But I like it for what it is

When people would tell me, “You should open an Etsy shop.” I used to try to explain the cost of yarn, the cost of my time, the price people actually are willing to pay for things.

This article puts my real feelings into words, though. Making something into work, putting a dollar value on it, ruins the joy. Sucks the life out of activities. Makes what once reduced stress an adder to  my over-complicated life.

So I think my new answer to “You should sell that” is going to be a simple, “But that would make it a job.” And I’m at a point where I don’t need another job. I’m a mom. A lighting designer. Scheduler in chief for the family. Pooper scooper extraordinaire.

And knitting makes me happy. Yarn makes me happy. Crochet makes me happy. Cutting wood, darning, embroidery, drawing poorly, scullpting terribly. I love being a maker but I’m lucky that I don’t have to try to make it my living.

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March Madness

The Mason Dixon Knitting ladies are doing a knitter’s bracket! Voting starts 3/21, Thursday (tomorrow!). I think I’ll fill out the bracket and see how I agree.

New Toys

Several years ago my husband made a table top swift with some wood and a lazy susan.

The dream is for a “squirrel cage” vertical swift, like art. But in the meantime, a friend sent me a link for a $2 swift at a local thrift store. Nobody there knew what it was, and though she’s not a fiber artist, she’s pretty “swift” and recognized what it was.

Amazingly, it was still there three days later when I had a chance to get to the store. It’s missing the two screws, but we came up with some solutions.

The clamp actually goes up under the upper umbrella part. And the lower screw is a piece, filed down, from the back of the dishwasher we just replaced!

 

Brrr…

Our heater is on the fritz. And while we’re not exactly polar vortex weather, it’s darn chilly to be hanging in our house. So we’ve had lots of blankets, lots of fireplace fires, and lots of baking to help warm our house! These are a modified Test Kitchen recipe. I threw in a banana that was going brown and used mixed berries (zapped in the food processor) instead of blueberries. Yum!

For a cause

Normally I do a KAL because I like the podcaster, the prize, or the project. This time I’m jumping on a cool bandwagon.

Paper Daisy Creations is hosting the #lotsofsocksKAL in honor of World Down Syndrome Day, March 21. And then on that day, you wear two mis-matched socks! I heard about it on an interview over on Mastering the Knits podcast. She got 15 creators to offer their sock patterns at a nice discount (sorry, that part is over) and then you can use your new pattern to make socks for the KAL! I scored Flower Shock Socks & since only one sock is required for the KAL, I’m humming along (while watching old seasons of Project Runway).

 

Coordinate

One of the difficulties of my laissez faire attitude about my knitting projects is that now that Santa Barbara is having an actual cold “winter” I am looking a little bit crazy with my mis-matched patterns and colors. I’d like to remedy this. I don’t want to be matchy-matchy but a little “go,” a little coordination might go a long way to making me look eccentric instead of wacko.

Step 1 is identifying the problem. Step 2 is going to be looking at the yarn I have and can easily acquire. And Step 3 will be making head/neck-wear that will go with the opposite.

Relevant to my Interests

I have no problem admitting that I read to escape, to lead another life, to just relax. I don’t need ancient tomes and complicated exposition. But up until now, while I enjoy a good cozy mystery, I haven’t been able to really get in to any of the knitting themed ones.

And then I saw “The Vampire Knitting Club.” Apparently what I was missing was a bit of paranormal. Because these are so fun, so cozy, and just a little quirky.