Knitting With Granny LJ

Good morning.

Yesterday morning was a run around time for Karen and me.  We had haircuts at 8 a.m.  That probably won’t happen again.  We both decided that it is too early in the morning.  Then we ran some other errands.  And finished up — before she ran me home — at the shop.  I wanted to look at some yarn she had told me about that one of the  vendors had brought in.

It was tucked way back in a corner and there were three small boxes of it.  About 12 little skeins to the box.  It was a beautiful Christmas green, in a fingering weight size,  and the skeins were maybe 50 yards.  Now there was a time I would have taken all three boxes, even though I had no idea what I would do with it. 

However the vendor wanted $30 a box for it — or a total of $90.  I looked at it and looked at it.  I thought about getting just one box.  But the yarns were all what I call accent yarns.  Not base yarns.  And I really did not think I could come up with enough cap ideas with a green accent for even $30 worth of it,  let alone $90. 

I put the yarns back.  I think that is something like a first for me.  I used to go into Dodie’s shop when it was in Toledo and expect to buy only yarn out of the sale bin.  One of the nice things about doing caps is that it only takes about 200  yards of yarn to make a cap, so the sale bin was filled with prime possibilities for me.  But what would happen is that I would scrounge about in the sale bin and then start looking at the yarns that were not on sale.  The for-sale yarns. That is where I met my doom.  I would walk in to the shop expecting to get $50 worth of sale yarn and would walk out with the $50 of sale yarn AND  about $150 of the other yarns.  And probably a book or two, as well. 

In those days I was still working at the hospital and could almost afford junkets to Toledo to see Dodie and see what she had put out for us yarn freaks. 

There was a time when that Christmas green yarn would have come home with me, regardless.  But, I decided, that until I get that beautiful yarn room I dream about, I will concentrate of making the caps and not on accumulating any more yarn.  For a while.  However, that is subject to change after the market starts next month and I sell a cap or two — or three — or….

But for now, I am going to concentrate my efforts on turning the yarn I have into some beautiful and marketable caps. 

Have a great day.  Happy knitting.   Granny LJ

Good morning:

We had a huge storm blow through yesterday.  The wind was bending the trees to about a 25 to 30 degree angle all day.  And the rain came down in buckets.  Red does not seem to mind the rain.  But Parker thinks that having to go outside in a storm is the worst possible thing that could happen. 

At any rate, despite the weather, and harrassing Parker to get out in it and take care of personal business, I got quite a bit of knitting done.  I got the dark green GC topped and and ready for finish work.  I have 2 more caps to get onto double pointed needles today.  The weather is not supposed to be as windy as yesterday, but will still be a good day to hunker down in my chair and do topping and some finish work.

One month from today, May 13, the market opens here in Waldport.  Am really looking forward to it.  I will be showing from the back of Karen’s car.  The space rent  is less expensive for a parking space rather than a tent space.  And I really do not have  even the remotest desire to bother with a tent ever again, unless someone does all the set up and take down work.  But  am excited to get going on the market.

I am also going to be showing some of Karen’s art work in the space.  She is a gifted artist and does scratch board.   She was part of a show for scratch board artists in Chicago last month.  It would make me nuts to do that kind of work,  it is so tiny and precise.  I guess that is why I am a knitter.  Not so tiny and the precision has a bit of elbow room, too. 

Will start showing the Contest Cap this month at Shorebirds. I will  get it  tagged and ready to go today.  Am glad I did the contest.  It was a bit of a stretch for me, but a good one.  I may just enter the county fair this year.  Will have to see, though.  We may not have a county fair this year.  It seems that some of the planners got mad at some of the other planners and walked out of a meeting to protest something or other.  So am not sure if we will have the fair, but if we do, I am pretty sure that I will show a cap there, this year.

Well, that is about all the nattering I have for this morning.  Waldport is sitting right under a very intense squall of the storm that has promised lightening and thunder for today.  Glad I am here in my  comfy chair with my yarns and knitting projects. 

Have a great day.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning:

Yesterday was a picture taking day.  Karen wanted some pictures of Parker and Red wearing Easter bunny ears.  Red is very much  above such things, but he was willing to sit and pose with the ears on his head.  He was not happy and looked it, but endured it because of the treats.  Parker thought he was totally cool having the ears on and getting the treats.  Then Parker posed for some cap pictures, too.  He also got treats for that bit of work.  Red wanted the treats, but not the posing part.  I guess that when you get older you can be a little grumpy if you want to.

After the photo shoot, I came home and sat and knit all day.  Am still working on the Mano and mohair cap.  I discovered this morning that I will be spending today tinking the work that I did yesterday on it.  I was looking at it before breakfast and it has a place on the back where I change from the Mano to mohair that is weird.  Am not sure how it got to be that way, but I will be spending the day to tink it out and redo it.

Other than that, things are perking along pretty well.  Karen and I talked about the Wednesday market that is going to be in Waldport this year.  We are going to use her car.  I will work the space with my caps and her art work and cards and she will be at Shorebirds.  I do enjoy doing the markets.  It gives me a chance to talk to people about knitting and other things.  I meet new people and some of them even buy a cap.  I am not excited about working outside for the market because of the weather.   But Karen and I decided this morning, that if the weather is too rotten, I’ll just lock up the car and go to Shorebirds for the rest of the day.  I think that will work just fine.

Good grief.  I  hear the boys out back yelling at me.  I know that they are yellling at me because Parker flings himself at my back door as he yells.  Need to go see what they want. 

 Have a great day. Good knitting, Granny LJ

Good morning.

When I was a young woman, I was inspired by Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”    It was a sort of a manifesto for alot of us who were the age to be asking. 

There were a lot of big things that I wanted in those days.  World peace was #1 on my list.  But over the years, I have managed to size down on my asking list.  From world peace, I quickly went to marriage and children and when these were fulfilled, I moved on to raising my kid to be a decent adult.  Along with that, I had several other things that I thought would make the world a better place to be.  After several years of working on those issues, I finally discovered that Kennedy had a much bigger picture of things than I could manage.  What really mattered to me was getting my kid raised and paying my bills. 

Now here I am on the coast.  I live near the ocean and can hear it rumble when I am outside.  Now, that I am here, what I would ask for is a big yarn room. 

I saw a picture once in one of my knitting magazines of this knitter’s yarn room.  The ceiling had to be 10 feet tall or taller.  And the wall (the one in the picture) was filled — from floor to ceiling — with a shelving unit and that was filled with yarns.  Everything in order.  Every yarn put away according to color.  I imagined a room like that with shelving units on all 4 walls — floor to ceiling yarn on all 4 walls.  I swear I felt an instant pang of jealously. 

The yarns I have now are kind of cobbled into some shelving that I bought at the flea market, some that Karen didn’t want any more, and a huge basket chest which is 2 x 4 x 3 feet big acquired at a local garage sale,  and assorted bags of yarns that have no place to go.  Oh yes, I have some fairly big baskets that I got when a local craft store was on a basket selling binge.

And I have to admit that I was really  almost jealous of the woman in the magazine picture with her exquisite wall shelves when I saw the picture. 

I don’t think I will ever have a knitting room as well set up as the one in the picture.  But I will always have surprises.  I never know what I will find in the bottom of the big basket or some of the smaller ones. for that matter. And the other day, I grabbed up a bag and found a mess of Noro yarn that I had forgotten that I had. It was a neat surprise and I smilled the rest of the day. 

So, if anyone ever asks what my country could do for me, I would say, I can get along with what I have, but if the country has a huge urge — a yarn room like the one in the magazine would sure be lovely.

Have a good day.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning:

The rain is supposed to wander back in this afternoon or tomorrow morning.  So I can hunker down and knit hard and fast and not feel too guilty about not getting out to go on a walkabout.  It is the inertia factor, I guess.   When I take some time off from my walking with Karen and the boys, I go through a period of wanting the wet weather to go away and I can get back to walking again.  Then that time erodes down to being OK with not walking and if the rain goes on too long, I have almost too much inertia to get going again. Both the boys and I need the walks. 

Yesterday was fine weather and I really ought to have gotten the boys out for a walk in the neighborhood if not down on the beach.  But the inertia won, and I spent the day in my chair  with my latest hat project.

But I find that happens with my knitting, too.    If I start cranking out the same cap over and over and over, I get bored and end up with several unfinished projects on needles.  Usually with these, when I run across them on my work table, I simply pull the needles out and eventually rewind the yarn into balls again. 

I guess that is the basic reason I don’t do  caps that are all alike.  The boredom factor.  I really enjoy picking up a hank of  yarn and seeing the best cap it could become and then working to make that happen. 

Yesterday, I was looking at some mohair, light brown, yarn and some Mano varigated brown yarn.  I took hunks of both of them outside and looked and the two will go together well — color-wise.  So I will start that new cap this morning.  I have several ideas for it whipping around in my head like popping corn.  I will be interested in seeing what comes out.

I really do not think that I could in all good conscience show some of the work I have see shown at shows and shops.  I want my caps to be an art form, I guess.  I want people to enjoy wearing my caps because they know that they are one of a kind and will keep their ears warm into the bargain.  

Well, that is about all for today.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

Saturday was an interesting day.  I was downtown to go to the meeting for Waldport’s new outdoor market.  

Saw some familiar faces when I was at the meeting.  We open on the 13th of next month.  Good thing I am not worried about things like the 13th.  I was not going to do the outdoor market because the weather here can be pretty iffy — even in summer.  But it turns out that I have a couple of choices besides setting up out in the open. 

The first is that one of the Shorebirds vendors is probably going to do the market  and she has told Karen that I can share her tent. She makes jewelry so my caps should not clash with her work.  And I was talking to Karen about the market yesterday morning over breakfast and she said that she is going to be at Shorebirds on Wednesdays and I can use the back end of car and work from a parking spot.  The cost of that space is about $4 less than the cost of a space to set up a tent.

Also at the meeting, the friend who does the 4-H show at the fair grounds each spring asked if I was going to do that show.  I said no because of the car-thing.  She said to contact her because she was sure that I could get a ride with someone from this area who is doing that show.

This whole business of not driving is an annoyance, but I have been lucky in that Karen is willing to give me ride-alongs and the folks here in Lincoln County know that sometimes other folks need a bit of assistance in doing things. 

So the pluses of the meeting really out-weighed the other thing of the day.  I checked the mail before I went to the meeting.  I found the letter from the contest folks who let me know that they appreciated my entry, but that it was not selected to be among the finalists.  Which is really OK with me.  I can get the cap tagged and out with the rest of the caps that are for sale.  I am pleased with the way the cap looks and fits and I am sure that someone else will buy it and be just as pleased.  And — besides that, what would I do with $1000 more in yarn, when right now I have so much that my place is more like an obstacle course than a room. 

Well, I need to be getting to work on the caps.  I got one topped yesterday and have a beautiful Noro 100% wool on double point needles.  And I have to retag some of the caps I was going to put out on Saturday at the shop, because I messed up the information on the tags. 

I hope you have a great day today.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning:

Today is going to be a day that is pretty much all business. 

I have 5 caps that are topped and ready for finish work.  Once the finish work is done, they get tags and are listed in the inventory notebook.  I have to admit that I am a procrastinator.  I really prefer starting caps to finishing them.  Yesterday was such a day.  I had fully intended to get the finish work done and the caps tagged and recorded and ready to go to Shorebirds.  But then I looked at my work table and saw the gorgeous red-orange cap that I had almost finished the ribbing on.  So I thought —  why not, just a few minutes to complete the ribbing and then on to the finish work. 

Well, by the end of the day, I had the ribbing done on the cap, and about 4 inches of the body done.  So much for the finish work. 

But today I really have to be a good kid and get to that finish work. 

I have a thing about the finish work.  All the things I should have or could have or why didn’t I do this or, worse, why did I do it this way  surface.  And before the long ends are all worked in, I am sure that no body in their right mind would want the cap, so maybe I should keep it for myself. 

The fact that I have the space at Shorebirds and the first organizational meeting for the summer market is tomorrow will  help keep me focused, though.  I really need to have something new for the shop.  And I really need to have something  to show at the market. 

So I am going to get things moving and tackle the finish work first and THEN go to the lovely red-orange cap and some other works in progress that I have on my work table. 

Have a good day.  Good knitting, Granny LJ

Good morning:

When I was rooting around on my work table the day before yesterday, I also found a book that was a real help and inspiration to me in my capping. 

As noted in earlier blogs, my first caps were pretty grim things.  I had not knit for years when I did the caps for the Women’s Crisis Center.  And they looked like it.  Actually what I did with that bunch of caps was to work on straight needles and make a huge seam up the back of the cap.  They were beginner’s caps no question about it.    So I started searching for books that had cap patterns.  I found a book at the one yarn shop in town (Salem) and it was about very decorative tams.  I got it and tried to work from it.  I struggled along on straights and the caps still looked like something made by Kennie the amazing knitting chimpanzee.  I knit a couple more caps for myself that were wearable and then a few caps as gifts. 

I was down here on the coast before my capping really took off.  A real yarn store opened in Toledo, about a 45 minute drive from where I lived.  I went in there half expecting to be laughed out of the shop.  Instead, I found Dodie who got me started on circular needles and very good yarn.  She also taught me the little bit of color theory that I know. 

But the book-find of all time for me was a book called Hats On! by Charlene Schurch, published by Down East Books.  The copyright date is 1999, so I don’t know if it is still in print.  This was the first book I found that had real patterns for real caps — real caps are the ones people here on the coast would wear.  She developed a collection of caps that were easy to make and fun and beautiful into the bargain. 

In addition to teaching me things like the basics of cap design, the book also gave me a sense of the real beauty a cap could be.  All the other books I have gotten on making a cap pale by comparison.  Some of them try to make a cap more “challenging” by starting from the top, beginning with 2 stitches and increasing as you work down.  Sort of the knitter’s type of crocheted cap.  Others think that all caps should be made on size 20 needles because caps are basically boring and should be made quickly.  I have one book where one of the patterns is like an old hand-held accordian and the body is close to a foot long.  I moaned when I saw that pattern. 

A cap is not a hard project.   A cap is not a long project.  But as far as I am concerned, a cap is never a boring project.  Each yarn I use, challenges me to make the  best cap I can, whether a simple watch cap, a beram, a two color project or one filled with cables and twists. 

Check this book  — Hats On! —  out.  Schurch shows her readers what a delightful and diverse project a cap can be. 

Happy day.  Good knitting to you all.  Granny LJ

Good morning:

Well, here it is April 1 and we are still having March showers, which according to the old rhyme means May flowers.  But it is a great day to sit inside and watch old movies and knit.

A week or so ago, I started a cap out of the other Kureyon yarn I got the last time I was in Lincoln City at Nestucca Bay Yarns.  It is a simple beram style cap.  As with the other  Noro  yarrns it is too busy a cap to do a pattern along with the incredible colorways Noro uses.  At any rate, I spent a large part of yesterday working on this cap.  The colors are a rainbow of colors, but mostly reds and red oranges. 

I decided to power down on the green GC and work on this beram for a while.  I have enough done to get it onto double point needles this morning and start topping it off.  It is going to be a lovely cap.  I knit it on size #5 double points so the body of the cap is, obviously, more dense than the ones done on size #6 needles.  But I think I like the density better on this cap than the ones done on #6 needles.  I am convinced that the rain and wind will not be getting through to ears of its wearer.  Will cast on a Silk Garden cap on #5 needles after I get this one on double points, and see if I like that yarn on the smaller needles as well.  Will keep you informed.

The other thing I need to get cracking on is the finish work for the caps that need to go down to Shorebirds this week for the switch out.  I have 5 or 6 caps ready for finish work, and need to get going on those, too. 

So it will be a very busy day.  Saturday there is a meeting of the vendors for the summer market. It  will be held  at the Senior Center.  So I will get the caps topped and the finish work done by then and be able to deal with 2 tasks and only one trip to town. 

Well, I need to get up and get myself ready and  get going on the tasks at hand.

Happy knitting to you all.  Granny LJ