Keeping Up With Life

Making Gifts

The unfortunate thing about it is that I can’t really show off the finished pieces as they become finished.  Because although I think it’s maybe a bit unlikely, there is still the chance that the intended recipients will see them and spoil the surprise.  I don’t think most of them follow my Tumblr, but I do cross-post sometimes.

OK, OK, I still post completed projects on Ravelry, because I get a little antsy if I don’t have a way to track my progress and how much of which yarn has been used vs. how much is left.  I don’t spread that address around as much, though, so I’m not as worried about it.

I wish I could show off the item I’m only a few bind-off stitches from finishing, because it’s something that less than a year ago I considered impossibly intimidating and now I’m so happy with it I’m going to make another.  (Which is not to say it’s perfect — there are lots of mistakes — but.  All things considered.)  I’ll have to settle for taking photos and biding my time until the gift is given, though.

A New Goal

I took my daughter to the fair Thursday night.  We looked around, found her daycare project first, and then I managed to get her to pay two seconds’ worth of attention to anything other than her own project and the rides.  (Which—okay, she’s five.  These things happen.)  The Children’s division is housed in a little room off the main Open Class displays, so we wandered through Open Class for a while.

I was in 4-H for a couple of years (I remember doing geneaology, cake decorating, and microwave cooking), but dropped away from it…  I don’t remember why.  My mom’s family has a strong 4-H presence, as one might expect a midwest farming family to do, but my personal upbringing was a little different and I don’t think it fit as well into our life as it did into others’.  (I also think I started my discomfort with organized group activities, especially those requiring me to call any attention to myself, at an early age—but that’s another story.)  Consequently, I tend to think of the fair more as a destination and an attraction than as something to be actively involved in.

Fiber arts are, like, classic fair stuff, right up there with quilts and preserves.  I hadn’t thought of that, though, until I was standing there in front of the display case full of knitting and crochet.  The idea wormed its way into my brain a little bit, but didn’t really start to bloom until we left the building.  This particular building has a little porch for display of plants, and on this porch were a couple of Master Gardeners hanging out to answer questions.  One of them had a small spinning wheel.  I drew Natalie’s attention to it, and she was duly fascinated.

The spinner introduced Natalie to her basket of batts (wool, alpalca, and a blend of the two) and let her feel them.  Natalie looked up at me and said softly, “You can turn any kind of hair into yarn, right Mommy?”  To which I gave an indeterminate “Well, sort of…”  (Because I guess you could, technically, but some hair would produce pretty horrendous yarn.)  One of the spinner’s friends gathered from this exchange that I had some familiarity with fiber and asked if I was a spinner.  “Oh, no,” I replied.  “A knitter.”  The next logical question was, of course, “Oh—do you have an entry in there?”

I don’t yet.  Not this year.  I had never even thought about it; if I had, there are a couple of things lying around I probably could have snatched up to enter.  But I didn’t.  Now I’m thinking about it, and…  Why not?  It costs nothing but time, it’s something I’ll be doing anyway, there’s nothing at stake, and I honestly believe that I do have the skill necessary to at least place my work beside these others without shame.

So I’ve set a reminder for myself to look into it when the time rolls around next year.  My goal is to have something made by then which I feel comfortable entering.  Maybe I’ll get ambitious and enter something else, too…  like preserves, speaking of classic fair entries.

A Few Random Things I Have Learned Browsing Patterns at Ravelry

• People will put the stupidest crap on babies because it’s “cute”.
• Everyone loves the granny-square look in crocheted items.  Right?  Right?
• …Except me.
• I am surprisingly conservative in some ways; I do not wish for photos of Mature Content projects to be included by default when I’m browsing (often at work on lunch or in the company of my almost-kindergartener), do not think it is appropriate to dress an infant in a beer mug hat, and do not believe that an image of a baby wearing nothing but a hat should be posted with the hat pattern.  Among other things.
• Fair Isle scares me. A part of me wants to try it, but the rest of me sobs uncontrollably at the thought of attempting colorwork that complex.
• On the other hand, a lot of other stuff that used to intimidate me (lace in particular, and entrelac) no longer does.
• If you have triggers related to infant mortality, there are certain categories you should not browse unrestrainedly.  A lot of categories, actually.  Pretty much any category which even might maybe relate to garments for the unfortunate victims thereof.
• The thought of stillbirth in particular bothers me much, much more than I’d realized, even though I actually was not all that worried about it for most of my pregnancy and don’t plan to ever be pregnant again.  (After one day when it seemed like I just could not get away from the previous point, I actually had nightmares about the subject—and it’s really unusual for me to have directly-stimulated bad dreams like that.)
• Those foam jigsaw-puzzle-type modular mats you see in, like, playrooms and stuff are great for blocking larger items like shawls on.  Get ‘em out, stick ‘em together in the size you need, and when it’s all done you can take ‘em back apart and put ‘em away again.
• If one person has thought of it, probably a good half a dozen have thought of it.  At least.
• Hairpin lace requires special equipment.  Broomstick lace does not.
• There is such a thing as a crocheted Weeping Angel.
• It’s more unusual to actually follow the pattern 100% as written than to modify it.  Which is why you should always check out the projects other people have done from an interesting-looking pattern, so that you can see what else can be done with it, how much yarn of a different weight than suggested you’ll need, etc.