Knitting With Granny LJ

Good morning.

What I  want to talk about  today is a question that popped up a bit ago on my blog comments site.  The writer wanted to know what “earth tones” are when it comes to knitting.  For those who need a refresher on my lack of color skills please refer back to the entry of March 16, 2009. 

I think a case could be made for every color being an “earth tone.”  You can see every color (the ones we earthlings have)  right here on the planet surface, after all.  But what comes to my mind when I think or talk about “earth tones”  are the colors that are browns, beiges, grays, sometimes green (depending on whether the green has a yellow base or a blue base) — the colors that are associated with growing things.

I don’t usually gravitate toward earth tones when shopping for yarn or clothing.  I love blue, and  have, as I get older, developed a love for lavender colors.  When I enter a yarn store, I immediately focus on what I call the jewel colors of yarns:  Reds, blues, lavenders, greens (if they have a blue base), whites (true whites, not the off whites). 

However, since I have been doing the caps I have noticed that a lot of people prefer the colors that I am not particularly fond of — the earth tones.  At the market last weekend, I looked at my inventory and noted that I had a lot of caps that fall into my category of earth tones.  I decided that I may have over-estimated the need for earth tone caps. 

As a result of the weekend show’s Voila! moment, I have begun topping off a jade green beram, and have a lovely plum purple cap ready for double points.  And yesterday I was rummaging my stash and found a lovely skein of garnet red yarn and another in variegated lavenders.

The result of all this:  I am going to be turning out a mess of jewel colored caps for a while.  That is where my heart finds joy in my knitting.  I also have a lovely pale blue with lavender highlights yarn that was hand spun by my spinning friend, Arlene.  And have another skein of rainbow colored yarn that I got from my spinning friend, Kristy. 

Well, knitting friends, the yarns are waving at me and calling.  Have to get going on those jewel tone caps.

Yellow?  I did not mention yellow?  Of all the colors, yellow (except in sunshine) is my least favorite color.  Am not even fond of it in daffodils.  Yellow hits my eyes with a ferocity that makes me uncomfortable just being near it.  I enjoy yellow highlights in a yarn but a stark yellow yarn hurts my eyes so I never work in it.

I suppose that other knitters have a favorite colors, and I would like to hear from some of your about your favorites and how you use them.

Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

Well, Karen and I did the back-to-back shows and survived.  The one we did last weekend was the Yachats Annual Art show.  It has been in existence for over 40 years and so the crowds are good sized.  That is good because part of doing the show is to get people familiarized with your work and doing a lot of PR for yourself. 

Like all shows and markets it had its good things and the not-so-good things.  The big not-so-good thing about this show was that we were in a small room with 7 other vendors.  That was not so bad in and of itself.  But atmosphere in the room was den of negativity.  Out of the 8 spaces only 3 of us tried to maintain a upbeat atmosphere.  The negativity got to me so badly by the second day, Karen told me to go walk around The Commons until I felt better.  So I did.  And it did help.  It is hard to see all the wonderful work that people do and talk to them about their work be grumpy about anything. 

We met a lot of nice people — both vendors and potential customers.  One vendor, a lady, from the far end of The Commons came on a walkabout and stopped at our booth.  In the course of talking with her, we discovered that we know a lot of the same people in the knitting world of Oregon.  So we had lots to talk about.  She and her husband sell herbal teas and other herbal products and her husband is a beginning knitter.  So  we, all three, talked knitting and yarns. 

The only other knitting artisan in the show was in our room and she was one of the mega-grumpy ones. So we did not talk much about our work.  I think she saw me as competition and that is unfortunate.  We might have been able to be knitting/yarn friends. 

We had good crowds coming through.  They  looked and talked and admired all the beauty of the crafts and art works that were there.  Both Karen and I would  have loved to have had more sales, but, again, part of the job of doing the shows is getting yourself and your work out and in front of folks.  After all, the person who walks by at this show may stop and buy at the next show. 

Have a great day.  Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

Well, the last Winterfest show in Yachats is over for the year.  And while we did not make mega-sales, it was good to get out and talk to folks about knitting and yarn.  The local spinning lady, Kristy, was there with her wares.  So while I did not sell much — just enough to pay for our space — I did get some gorgeous caps-to-be in  her  hand spun yarn. 

It was an interesting weekend on a couple of counts.  Karen is working on a scratch board of a  belly dancer she took a photo of several years ago in Yachats.  People who stopped by our space were entranced to watch her work.  With her scratch board being a relative unknown art form — unlike watercolors, photography, oils and the like — a great deal of what she does at shows is to educate and generate special orders.

We had a larger space than we normally  have because the vendor who was supposed to fill the space came down with a very, very bad cold and laryngitis.  So I got my caps out of the shop and took two table top cap stands and showed every cap that I had.  Sold two caps.  The first sale was to a lady who wanted a beach walk cap that covered her ears.  She bought a rolled brim cap in Manos del Uruguay 100% wool.  She and her husband and I were delighted with the way it looked on her.  Then several minutes later a lady came over and bought the cap I had made out of Arlene’s hand spun yarn in a soft pink. 

Also, I managed to spill my coffee over one entire table, including a cap that is now retired to my wardrobe, and  on myself and the floor.  Fortunately, that happened before we had a lot of people in and so I could get it cleaned up before we had many potential customers.

Toward the end of the second day, a very nice older lady stopped to look at my caps.  We had a long and congenial conversation and I also trotted out my retinue of knitting stories. She listened, smiling and nodding, while I talked.  Before she left, she assured me that she had been by my space the month before and I was telling her nothing new.  Am sure that she has had a good laugh after she left the Commons.  Though I do wish she had told me earlier she was hearing all my stories for  a second time. And  I used to wonder how Dad could ever tell the same stories over and over and over.  I guess I have to just consider repeating  my knitting stories another developmental milestone in my life.

All in all, it was a great weekend, though sales were not as good as we would have liked.  But we have another show this coming weekend and expect  to do well. 

Happy knitting.   Granny LJ

Good morning.

I have been asked about taking out stitches that are on circular needles.  Taking out stitches in a knitted work is tricky.  When I first started knitting I would discover a mistake and say a few rude things to the project I was working on and tear the whole thing out and start again.  I really do not like starting things over.  But I was still tearing out projects that I discovered a mistake in when I started shopping at Yarn for All Seasons.

Dodie, my friend and mentor, taught me how to tink.  It is as important as learning to knit and purl.  It is easy and a skill that every knitter, in my opinion, should have.

Tinking:

Examine the piece you are working on and find the problem.  The problem is, of course, what needs to be taken out and reknit.  I usually mark the problem with a stitch marker.  If the candidate for thinking is in the same row you may want to skip the marker.  If it is several rows back, trust me, mark the place.

Put the point of the left hand needle in the stitch below the row you had been working on.  Pull the stitch onto the left hand needle and slip the upper stitch (the one on the right hand needle) off and pull the yarn so that the upper stitch is gone.  

Because the word  “purl”  comes out “lrup”  I use  the word tinking for taking out both knitting and purling. 

The one thing to remember is to get those lower row stitches back onto the left needle in the same direction they were knit or purled onto the right needle.  Otherwise, when you get to replacing the stitches, they are difficult to re-knit or re-purl.   And those re-knit/re-purled stitches  are visible in the finished work.  I have done that frequently in my early knitting days and have ended up taking  out work that I wanted to avoid taking out by the tinking.  Some of my more frustrating knitting moments. 

So that is tinking.  I work on circular needles, as I have said before, and switch to double point needles for topping off.  I have tinked on the double points, too.  And the method is the same as on the circular. 

Until I learned to tink, I was seriously considering crocheting my caps because crochet is so easy to pull out and redo.  But thanks to Dodie, I can now tink my projects, if necessary, as well as I can knit  or purl them in the first place. 

Happy knitting.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

For those who do not know me, I was originally a Salemite.  I happened to be born in Seattle because The War was on and that is where Dad was stationed.  But if there hadn’t been a war, I would have been born in Salem.

When I was a kid, the Thomas K. Woolen Mill still existed.  Big and red and making wool fabrics.  There was also a retail store there that faced out onto 12th Street.  I went there with my parents one time, so Dad could pick out fabric for a suit.   Somewhere along the line the Mill closed and stood empty for most of my life in Salem.  Then a while back, some historically significant houses were to be torn down in some sort of city improvement plan. However, somebody (or several somebodies) opted to have the houses moved near the old woolen mill and a some others polished up the woolen mill itself and started giving tours.  And so the Mission Mill Museum was born. 

A day or so ago, I mentioned the yarn shop that was in the Mission Mill complex many years ago.  The other day I found out it was more than 10 years ago.  And, how did I find this out, you ask.

Because the owner of a new yarn store that has opened in the Mission Mill complex emailed me in response to my Blog page on the beginning of my yarnaholic years.  It is called Teaselwick Wools.  What an wonderful name.  And there is wool yarn  in the old woolen mill’s shops again. 

This week I am going to be working on a list of places for folks to get yarns and have the list ready for the market and show this month.  Although I have not  been to the shop in the Mission Mill complex I will be going there the next time I am in Salem, for sure. 

It was one of those events that brings a smile to my face and makes my head nod.  Lately there have been too many businesses who want to knock down some of the historical places in Salem and build parking lots.  Am glad to see that the Mission Mill is going to be breathing a bit of history  back into Salem with Teaselwick Wools.  My best to the owner, Tracy. 

Have a great day.  Granny LJ