially if they are not knitters. Even if they are knitters, chances are they will never notice. If they do, they are your best knitting friend or a complete jerk for pointing it out. Just think about that horrible mohair thing they knit last year and laugh quietly to yourself.

4.      Knit what you love. It’s easy to get caught up in knitting fads and trends. When a particular lace knitting book came out a few years ago I was obsessed along with all of my other knitting friends at the thought of fluffy airy knitted confections to wear with every outfit I owned. I struggled at knitting them only to realize that I HATE KNITTING THEM. This is not fun. You know what is fun? Making color work items with bizarre patterns like skulls and ravens. This is what I like, so this is what I knit. It’s OK not to go along with the crowd. This is a hobby. You’re supposed to like it. If you hate it, it’s just not worth your time.

5.      In keeping with #4, it’s OK to frog a thing you hate! We all have that horrible project lurking in the depths of our stash. The Project Who Shall Not Be Named. It was a great pattern in bad yarn, or a bad pattern in fantastic yarn, or sometimes it’s just something that no one in their right mind would ever love. Like the puke green angora hat that makes you look like a chia pet. Let it go. Rip it out. If you still love the yarn, use it for something else. It’s OK to realize that a project is just not salvageable and it’s time to let go. Life is too short for bad knitting.

6.      It’s just sticks and string. We all have an inner perfectionist who wants us to whip out perfect knitwear with the greatest ease and a minimum of pattern reading. When we do make errors, we tend to be really hard on ourselves. We’ll tell ourselves that we are no good at it, it’s too hard for us, or the world is about to collapse on itself and become some sort of fiery black hole of doom.…   Relax. It’s just sticks and string. You’ll get there. Maybe on your own, maybe with help, maybe perfect, or maybe a little wonky, but you will get there. And won’t you feel smart when you do?

Finally, just a word of advice. I often hear people say, "Oh I'm not a very good knitter, I just knit *Insert item here*". This doesn't make you a bad knitter. It is exactly what MAKES you a knitter. You know who “bad knitters” are? People who don’t knit! Revel in your talent. You are a KNITTER

You may have noticed that I have been missing lately...

Here are some reasons why:

• The boy had to have an additional surgery to remove a pin in his leg in order to speed the healing process. I suggested amputation. I was told that we should at least try to look like we are encouraging healing before me maim the child for sport. Disappointing. His doctor has mentioned that his healing has picked up considerably and we will now have no good excuse for recreational amputations. Doubly disappointing. 

• The final weeks of school were a bit more intense than I recall them being. Really sad since there were no finals, just a great deal of papers due. Normally I can come up with many, many pages of BS without even thinking about it. This semester took all of the BS out of me. Hence no blog posts. I was just an empty, empty shell. 

• Directly after school ended, my family came for a visit. Three weeks of a visit. It was delightful, but at the same time, very long. I am currently suffering from a rare form of post-traumatic stress that involves me waking up in the morning and hoping that there will be someone on my kitchen to make me some raisin toast. This is what I find instead: 

This is a lonely toaster. Bereft of raisin toast. TOASTER!! MAKE ME RAISIN TOAST!!! Nope, still nothing. 

• During the third week of that visit my husband and daughter were also home. This means that there were a total of 6 adults in 1200 square feet of townhouse with only 2 toilets. Even worse, two of these adults were my husband and daughter who had not spent time together for a year. There was constant beating upon, farting upon and hollering at one another in the manner of toddlers. It's a wonder that I haven't developed some sort of drug problem. 

It's like a Christmas bomb exploded in my living room.

• Prior to all of the above trauma beginning, I was lazy. So there. What are you going to do about it?? Nothing, that's what. 

HOLY OBAMACARE, BATMAN!!! Part 1

In case anyone is interested, (and because I thought it might be interesting to document the process) we lost our health insurance in the recent job change. John prefers to work for small companies where the person he reports to is also the owner of the company. I don't blame him, it's nice that way. We avoid the BS of corporate jobs where you are expendable because someone had a bad day, or your hours get cut because someone needed a bigger bonus. (Yes, these things all happened with his previous employer. Funny thing is, that he is such a good employee that they called him back in less than a week, begging him to come back. He. Said. No. Good man.) Because his new job is at a small company, they do not offer health insurance. They don't have to. So I did something I have never before been able to do....  I went to the marketplace to find out about coverage. This is really important. I've shopped for health insurance before. When I did I had to make applications at each of the companies to get quotes. so if I was interested in five health plans, that meant five applications. This time, I only had to fill out one application.

Um, yeah. If you could just take a 25% pay cut so I can afford more hookers and cocaine, that would be great.

I think it is important to mention here that you can get a pre-application quote on the Kaiser Family Foundation site, but it comes with all sorts of caveats. Basically it tells you that this is a middle of the road plan, with no tax credits included and no information about your family included. So, it's inaccurate. The quotes given do seem kind of pricey, but then I compared it to what we were spending on health coverage with the previous employer.

According to the KFF website I can expect to pay between $4,433 and $6,090 per year for a health care plan. These are Bronze and Silver plans, respectively. According to my benefits enrollment from from the previous employer, we paid $5747 a year for benefits. I'm not certain if their plan is considered a silver or bronze plan. In my opinion it was an aluminum plan, but I digress. I'll keep the benefit info and compare it when I get more information. Either way, they KFF site tells me I'll pay approximately what we paid before.

You, sir, are well covered.

Plus we get a refund if we stay healthy and don't use our premiums. Considering that I went to the doctor twice last year, once for pink eye, and once for an annual exam. John went once, and Trystan's care is through a non-profit hospital, we stand a good chance of recovering a portion of our premiums at the end of the year. (And don't give me that crap about the companies losing money, I worked for a reptile who made healthy profits on a less than 10% profit margin, if these guys can't make it on a 20% profit margin, they're doing it wrong.)

So I decided to fill out an application. Yes, the website sucked and I could not create a login, so I did this crazy thing. I CALLED THEM.

Operator, connect me to the communists!

The voice response unit was good and I got to request a representative within two responses. (I've worked in call centers most of my adult life. Getting a rep withing two responses on a VRU is AMAZING.) There was no hold time before I was connected to a representative, but I was asked if I would participate in a survey. I declined. I then spent 20 minutes with a very pleasant young man who took my application over the phone AND tolerated my bad jokes. He even had the good grace to chuckle once or twice.

I don't get paid enough to deal with you, ma'am.

I realized today that I had given incorrect information about my husbands employer. John was on the road and unreachable, so I had taken a guess and looked up the company info on the DOT website. I picked the wrong company. (Lesson learned: don't take me to Vegas.) I called back to update my application. I spoke to another very pleasant representative who took the updated information. Again, I did not to wait to speak to anyone. I asked how long it would take for my app to be approved, and he informed me that it would be a couple of weeks, but as long as the plan was chosen by December 15th, my coverage would be in place on January 1.

I will keep you updated as the process continues.

You did what???

Some of you may have read my post about my husband buying a hat. Just a synopsis, he was apparently SO COLD that he could not wait even a couple of days for me to make him a PERFECT and LOVINGLY HANDCRAFTED hat for his giant horrible noggin that he bought a hat. 

After appropriate chastisement for his flaw in judgement regarding knitwear, I told him I would knit him a lovely hat, which I have, and only need to complete the matching cowl to keep his sweet head warm. Until this:

HEEEEEAD! Down in front!

Yes, he shaved his giant, horrible, huge, misshapen, not-conducive-to-being-hairless head. So his giant, horrible, huge, misshapen, not-conducive-to-being-hairless head is too cold to live without a hat, but not too cold to live without hair??? Not a well thought out plan, sir.

Even worse to include a photo of you in the hat with which your giant, horrible, huge, misshapen, not-conducive-to-being-hairless head has taken up an affair with.

Look, I'm made of something that squeaks and melts!

My sweet, sweet husband.... You have 7 weeks to grow back some hair on that giant, horrible, huge, misshapen, not-conducive-to-being-hairless-too-cold-to-go-2-minutes-without-a-commercially-knit-hat head. Get to it.

I should get an award for this

Actual text of conversation with my friend who is terrified of spiders

Her: There is a huge spider in my laundry room and I'm terrified.

Her: It is sitting there daring me to come closer

(Some time later)

Her: You'd be proud. I hit the wall next to it to scare it away behind the big freezer. Of course, now it will probably go all Power Rangers on me.

(Some time later because I'm a really lousy super good friend)

Me: No it won't. You are bigger and scarier. 

Her; Not after it grows to the size of a house. I was so terrified. Stood there just kind of shaking and terrified for about ten minutes (seemed much longer), was about to start crying that Hubby wasn't here to take care of it. Then I was overwhelmed by my own patheticness. 

Me: LOL. You aren't pathetic. You stood up to your fear and conquered it. I'm proud of you. 

Her: If you had texted back during that 10 minutes, I would have broken down and begged you to come over and take care of it. 

Me: So it's a good thing that I forgot my phone downstairs. I would have told you to suck it up though. 

Her: I know you wold have. Hell, you *were* telling me that - every time I thought of just calling you, I'd hear you say it. 

This is clear evidence of what an asshole a good friend I am.

Me: LMAO, you did it though. The spider won't take it's revenge. They have terrible short-term memory.

Her: Hmm. Have there been studies on that?

Me: I've conducted them myself after lengthy interviews with many spiders. It goes like this: 

"Mr. Spider, are you as scary as people think?"

"Who are you? Where am I? Is there a Starbucks around anywhere?"

*actual quotes from my highly scientific survey

Artist's Rendition of Suspect

Yeah. I should get the "Friend of the Year" award. I'll invite you to see my acceptance speech. There may be scary stuff there. Suck it up. 

You bought a what???

My husband called me today and informed me that it was so cold that he had bought a hat.

This may not be news of any importance to the average person but to me this was like a dagger in my heart. I AM A KNITTER! If you need a hat, dear husband, just say, "Honey, I need a hat." You will have your choice of fibers, colors, gauges, and styles. You want a hat made out of pink lace weight cashmere? I can do that. You want a buffalo shaped hat made out of dog fur? I can do that. You want a hat with the encoded lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody knit into it? I CAN DO THAT.

It's not even like he could say, "Well honey, I bought a hat because I didn't know if you would have the yarn for a hat."

I have plenty of yarn.

This is where I store my yarn. All those drawers? You guessed it, full of yarn:

There is enough yarn in those drawers to make a hat. 121,879 yards of it to be precise. That is 69.25 miles of yarn. My yarn could be used to measure 2.6 marathons. That is the length of 134.3 Burj Khalifas. You could climb and descend Mt. Everest 6 times leaving a yarn trail and still have enough leftover to knit a smart cardigan.

Since the average hat takes about 200 yards of yarn, I have the potential to knit 609 hats. On top of that I also spin. If I included all of the fiber that I could spin I'd have the potential for many, many more hats.

More if they are baby hats. Less if they are the giant horrible heads of evil hat buying husbands.

Lesson of the day: If your wife is a knitter, and you find yourself in the position of needing a hat, just ask. If you are so desperate that you do have to purchase a hat, don't tell her. Have the good grace to at least lie and tell her that you are sooooo cold and couldn't possibly have any other hat than one that she lovingly created with her own hands. You will be gifted with a lovely creation of carefully chosen fiber in a suitable color with all of the properties that you most love in a hat.

I, on the other hand, will spend the rest of my day deciding how best to execute the knitting of a hat in barbed wire and stinging nettles.

A response....

It's been a while since I've hit the blog. School (for both of us), work, keeping the house unstinky, a snot plague and general exhaustion have been to blame. A friend posted a link to another blog on Facebook today and I was so moved that I wrote a response to it. I thought I would share it here.

ThosePeople

My response:

I recall 2008 when the economy tanked and the cost of living in our area practically doubled overnight. People were getting laid off left and right. We were a party to those layoffs. I still had my job. It paid for rent and utilities. No food, no extras. John had just started a new job but we hadn't started getting paid yet. Our savings was depleted after months of searching. He was a lucky one, some people we knew went more than a year with not even an interview. I'm a food hoarder, so we were pretty well set up, but the cupboards got really bare. We called all over town for help. There was no help to be had except for one place that was able to give me a small banana box with some mac and cheese, a couple loaves of bread from a grocery bakery, some dented cans of soup and a few assorted random things. It was humiliating, but we were so grateful and it made all the difference until we were able to get back on our feet. 

Times are better now and I did some volunteer hours this summer in a food pantry with my son. There was no greater joy in this world than handing people food and knowing that they would have a meal on the table for their children that night. I loved the look in kids eyes when they came through and we handed them a special goody from the local bakeries. I recall one mother who worked full time to support her 3 small children and went to school. She came through and blinked back tears as one of the workers presented her son with a birthday cake from the freezer. The very next day was his birthday and she had no money for a cake for him. Those people are my people.

Most of us have needed help at some point or another. Those of us who haven't, well, good for you. That doesn't mean that hard-working, good people haven't struggled and haven't needed help. It disturbs me to think that there are people out there that seem to think that if you have go to bed hungry to keep a roof over your families head that you are therefore no longer of value. Every person is of value. EVERY. PERSON. Even "bad people" have value. No one is less deserving of the basic sustenance of life. Even if it is fancy South American grain. 

How to annoy your dog: Part 1

You're next, Cat.

Culture of Entitlement

I hear this phrase being bandied about quite a bit. I don't think it means what most people think it means. Allow me to illustrate.

Things that are not actually entitlement:

• Equal pay for equal work.
• Caring for the infirm of our society. 

Things that actually are entitlement: 

• Getting huffy when the sofa that I post for free on KSL (the Utah equivalent of Craigslist) is not in prefect condition, and might need a vacuuming. 
• Telling me that the same sofa is not good enough for you since it is not in "like new" condition. 
• Getting huffier when I tell you, "good luck!"

Jerk.

Rebecca’s Five Crazy Old Tips for Civil Political Discourse on Facebook

 

#1 Check your facts

I can’t tell you how often I see political memes on my Facebook feed, or links to various blogs with politically slanted news stories. I’d wager to say I get several in an hour during the busiest Facebook hours in the evenings. Some of these are legitimate. Sadly, the majority are things that probably have no basis in reality. For instance:

Bo the first dog has a gold dog dish, a personal masseuse who is also a communist Victoria’s Secret underwear model who walks him and has taught him to foxtrot on the taxpayer’s dime.

Or

An armed tea party group went to a local preschool and personally took food out of small preschool children’s mouths and kicked some puppies while lighting pictures of the president on fire on the front lawn.

The memes inevitable go on to say something like, “Oh the injustice”.

Just a hint here folks, just because something is on the internet, does not mean it is necessarily true. It does mean that it has caused some reaction in your mind that made you so concerned/upset/enraged that you decided to share it with your friends. Did you check to see if it was true??? It usually only takes a moment or a brief Google search to find out if Bo gets his toenails clipped by a thong clad Naomi Campbell. (The answer is no, he does not. In case you were wondering.) There are even websites out there that are dedicated to fact checking. They can tell you if right wingers were pasting copies of the constitution to weeping minority children in Detroit. (No, they did not.)

Spreading correct information can help us all learn something. Spreading incorrect information just to make the other guys look worse just serves to make your side seem even crazier.

#2 Think before you link, Know when to scroll.

We all have that friend who reposts every single news story or blog post that comes along that serves to bolster their own opinion about everything. Could it be though, that you are that friend? Think about it. Did you join Facebook just to repost a bunch of blog links that most people aren’t really interested in, just to upset or alienate the other group of friends that doesn’t agree with you or did you join so that you can keep in touch with friends and relatives and post pictures of what you are eating for dinner?

It’s really simple. Just take a moment before you post that link and ask yourself, “Is this really constructive? Does this further my relationships with those I care most about? Would I want to make my crazy Aunt Mabel who makes meow mix casseroles and dryer lint quilts to read this and engage in political discourse with me?”

If your answer is “No”, it’s probably ok to skip the link. You can always private message the link to those that you think would most enjoy it. You can still share your moral outrage, and prevent awkward discussions with people you’d rather not talk politics with anyways.

Remember that these people who are your friends are your friends for a reason. Maybe you are related. Maybe you are married. Maybe you work together. Maybe you both share a dark secret about a midget nun hooker in Vegas. Whatever the case, think about it before you post it. Is it guaranteed to cause a fight? Do you really want to post it?

By the same token, know when to scroll. There is always going to be THAT GUY. You know, the jerk face relative or co-worker that you can’t gracefully unfriend or block who is constantly posting stuff that is inflammatory and insulting despite you linking him to this fantastic post. You know who he is. We all have one. Or two. Or ten. When you see this jerk face’s posts, don’t engage. Just scroll. Move along. It’s just not worth even reading what they post most of the time, so save your 3 seconds and ensuing indigestion and just scroll by. As you scroll past, make sure you call him a few names worse than jerk face under your breath. You will feel better, and anyone around you will be wondering if you are referring to them and might be a little nicer to you the rest of the day, just in case.

#3 The media has only one agenda

That agenda would be money. Yes, that’s right folks. You heard it here first. The media is out to make money. They are businesses. Run by business people. Fox News? CNN? MSNBC? Yup they are all out for your wallet.

“But wait!” you say. “The Gay Liberal Agenda!” or “The Christian Right!”

No.

If you were to call the average American in his home on any given Saturday morning and ask him his agenda, the conversation would probably go something like this, regardless of their political, sexual, racial, or religious persuasion.

Me: Hello sir/ma’am, can you tell me about your personal agenda?

Average American: Well I was thinking about mowing the lawn this morning, then maybe I’ll catch up on some tv and perhaps char a hunk of animal flesh on the grill for dinner tonight. Wait, hold on, what was that honey?

*pause*

In the name of all that is holy, send help! The significant other just said we were going to Ikea to shop for shelving.

Me: Enjoy your meatballs and misery, sir/ma’am.

Now if I were to call the average CEO of a media corporation, the conversation would be a little bit different. More like this:

Me: Hello sir/ma’am, can you tell me about your personal agenda?

CEO: My agenda is to sell a bunch of advertising to a bunch of other companies looking to sell products to consumers in a certain demographic. In order to serve our advertisers, we gear our programming to attract the demographics that our advertisers are looking to sell things to. We don’t lie or make news up most of the time, but we do present it in the way that appeals most to the demographic the advertisers are most interested in selling to. Then I take all of the money that I earn and use it to buy extravagant yachts, furnish them in things that are upholstered in the hides of small endangered animals, name them after ex-lovers and sink them in the ocean. Hey, we all need hobbies. 

Me: ….. Mr. Donaghy?

Now this isn’t to say that you can’t get good or accurate information from news outlets. It’s certainly there. A person who chooses to educate themselves can easily find the truth of the matter. A person who doesn’t choose to educate themselves on issues may find that they are only getting a portion of the story. And a super magic mini eggplant dicer.

Remember that next time you hear the keywords on the news. “Jackbooted thugs” is a personal favorite reference for the “gay liberal agenda” and the “Christian Right” as well. Can you imagine all the namby-pamby, limp-wristed, flower-wearing jack-booted thugs on the left? It’s like the Gay Hippie army and they are here to wallpaper. Or the Church Lady brigade on the right. They are here to make sure all your sex is missionary and that you use a coaster on the furniture. Hallelujah.

#4 Can we cool it with the generalizations?

Why do we feel the need to lump everyone into one of two groups and automatically assume that they all believe the same thing? Not all Liberals are pot-smoking, Godless hippies who are trying to sell their food stamps so they can get abortions. Not all Conservatives are white, bible thumping rich people trying to force third grader to carry guns with which to shoot gay people and illegal immigrants.

There are black, atheist conservatives. There are rich, white liberals that don’t have ties to Hollywood. There are transvestite Asian libertarians. There are Muslim-Catholic Pakistani-Hispanic families who seem to lean politically towards the New York Giants. (I know this family. They do the diversity thing the right way. I also hope to end up in Queens one of these days because I imagine dinner at that house is rockin’.) It takes all kinds to make our crazy world go ‘round.

It would be like saying “All women like to wear aprons.” Some women do, sure. Some women would as soon make you eat that apron as wear it. Some of them may be your wives and girlfriends. You’ve been warned.

The next time you go to lump all people of one political persuasion into a group like that, stop. Not everyone who voted one way or another believes the same as every other person who voted that way. Not every Republican thinks Reagan was a God. Not every Democrat thinks that no one should be able to say a prayer.

What if instead of making generalizations, we asked questions? What if we all got to know each other a little bit better? Chances are that if we left our political leanings out of conversations about what we all believe, we’d probably find that many more of our mutual views as humans coincide rather than conflict. I’m pretty sure no one finds it objectionable to make sure hungry children get fed, or that illiterate people learn to read, or that we all have jobs and maybe make a little more money. That hunk of beast for the grill isn’t going to buy itself. The way most of us differ on issues is more one of how things are to be accomplished, not that they are issues. Learn about each other. Ask questions instead of making pronouncements. Perhaps if we do, we might start to find solutions. You may also find yourself eating fewer aprons.

#5 We are all on the same side in the end and it’s ok if we don’t all agree on everything.

The best part of our country is that we can all pretty much do and say what we want within a certain moral framework without the fear of repercussion from our government. We tend to forget that just because something can be said without fear of government intervention, it doesn’t mean that a thing SHOULD be said. There are still social consequences for what you say. I’m not going to go around saying that my crazy great Aunt Mabel smells like meow mix and mothballs and not expect some response from my crazier cousin Billy-Bob who is Mabel’s favorite and just can’t live without his dryer lint quilt.  It’s just the way the world works. It’s still okay that I think Aunt Mabel may be a few deliveries short of a chicken and liver dinner. It’s even ok for Cousin Billy-Bob to wear nothing but his dryer lint quilt wrapped like a toga around himself while wearing lipstick and watching foosball tournaments on ESPN2 in the privacy of his own home. We are all entitled to our opinions. That doesn’t mean that we have to force our opinions on everyone else, and should they have different opinions, that they are lesser people. When you get in a disagreement with your brother about politics on Facebook, or around the dinner table, remember that this is the guy that you stayed up late at night with daring each other to stick progressively larger Legos up your noses. You probably care about him more than his politics.

The second best part of our country is that everyone’s opinions and beliefs create the framework for a vast and varied dryer lint quilt of people. If we all believed the same thing and nobody’s opinion differed, we’d all be eating the meow mix. It even says so on our money, E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, One. We are all Americans. We are all on the same boat. Ultimately we all want the same thing. We want to be free and live in a nice country where we can enjoy our lives of mowing the lawn and watching Lost on Netflix without the fear of jackbooted thugs knocking down our doors or significant others forcing us into crowded warehouses to discuss the relative merits of sofa slipcovers. Let’s try to remember that. Save Facebook for the really important things, like discussion, learning, trying to make each other better and posting photos of our significant others eating apron lunches at Ikea after telling you that the sofa you picked out looks like something that belongs in a sunken yacht. Leave the rhetoric for the political pages you subscribe to. Opinions are like nose Legos. Everyone has one, no one wants you sticking yours in their nose.

Besides, in the end, it’s not about sitting around waiting for suited stooges in one city to make decisions for us. It’s about us as a people coming together, discussing our needs and finding solutions that work for as many people as possible and then telling our stooges what to do and how to do it. Remember that those stooges are our stooges. Let’s stop being theirs.

Teenage Son to English dictionary entry # 1

What the teenage boy says: MOM! I need help with this homework!

What it means in English: MOM! Come in here so I can explain in only the vaguest terms what I need to do on this homework assignment. Then as you try to drag more information out of me,  I can make small mooing sounds like a tortured calf while shrugging my shoulders in feigned confusion until you get so annoyed and frustrated that you tell me exactly how to do the homework, thereby causing myself no extraneous effort by thinking.

Discounted wool isn't such a good bargain after all. Or, the yarn horror story....

Recently, I heard tell of a LYS not far from me. This shop was the stuff of urban legend. A shop that supposedly still existed, but no one had ever actually seen it. At least no one in my knitting group had actually seen it. I decided, in the grand tradition of Indiana Jones, to risk life and limb in the pursuit of the obscure and wonderful. I packed up some llamas and supplies, and hired an indomitable band of Sherpa to serve as my guides and I set off into the tropical jungle to search.

Ok, I got in my van and drove to Ogden with my daughter. She is not very Sherpa-like. She is a bit reminiscent of a llama, though. (She spits when annoyed.) Also the Sherpa live in the Himalayas and don't have llamas. It's my fantasy though, so get off my case. I don't show up in your dreams criticizing your choice of knee socks to wear while naked and giving a presentation on Alexander the Great in your high school history class.

I found it.

It was a dilapidated old house. It was just off a main thoroughfare in town and it even had a huge sign on it. I'm shocked to this day that no one had found it before. I have a theory that the shop can only be found if you are truly looking for it, otherwise it remains hidden. I'm sure Harry Potter had something to do with it.

Inside the house were rooms upon rooms of yarn, stacked to the ceiling in haphazard piles that may or may not stay put if you happened to walk by them too quickly thus stirring up a slight breeze. I'm quite positive that the only thing holding the place up is the vast quantity of yarn shoring up the walls. The deeper you go into this shop you go, the more wonderful and terrifying it gets. They walls of the house seem less stable. The yarn becomes more of a solid entity. Any moment you expect to be attacked by a creepy yarn monster that oozes out from between the stacks and covers you in it's awful mohairiness. Something that looks like this:

I will make you warm and slightly itchy!!!!

If you are especially lucky, the phone in the very back room will ring. It is no regular old phone. It is an old desk phone that when it rings jangles with an approximate volume and jangliness that makes you pretty certain that this was Satan's old desk phone before he upgraded to a Demonphone 3000.

The upshot of this wonderful and horrible place, was that there was a whole ROOM full of sale yarn. 

For those of you that are unaware, the term "Sale Yarn" is a key phrase which will rise hordes of hungry knitters up from wherever they might be to the location from which the words were uttered. Imagine, if you will, being in the midst of the Zombie Apocalypse and yelling "Free Brains!" Yeah, it's like that. Use this phrase with the utmost caution. 

Inside this room I found a very special treasure. Eleven skeins of the softest natural white superwash vintage french wool. Big skeins too. I knew then that this lovely wool was destined to be a sweater for my sweet husband who loves handknits, wearing white, and has a terrible habit of spilling on himself. I took this delicious find home at the bargain price of only $3 a ball.  I was thrilled. 

Hubs had his birthday this last week, so I showed him the delicious yarn and had him pick out a pattern. I started knitting right away so that he would have his sweater ready by his next rotation home which is in November, and certainly time for a nice warm sweater. I was a bit over a foot into the first sleeve when the horror of the yarn store reared it's ugly head once more. 

The yarn was literally falling apart as I knit it. 

I found one hole that had developed where weaknesses in the wool made the yarn break. I unknitted to that spot and then looked carefully over the sleeve where I found at least two more places where the wool would soon self-destruct. After holding back tears, swearing quietly and putting the sleeve back into my knitting basket, I realized that this was the revenge of the yarn shop. Some might say, It was moths! No, I tell you. There is no evidence of bugs in this wool. It is pristine. This, my friends is the revenge of the yarn shop. 

This is what I got for thinking that I could disturb the mohair monster's slumber and take away the shop's life force. Just like any life force, if you take it away from it's entity, it will eventually return to the entity from whence it came. I am certain that this is what is happening. The yarn is returning to the yarn hellmouth store. Eventually, the entire pile of yarn (which I pulled out of my stash and flung onto the floor in anger) will disappear and some other hapless knitter will find it in the sale room of the evil yarn shop and take it home to knit her husband a sweater.

I bet this is exactly how Indiana Jones felt after the whole Lost Ark business. 

Long, Awesome Week

It's been a busy week. The husband was home. We had a fun week and spent his birthday at the state fair, which was always where he sent his birthday when he was a child. As he found out, the fair was so much bigger when he was a little guy. It didn't stop him from having a good time, though.

Is it even possible to have a bad time while petting sheep?

Just trying not to think too hard on the amount of bacteria on that thing the he just put his OPEN MOUTH onto. shudder.

My smaller boy (in age only, the kid is freaking huge) had a good time too, and even though he was only up for a couple of rides, he was a good sport about walking around the entire place 2 or 3 times.

John went back to work just a couple days after this. I spent an entire day catching up on homework and then I did two awesome things.

1. I started working again. I know this doesn't sound awesome, but I started working at a yarn shop. THIS IS MY DREAM JOB. Seriously. I get paid to talk to people about yarn, sell them yarn, and when there isn't anyone to talk to, I get paid to fondle yarn and read patterns to my hearts content. In addition, I get to go into the basement. This sound creepy, until you find that it is a clean, well lit basement, FULL OF YARN. The first time I saw it, I may have gotten a bit verklempt and exclaimed in a weepy voice, "I love yarn!" Maybe. You can never prove it. If you'd like to come visit me at work sometime, I'll be at The Needlepoint Joint on Fridays and Saturdays. You'll love it. You'll buy yarn. This is a good thing. 
2. I went to opening weekend of the Utah Symphony. My music class drives me crazy. (All online learning drives me crazy.) What doesn't drive me crazy is a season pass to the Symphony AND Opera for $49. I've missed Abravanel Hall so much. It's just as beautiful as it ever was. 

So that catches you up on what I've been up to, and provides proof that I haven't just been slacking off at updating the blog. I know that you were thinking and you can just stop it. 

The day that I realized that Portlandia was making fun of me.

So as you all know, my husband John is home. We decided to have an us day today. Here is what we did:

• Went to brunch at Cafe Niche. I had the Marionberry Caribbean Pancakes. He had the Mushroom Omelette with microgreens. We each took a picture with our smart phones of how pretty our table looked looked against the rain on the window glass. I got in the way of his photo. He got annoyed at me. 
  
• Went to the urban flea market. Forgot to get cash. Paid $1 for a skein of handpainted yarn at a booth. Since I didn't have cash, she was going to just give me the skein. I insisted on paying for it and paying the fees for her square transaction.

• Took pictures of interesting tree bark. 

• Went to a tattoo shop to talk to an artist about cover-up work for my husband. Seriously considered a rockabilly knitting tattoo for myself. 

• Dropped by REI to price cold weather gear, also stopped by the thrift shop. Found the cold weather gear he was looking for at a major discount and a retro Samsonite carry on bag that I intend to eBay to pay for the artisan wool with which I will be knitting my winter coat.
  
  
   

• Bought groceries at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. 

Tonight, we will be eating homemade vegan Indian food on our porch. I will take smartphone photos of the food while wearing an ironic t-shirt referencing 1990's hip-hop music. 

Yeah. It's like that. 

Hubby comes home today.

My husband works in North Dakota. We live in Utah. I grew up around the military so to me it's like he goes on TDY all the time. For seven weeks at a time. The first 4 weeks are great. No dirty socks on the floor. No extra glasses in the sink to wash. No one else to take up the whole bed. Sure it sounds crass. but those of you old married ladies with husbands at home night after night think about it... Imagine how quiet it would be. Imagine sleeping diagonally. Yeah. It's nice.

After that, I start to miss him. Probably because I actually do kind of like him. Even after as long as we have been together.

He gets home tonight. I have him for 5 glorious days. It's even his birthday, so it's on! Urban Flea Market, State Fair, Visiting with Laura, Lunch with my ladies, Porch Sitting, Eating All Manner of Unhealthy Things.

In order to accomplish all of these fun thing, I know get the cram a week of studying and house cleaning into the next 12 hours.

He's lucky that he's cute and worth my soon to be full blown meth addiction.

Blast from the Past

I received a box this week sent from my stepmom containing a whole bunch of vintage needlework magazines. I found some lovely treasures including a really nice Swedish table linens set. We all know how much I love to make stuff so this package was right up my alley. There were just a couple things that needed to be shared though, since, like any good scary story, it is better shared with friends.

All three of these hail from the 1970's, a time when crimes against crafthood were rampant. A time when one could barely take a step into a home without being assaulted by acrylic granny squares, macrame plant hangers and becalicoed Sunbonnet Sue dolls.

Behold:

Nothing says "I am a winner" like dressing your poodle in a belly shirt even Miley Cyrus would be embarrassed to wear. In the Poodle's defense, she looks like she's got plenty of junk in the trunk to be used for possible canine twerking purposes. Get your freak on, Fido....

Our next entry... I f humiliating your dog isn't enough, there is little more humiliating for the man in your life than making him dress in a sweater vest that matches yours. Especially when that sweater vest is all shades of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. You may think he is staring soulfully into the distance, little happy knitter wife, but really he's trying to decide what method is best for killing himself and TAKING YOU WITH HIM. 

Our final entry is from from the "Dear Lord, Why??" category, courtesy of Susan Richardson of Eight Is Enough fame. It's bad enough that we had to live through Dick Van Patten's leisure suits and Andy Rich's drug rehab. No we had to live through this too. 

 Please. Make it stop.

Wooly Balls!

What? This place can't stay classy all the time...

Besides, I'm referring to wool dryer balls. Throw a couple of these is the dryer and your clothes dry faster and no fabric softener needed. You also get to make jokes about wooly balls. Bonus.

That's how I spent my entire holiday. I made these and watched Korean period dramas. Every day should be Labor Day.....

Edited, November 6, 2013: If you would like to purchase my wooly balls (Holy crap I love saying those last nine words SO much), please comment, or email me at yarnismyantidrug at gmail dot com!

A little towards the deep end...

I went to the funeral of my husband's grandmother today. I was not close to her and only met her a handful of times. My husband's family is .... complicated. It seemed appropriate to be there though to lend my support and well wishes especially since my husband could not. I was struck while I was there by how large my husband's family is. So many people who are connected so deeply. Something else struck me while I was sitting amongst so many people that I mostly only know through Facebook and a few brief meetings as they tried to sort through their grief and the things that make families what they are.

Part of the human condition is that at some point in our lives we all get hurt by someone we love. Whether it's an unkind word, or something truly heinous. We all get hurt. By the same token, each of us hurts someone. Most of us hurt many people. When we examine our hurts, small or large and weigh them against the amount of forgiveness each of us carries in our hearts, we can always deepen the well by remembering that although we have been hurt, we have in turn caused pain. None of us is perfect. We have to remember that, especially when we are surrounded by people we love. Our love can overcome the hurts that we deal each other. Our love can heal us.

My love is with you all.

In lighter news, I really freaking love zombie movies. They can make a hard day so much better.