Knitting With Granny LJ

Good morning.

Yesterday was the Wednesday Market here in Waldport.  I had planned a slightly more adventurous set up instead of the one I have been using — which is the back end of Karen’s car.  But when we got to the market to set up, the weather was not cooperating.  We had a very strong mizzle going, and rather than get the caps out of the back end of the car, as I had planned, I set up in the car instead, as usual.

It was an interesting day for lots of reasons.  The biggest reason is that I have agreed to do two special orders. 

The first special order is a chemo cap.  A very outgoing woman stopped and asked about chemo caps.  I told her that I had not done one since I did one for a long-time friend.  She assured me that it was certainly time for me to start doing them again and by the time she was done assuring me, I had agreed to do one for a friend of hers. 

Chemo caps are not hard to do.  I work them in Berroco’s Chinchilla yarn.  When I first started doing them, I would just use the Chinchilla.  However when made up, the cap was floppy and insubstantial feeling.  So I started doing them with a base yarn.  The cap turns out just as soft and cuddly as the Chinchilla alone, but has more stability to it.  So today I will be rooting around in my stash and looking for some black Chinchilla and get started on the cap.

The other was a bit of a surprise to me.  I had a man stop and look over my caps and we got to talking.  I have done several  regular stocking caps in guy sizes.  What this gentleman was looking for is a big tam in black.  He is a local musician and his mother-in-law has made him tams for his performances.  However, she is pretty old and can’t do the caps for him anymore.  We spent some time talking about tams and sizes and yarns.  What we came up with was that next week he would bring me one of his used tams and I would copy it. 

Ordinarily, I do not do special orders because I cannot convince myself that it will be as good as the orderer envisioned or that the two of us even have the same vision of the cap ordered.  But I decided to make an exception because he is willing to work with me on the project. 

Did not sell anything yesterday if you discount the special orders.  But it was a good day.  We had almost no sun after the mizzling gave up, but I got a sunburn anyway.  Karen tells me that the sunburn is due to the UV rays even though the sky is not clear.  I think before market season is done, I will probably be a crispy critter of a cap maker. 

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

Good morning.

Had a very quiet day yesterday.  Worked basically on the new blue cap while the backside of the storm that came in on Sunday finished its walk across the Oregon Coast.

The cap is going very well.  For the cap’s body I am doing one row of the fuzzy yarn and one row of the thick-thin yarn.  I am pretty excited about how it is coming along.

But tomorrow is Market day, and I want to get my inventory list up to date and have some new caps to put out at Shorebirds after the Market closes.  So  I probably won’t get too much done on the new cap, today.

I have to admit it.  I really do not like doing the record keeping.  I was a lit major in college and we, as  a group,  are not known for our ability to be practical.   

I love knitting the caps so much.  They are real — touchable — have a usefulness to the wearer –  and are an infinite challenge to someone who knits.  So it is easy for me to put the practical side of the business on the back burner.

I have a major reluctance to getting around to the paper work end of things.  I have often imagined what it would be like to have a Nikki Epstein kind of a life:  She has, I understand, several people who help her with her work. Well,  I can think about it and drool, but I have my life, so I better get those records caught up to date and the finish work done.

Tomorrow is market and I am looking forward to it. 

Good knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

I was rooting aound in my stash the other day and found  of two  partial skeins of varigated blue.  They are different brands and different make up, but I gave them the sunshine test and the blues are a dead on match.  Neither partial skein was enough to do a a complete cap. Together, however, they will make a  complete and interesting looking cap.

I am sometimes chided about not getting rid of my leftover yarns after I get a cap topped off.  I warehouse the leftover yarns in a couple of big baskets in my work area and keeping them seems, to nonknitters, like a waste of yarn.  I have tried to come up with an idea of something to do with  leftover yarn.  I have tried making EBs and even scarves.   But none of those efforts have really  excited the knitter in me, because both involving working on straight needles, and I have come to really dislike going back and forth and back and forth. 

But since I found these two partial skeins of blues that work so well together, I am going to root around in my leftover baskets and see if I can’t find more leftover yarns that would work well in a hodgepodge type of a cap. 

Right now, I have a side table that has several caps that need to be topped off, and several more caps that need to have the finish work done so I can get them out to either Shorebirds or the Wednesday market. 

That being the case, I had better get going on both of those tasks. 

Have a good day.  Happy knitting.   Granny LJ

Good morning.

Market was Wednesday.  It was a pretty quiet day for cap sellers — all three of us.  But the weather cooperated though it did mizzle a little in the morning. 

 I talked knitting with several customers and even had a lady try a cap on.  I thought I had made a sale, but when you hear “I need to think about it.”  you know that they will “think about it”  all the way to the next booth. 

I have decided that I need to get the caps out and more visible.  The shoppers tend to avoid invading the space of the vendor.  The more I thought about it on Wednesday, the more convinced I became that I needed to get the caps out in front of folks walking by.  The only problem is the weather.  Even a mizzle can damage caps made out of wool. 

I went two spaces west of me and talked to the two ladies who have a clear plastic cover for their work when the weather is raining or mizzling.  They got  the plastic at Wal-Mart.  Yesterday, Karen was making a trip to Newport and was going to Wal-Mart and I hitched a ride with her.  I got 3 yards of a light-weight clear plastic.  It is about 4 feet wide, or so.  Now I have to decide on the table to use.  Once I get that figured out, then I am off and rolling. 

There is an artist and art marketing maven who Karen introduced me to. He believes that the potential customer should be encouraged to come inside the marketing area.  What Karen and I have found, though, is that a lot of people will not actually walk into a U-shaped area.  What they prefer is to walk past and look and maybe stop but will seldom invade the space of the vendor.  We saw this in May at Crafts on the Coast.  We set up in the U-shaped format  and Karen had no sales the first day.  On Sunday, we shifted things a bit and put the back table up on the aisle and she sat at it and worked her scratch board.  Sunday, she made several sales and picked up a commission. 

Based on this and the fact that I now have some rain protection for the caps, I am going to move my set-up at the market out of the car and onto a table.  Will be reporting next week to let you know how it worked. 

Have a great day.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning:

A quick word of explanation for this silence.  I caught a humdinger of a cold that lasted the better part of the month.  The cold itself was not so bad, but the coughing that went along with it was pretty terrible.  Once the cold was under control, then I dealt with my truck issue.  I have not driven in several years because of vision problems.  I kept the truck hoping that I would be able to drive again, but  I finally figured out that would not happen.  About the same time as I was deciding I needed to “do something”  about the truck, I had three potential buyers.  You know how it is — feast or famine.  Then I spent a mess of time calling assorted agencies and getting the paper work done and the truck departed last Friday. 

But in spite of all this, the knitting has progressed apace.  I have 4 caps that need finish work and 2 others that are ready for topping. 

The Wednesday market has not resulted in many cap sales, but it does get me out and meeting people and talking to someone who says more than “Bark.  Bark.”  And my conversation skills are stretched beyond “Ok. Parker.  Go potty.  Good boy.  Let’s get a treat.  Red, your turn to go potty. ”

So this is a good thing.

Last week I had a space in the middle of the lot next to the kettle corn tent.  That space is run by a middle-aged man and his early 20s daughter.  One of our local teens has too little to do and a few weeks ago discovered the market.  Since then he has been coming down about 10 a.m. when we open and staying until 2 p.m.  and helping do things like set up tents, and tear down and holding down tents when the wind comes up.   He discovered the kettle corn daughter about his second week visiting the market, and now spends most of his time hanging around the kettle corn tent talking to the young woman while she bags the popped corn. 

It is a real joy to work with Lou, the market organizer.  He has such a can-do attitude.  In fact, a less accommodating organizer would probably not have let me come and set up last week because I was late.  Not Lou.  He also makes frequent tours around the lot to make sure everything is OK and the vendors and customers have what they need.  If a tent starts to go walkabout in the wind, he helps get it settled down.  Last week, at tear down time, he went around to all the vendors and thanked them for coming to market and helping make it a success. 

Well, that is about all from here for today. Hope you have a great day.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ