Knitting With Granny LJ

Good morning.

English is a great language.  It takes a little bit from here or from there and makes new words.  Rather like moss growing on a stone.  For instance the word alcoholic is, as everyone knows, the word for a person who drinks too much alcohol.  Well, our English took that word and incorporated the end “-holic” into the language.  And now we can have all sorts of -holics.  I have known people who were sugarholics, gismoholics and on and on.  I have a cousin who is a toolholic.  My father was an odds-and-endsholic.  I swear the man never threw a thing away.   My younger brother says he does not have a -holic problem, but I think he may be kidding himself.  You should see his garage. 

Me?  I’d like to say that I don’t have any -holics, but I can’t and continue to consider myself an honorable person. 

I am a bookaholic and a yarnaholic.  (I’m sure I have more -holics, but will not discuss any now, thank you very much.)

When I was a kid I was at least a year younger than the other kids in the neighborhood.  They all went to school and learned to read.  I was the only one I knew who could not read.  My mother got me a Dick and Jane book and I learned to read “Run, Dick, run.”  “See funny Jane.”  “Come, Spot, come.”   It really wasn’t  all that much, but I could read.  The next step was to get a library card and I was reading everything I could find — in the way of horse stories and dog stories. Later I advanced to Sue Barton, Student Nurse, and followed her career until she got into administration stories. 

The yarnaholic time of my life started many, many years later.  When I started knitting caps, I got yarn from BiMart and some plastic (and bent) knitting needles from my mother.  I would make one cap at a time and even do the finish work before I cast on a new cap. 

Then I went into the yarn store that was in the Mission-Mill Museum complex and discovered the book on knitted tams.  I got it.  And I got yarn for a simple cap for a good friend of mine.  It was almost her  birthday. While I was there, I found some really gorgeous yarn in a rusty colored brown.  I had no idea what to do with it, but like the book, it called out to me.  So I took it home too.  The next trip to the yarn store at the Mission-Mill  netted me some metal straight needles, size 8, and enough yarn to make caps for several family members for Christmas. 

Thus  a yarnaholic was born.  What I did not realize at the time I gave into my yarnaholism was that it also gave me a great opportunity to feed my bookaholism.  You would not believe the number of books that are out there to teach you the ultimate in knitting techniques.  I was on cloud-9.  I could go into one store and feed both my -holics at once. 

What I think is that everybody has a -holic or two.  I am delighted with mine.  I hope you are with yours, too.

Happy knitting.   Granny LJ

Good morning. 

Just got back from a walk on the beach with Parker.  (Again, see Karen’s blog about Parker and Red).  We have come to an agreement about our walks together.  We walk out from the cliff to the water’s edge and walk south until the first creek.  I am looking for rocks.  He is impatient.  Then on the way back we walk in the dry sand and drift wood along the edge of the cliff.  It is a leisurely return because he has to stop and smell everything that there is to smell, and follow some trails,  and hope they take him some place fascinating.  In a past life, I am sure he was a knitter.

Or maybe some of me rubbed off on him, because that is the way I am in a yarn store.  My neighbor, Karen, almost never goes with me into a yarn store any more.  She is entranced by all the speciality yarns.  And they are beautiful, but they don’t make very good caps.  Too flimsy.  To make the kind of cap I want in my inventory, I have to use a yarn that the wind cannot blow through too easily.  That is why I work in the sturdy wools and wool blends to make the caps sturdy enough to keep the coastal wind out of  the ears. 

Yesterday, I spent most of the day working on the new Galway cap with the Handpaint colored yarn.  I have about 6 or 7 rows of the pattern done and I discovered that I had made a mistake at the seam where the old row blends into the new row.  It looks like somebody stomped on an Easter egg.  I was extremely grumpy when I saw it.  So I put it aside and grabbed up some brownish-gray wool and started a Guy Cap.  Usually I find the Guy Caps pretty boring to do, but yesterday it was just the right thing. 

Now I have two caps to take out and redo.  I know I sound pretty grumpy about it.  But that is the wonderful thing about knitting, when something does not turn out right, it can be taken out and done again.  I always feel pretty good about a cap that looks just right,  and am pleased that I took the time to make it just right.

Well, that is about all from here for today.  Good knitting to you all.  Granny LJ

Good morning.

The weather here on the Oregon coast continues to be sunny, but this morning when Karen and I got the boys out, it was pretty chilly and the wind was threatening to head inland and pick up speed.  But it was only a threat, and we were able to walk the boys for about an hour on the beach.  I found a lovely piece of jasper with agate mixed into it and put it in my pocket along with several other rocks that needed a good home.  Fortunately I found one for them all.  We met an older couple who  had come down on the beach — he to take pictures and she to look for rocks. 

In a very real way, me walking on the beach looking for pretty rocks is just like what happens when I walk into a yarn shop.  Especially one I have not been in before.  I am delighted with all the color and the beauty of it.  Karen likes to go into a store and get what she wants and leave.  I do too, when it is the grocery store or a stationery shop.  But not in a yarn store — or even a bin of on-sale-for-a-dollar yarns that are all but throwaways.

One term I learned in my serious rock collecting days was “leaverite.”  My source for that term came from a man who had been rock hunting since about the turn of the century.  One day when I showed him a rock I had picked up,  and asked what it was, he said, “Leaverite.”   Then he laughed and said, “Leave’er right there.” 

Yarns can come in leaverites too.  For what I do — make caps — there are a lot of yarns that I would love to work in and play with, but I know that the kind of cap they would make would not be very practical for Oregon coast beach walks.   Before I started applying the leaverite principle to yarns I  brought home  bags  full of yarn that have no business being in a beach walk cap.  In fact, Karen is still nattering at me about the huge bag of incredible ribbon yarn that I bought for over $100 because I thought the yarns in the bag were gorgeous. 

Well they are.  And they are gorgeous hanging from a hook.  I have looked at those yarns for almost 2 years. And I have not even a whisper of an idea  — yet — what to do with them.  They are beautiful.  But, realistically,  they should have been determined to be leaverites. 

Another place in a yarn store that I search diligently is the mark-down bin.  Because I do only caps I can get by with much less yarn that someone who does sweaters.  I have been known to rummage the mark-down bin and come home with some really great  leaverites, as well. 

 Yet, recently I had a bit of justification on the leaverite issue — I matched up a pop of speciality lace yarn that I was sure would end up being a leaverite with a gorgeous rich lavender wool  yarn.  So I am going to do a two color project with that rich lavender as the base and the other as  accent.  Will have to rummage the around the work area and find exactly the correct pattern, though I might be able to do it like the Sunshine cap.  Or maybe I can figure out a pattern that will make it look like the inside of Aladdin’s treasure cavern. 

Hey, I need to go rummage and see what  ideas I can come up with. 

Have a great day.  Granny LJ