Farewell….NOT!!

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been feeling a strong need for change in my life lately. After spending a large part of this year on hiatus from my design work, I find that I’m no longer motivated to actively market Knitting Matters as a pattern company. Let me be more specific — I still enjoy designing things to knit, but I probably won’t be writing and publishing patterns for the general public much anymore. There are several reasons for this, some of which are related to the state of the pattern industry (yarn stores stocking fewer paper patterns, and the wide availability of very good free patterns online), and some of which have to do with my own life. My current patterns will continue to be available on KnittingMatters.com, Ravelry, Patternfish and Webs, but I’m discontinuing the Knitting Matters blog because it doesn’t really relate to what I write about most often anymore.

I’ve started a new blog over at www.natureismytherapy.com, and I hope you’ll follow me over there (and subscribe if you want to stay updated by email or a blog reader).  The new blog will focus on things like birdwatching, wildlife, hiking, kayaking, and my growing photography obsession.

I want to thank all my subscribers and casual readers alike for stopping by to read about my knitting and other topics over the past six years. It’s really been wonderful to connect with you, and I look forward to even more conversations over at my new home. C’mon over, it’s going to be fun!

Musings

Pileated Woodpecker decorating our sassafras tree with big holes.

Well, well, well, it’s December 2010. Just yesterday it was January 2010 and we were all smiling and shiny-faced, and looking forward to 365 days that were better than the previous 365 days. It’s a good thing we didn’t know what was coming, as many of us have had another difficult year. (At least that’s true among my friends and family.)

But even with the prolonged hard times, I find myself thinking ahead to next year with the same sort of optimism and hope for positive change. It’s funny how the simple act of turning a page on the calendar can stir us to reassess our lives, isn’t it? I have some grand thoughts swirling around in my head, but they need some more time to coalesce. (One of them involves renaming my blog. I want to write about lots more things than just knitting….)

I’m trying to stay in a calm state of mind as I go through this month of craziness. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but it seems that people are already in a frenzy on the roads and in the stores. I was almost hit twice yesterday, and my husband’s car was totalled on Friday when a woman ran a stop sign and slammed into him. (Thankfully he wasn’t hurt, but he tells me his car spun 360 degrees around….so we’ll be getting some precautionary neck x-rays this week. My chiropractor says it can take up to a year for  neck injuries to become apparent, so better safe than sorry.)

Our town has a beautiful light display that draws people from around the state, so I plan to spend as much time as possible enjoying that. (That link is to a YouTube video of the lights taken by a total stranger.) I’ve started my shopping too, sticking to small but thoughtful (I hope) gifts to show people I care about them. Every year I find myself feeling dismayed at the materialistic way our culture celebrates the Christmas holiday, particularly when it comes to gifts for kids who already have too much stuff (IMHO). I wish today’s kids could know what life was like in simpler times (yes, back in MY day…I’m old enough to be able to say that now).

Can you imagine getting your family to sit down and play a board game these days? My mom insists that our family play a couple games together before we open gifts on Christmas Eve. She spends December preparing fun games and buying small gifts to use as prizes. Sometimes the games involve family trivia, like the year she asked, “Which person in our family has lived in more than 16 different places?” (Answer: me!)

We all pretend to dread the games, but deep down we love the family time and laughter. There’s always at least one light-hearted argument about who really won some game, often because Mom forget to decide on the rules ahead of time…she’s a riot. This year we’re playing Family Feud – and I predict there might be another “feud” too!

My family in 1966. (We were ages 5, 3, and 1.)

I love how my parents, especially my mom, get such a thrill out of having the whole family together in one room for a few hours each year. It’s so hard to get everyone in one spot nowadays, now that we’re all busy with our own lives, and my sister and brother each have kids that take up so much of their time. And Eric and I live 300 miles away from everyone else, so that adds another layer of complexity to family get-togethers. But for three or four hours on Christmas Eve every year we’re all back at our childhood home, squeezing three generations into a small room for the festivities. (And if my niece happens to have her baby a couple weeks early, we could have four generations together…that would be so awesome.  Fingers crossed!)

I hope you also get to enjoy some special time with your distant loved ones this holiday season.

Dance With Me

Visit 1976 with me, won’t you?

I recently reloaded the songs on my iPod and was unexpectedly taken on a trip down memory lane today when I heard a song from my high school years: Dance With Me, by Orleans. Do you remember that one? My first boyfriend and I met at a dance in the summer before I started high school, and he later said this should be our song because if he hadn’t asked me to dance we wouldn’t have met. Wasn’t that cute? We both got copies of the 45 record (yes, I’m that old), and considered it a rule of our relationship that we had to listen to it every day. At night when we talked on the phone we’d ask about it. “How many times did you listen to it today?” “I listened to it 5 times!” Probably drove our parents nuts with that song. (OMG, teenagers are so silly, aren’t they?) But when I hear that song now, 34 years later, I still smile.

Ok, back to 2010….

Yesterday when Clara Parkes published her report on the Knitter’s Review Retreat, I discovered that there was indeed photographic proof that I had been there. In the only two hours I spent not being sick in bed, Clara the ubiquitous photographer managed to capture me in a picture of knitters standing in line for the marketplace to open. (I’m in the orange cardigan with the brown bag, on the left.)  Since I wasn’t able to make it downstairs for the group photo I’m so glad to see that I was indeed there, and it wasn’t all a bad dream.

Wanna see what was in my retreat goodie bag? I thought you would.

(Click to enlarge)

There was a box of note cards from Clara, a Schulana pattern book, a pattern leaflet from Pam Allen (the Barcelona Scarflet), Soak samples, a little stitch marker (I don’t know who that was from since I didn’t save the packaging), and, of course, there was yarn. My yarn included Berroco Blackstone Tweed, Filatura di Crosa Zara (color: pale yellow), Socks That Rock lightweight (color: limestone), and Dirty Water DyeWorks “Julia”.

I had never heard of Dirty Water DyeWorks before, have you? But when I pulled the yarn out to take a look at it today, I discovered that it’s the same fiber composition as the Briar Rose Fibers yarn I’ve been knitting with for the past couple of weeks, Sea Pearl. They’re both lightweight blends of merino and tencel, and coincidentally both beautifully dyed in shades of brown. It’ll be fun to knit the Julia and see if I like it as much as the Sea Pearl.

By the way, here’s what I’m knitting with the Briar Rose Sea Pearl:

It’s the “Summer Flies” shawlette, a free pattern on Ravelry by Donna Griffin. My friend Elaine made one of these and wore it to our weekly knitting group a couple weeks ago. I loved it so much I started one the next day. It’s supposed to use worsted weight yarn, but I’m using 2 strands of the Sea Pearl instead. Sea Pearl is a fingering weight yarn, so I’m prepared for it to be smaller than the designer intended. But that shouldn’t matter, since I’m planning to wear it scrunched up as a scarf rather than a shawlette anyway. This picture only shows the first few inches — I’m actually about 75% done now. Hopefully I’ll be able to post pictures of it next week after I get it blocked. It’s very pretty, and this yarn is really a joy to work with.

You won’t believe this….

Briar Rose "Sea Pearl"

Sadly, I won’t be able to deliver on the recap of the Knitter’s Review Retreat  as promised. Why, you ask? Because the Universe found out that I had a fabulous fun weekend planned and decided I didn’t deserve it. To make a long story short, I got another stomach virus (remember our Yellowstone trip in September?), and missed almost every part of the retreat. I’m so very disappointed. But I’m going to try to have a sense of humor about it all as I tell you the details, so feel free to laugh with (or at) me.

I was scheduled to fly to Albany on Friday morning at 10:30. So last Wednesday I woke up with a bad sinus migraine that kept me in bed the entire day. That evening I still hadn’t recovered as I usually do after a migraine, and began to worry that something else was going on. I continued to have nausea all day Thursday, but managed to pack my luggage for the retreat late that night. But when I woke up Friday morning I struggled just to get myself showered without getting sick. After getting dressed and almost ready to walk out the door, I realized I just couldn’t face the drive to the airport and knew I would have to skip this long-awaited trip.

I went back to bed frustrated and upset about all I’d be missing. I’d made plans to meet up with some friends I’d met at last year’s retreat, and I was going to spend an extra day antiquing and having dinner with my friend Jodi from Connecticut. I was scheduled to take a class with Cat Bordhi, for crying out loud. I couldn’t believe the bad timing of this stupid virus thing! And I felt like crap. But amazingly, at around 5:30 that evening I suddenly felt much better. Did I dare try to make it after all?  I went online and saw that there were seats available on a 9:45 pm flight. Booked it. Called the hotel to make sure they were still holding my room and told them I’d be there after midnight. Made a new reservation for a rental car. Reinvigorated and excited, I kissed my husband and ran out the door, off on my fiber adventure. 

I should have known this reprieve was temporary….

I arrived in Albany at around 11 pm, tired but enthusiastic. I got my rental car and set off for Williamstown, Massachusetts, a tiny little town nestled in the Berkshires.  I’d rented a Prius for the first time, and was still getting familiar with it when I realized I’d begun to have a small problem. For the sake of modesty, let’s just call it a “feminine emergency”.  Ok, one more instance of bad timing, but I can deal with this, right? I pulled over into an empty parking lot and tried to open my trunk so I could get to my luggage for supplies. And I could not open the trunk. I got back in the car and pulled out the owner’s manual, wondering if the Prius had some secret environmentally-conscious way to open the freakin’ trunk. Nope, sounded pretty straightforward. Tried again, no luck. Decided to “make do” (you girls all know what I mean when I say this, right?), and continued on my way, hoping there would be nobody awake to see me when I checked in to the hotel around 12:30 or so.

I drove for almost an hour over the pitch black winding mountain roads, and began to wonder if I’d missed a turn somewhere, when I saw a sign that indicated I was only a few miles away. I’m usually not afraid to drive in unfamiliar places, but that lonely and dark mountain road jangled my nerves a bit. I was so relieved to see the dim lights of the hotel when I rounded the curve into Williamstown, and quickly checked in to the hotel (and the thankfully empty lobby) and went to my room. I unpacked, took a quick shower, and got in bed at 1:30 am. And tossed. And turned. And watched the clock to see how much sleep I could get if only I could go to sleep “right now”. The last time I saw the clock was at 4:o0, and I woke up at 6:19. My stomach felt ok, but I simply could not function without some more sleep, so around 8:00 I decided I’d need to skip the class with Cat and try to get a couple more hours of rest. I got up and showered around noon, and went downstairs to meet my friends and explain my earlier absence. Everyone was so concerned about me and it felt good to know that I had been missed.

Improvised cardi for me, using Briar Rose "Charity" yarn

I got my name tag and goodie bag (more about the contents of that in my next post). Then I dropped off the two hats I’d made for the Hats for Hugs program.  The first person I ran into after that was Chris Roosien, the genius dyer behind Briar Rose Fibers. I was thrilled to show her the cardigan I’d made from her Charity yarn, and even more thrilled that she loved it. After chatting with her for a few minutes, I went outside and sat on a bench in the sun to knit and get some fresh air. A few minutes later I was joined by Martha, a stranger from Boston who quickly became a new friend. (Hi Martha!) As we chatted a bit, other knitters began to form a line on the sidewalk beside us, waiting to get into the retreat yarn market that was to open at 2:00.  I saw two more of my friends from last year in line, and we got a few minutes to talk too. Things were starting to look up!

When the market opened we all went our separate ways in search of our desired yarns, and I came out with 3 skeins of Briar Rose yarn and one from Spirit Trail Fiber. (That’s what you see in the pictures in this post.) With my yarn appetite sated and my credit card melting, I bundled up my yarns and went off to take a brief rest in my room before dinner. I was feeling a bit warm from the too-warm market room, and didn’t want to overdo it since I was just getting over my illness.

Or so I thought.

When I got to my room I began to get that queasy feeling in my stomach again. I thought, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me with this crap!” But no, I was down for the evening with a recurrence of nausea that kept me from eating — or even thinking about eating. I did manage to buy some pretzels from the vending machine, just in case I was able to eat later. I tried eating an apple too, but only made it halfway through. “Ok”, I thought, “I’ll get a fresh start tomorrow morning.” Luckily I had one Sominex with me, so I took that at 8 pm and went to sleep. I slept fitfully, but at least I slept. And of course I was still nauseous this morning when I tried to get ready for the final event of the retreat, the New Beginnings and farewell session (something I really loved last year). At this point I was really ticked off too. So rather than lie around waiting for checkout time and risk getting even sicker, I forced myself to get dressed and headed for the airport while everyone else was in the meeting room. I hated not saying goodbye, but I’d barely gotten to say hello either, so what the heck. I was booked on a 4:00 flight, but was able to get moved to a 12:30 flight. Finally, an instance of good timing!

And here’s the part I find most unbelievable: Once I got to my car at the Detroit airport, I got hungry. For the first time since last Tuesday, I had a sandwich. Well, it was a McD’s hamburger, but at least it was food going into my stomach. And it stayed there. Wow. So not fair.

So anyway, I’m home now and have already exchanged messages with friends about having a better experience next year. Let’s sure hope so! As Martha says, “the third time’s the charm!”

Updates and some new stuff

My first pileated woodpecker, spotted in the back yard recently.

My gosh, it’s November and I only wrote ONE post in October. Time sure does fly lately, just like the falling leaves being tossed on the brisk northerly winds. October is always a busy month, with all the leaf cleanup, bringing in or covering the outside furniture, garden cleanup, and other seasonal chores. But after a couple people wrote wondering why I hadn’t written lately, I’ve been gently nudged to write. So here’s a quick update to some of the things I’ve told you about in recent posts, and some new stuff. And yes, there IS knitting content in this one! (This is a little long, but I’ve put in section headings in case you want to skip over some stuff…you’re welcome!)

Chiropractor.  I finally forced myself to go see a chiropractor in the first week of September, and I’m SO glad I did. She took x-rays of my spine and discovered several areas where I was seriously misaligned. My severe lower back pain was virtually eliminated after the first adjustment. Unbelievable! Over the past couple of years that I’d been in such pain, I’d convinced myself that I had bone cancer or something horrible like that. I guess the pain became worse than the fear finally, and I took action. I can’t believe I let it go so long.

Camera. After discovering that my camera wasn’t broken after all (user error, duh), I postponed shopping for the DSLR I hope to eventually get. Instead I got a new smaller laptop — a Toshiba Portege 705 – to replace my heavy and 5-years-old Dell. So far I really like this one, with only a couple of minor complaints. The fan is louder than any laptop I’ve ever had, and if I let myself pay attention to it I might have to walk away for a few minutes. Yes, it’s that loud. But I’d read that in reviews on CNET before I purchased it, so it’s no surprise. And the other weird thing about this computer is that if I stop typing for a few seconds the cursor jumps up several lines for no reason that I can figure out. So I find myself often in the middle of a previous paragraph when I resume typing after a sip of coffee. Irritating. But I’m adjusting to Windows 7 more easily than I expected, so that’s good.

Ok, those are the updates. Here’s the new stuff:

Waiting for the game to start

I had a busy October. Aside from the seasonal chores I mentioned above, I traveled to Ohio twice last month. First time was to Columbus for a friend’s wedding and a Buckeye football game. I graduated from Ohio State in 1983 and have only been able to attend a handful of games in all the time since then, so this was a very big deal for me. I still get chills walking on the campus and into that stadium and a sea of scarlet and gray fans. I used my phone to take video of the band doing their famous Script Ohio formation and have watched it many times in the past few weeks to re-live the feeling of being there.

Ready and waiting!

The second trip to Ohio was this past weekend, when I went down to see my family. I particularly wanted to see my niece Amber while she’s pregnant with her first child. She posts pictures of her belly on Facebook every month, but I wanted to see her in person in case she has the baby before I go home for Christmas (her due date is January 6). So my sister is going to be a Grandma…that’s weird for me (she’s 2 years younger than me), so I can’t imagine how strange it must feel to her. Now that’s a life milestone, for sure!  It’s funny, she’s already telling people not to call her “meemaw” — it drives her crazy. So of course I have to keep calling her that. (If she hadn’t mentioned it, I never would have even thought of meemaw myself…maybe granny though..LOL.) But I guess the joke’s on me, I’ll always be older than her.

I also got a chance to spend a rare couple of hours with my friend Rebecca as I drove back up through northern Ohio.  It was such fun to watch her sweet daughter Emma take a ballet & tap class, and her son Sam has turned into such a grown-up 7-year-old.  I had a wonderful time reconnecting with them all. (By the way, if you ever get a chance to drive I-77 on the eastern side of Ohio, especially in the autumn, do it. I grew up in southeastern Ohio and am a bit biased, but there’s some really pretty scenery in the foothills of the Appalachians.)

KNITTING NEWS — hah, imagine that, on a blog called “Knitting Matters”….

If you read this blog because of my knitting designs, you’ve probably already noticed that I haven’t published much this year. But while I’m figuring out how to get my designing mojo back I’ve been busy knitting other stuff. (If you’re a Ravelry member, here’s a link to my project page.) And here are pictures for the non-Rav members: (click to enlarge them)

Bentley's first booties

Charity hat #1 for KRR retreat

Improvised cardi for me, using Briar Rose "Charity" yarn

Knitter’s Review Retreat 2010!  Next weekend I’m heading off to Williamstown, Massachusetts, for the Knitter’s Review Retreat hosted by Clara Parkes. I wrote about my first time there last year, and am very much looking forward to reconnecting with the new friends I met there. I’ve bought a travel humidifier to combat the extremely dry air in the hotel, so I won’t have a repeat of the sinus migraine that hit me last time. (I’m testing it right now to make sure it works!) And I’m finally going to knit something with my precious quiviut yarn! You know how you get a yarn that’s so gorgeous you just hate to use it? This is one of those yarns for me. But it’s not making me happy just sitting in my stash, is it? So it’s time to let it out. I can’t wait.

Ok, this is long enough. I’ll write about the Knitter’s Review Retreat after I get home, so check back if you want some armchair travel reading!

P.S.  Thanks for being here.

Do camera prices go up?

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

As I wrote in my last post, I’m considering buying a new camera because of the lens limitations of my Canon Powershot S3 IS, and the fact that the LCD screen has suddenly stopped working.  So today I was noodling around on the web to get an idea of what’s out there, and I see that my exact camera is listed on Amazon for $799, $999, $569, and various other prices. I didn’t remember paying that much for it so I checked my purchase receipt. I bought mine in May 2007 from Amazon for $303.00, brand new. Am I missing something? I thought prices generally went down as new models were introduced, but this is backwards.  Clearly I need to do some more investigating here, but isn’t that weird?

The Great Yellowstone Adventure of 2010

Eric and I spent 8 days in Montana and Wyoming this month exploring Yellowstone National Park. Well, actually we spent the first five days in the park… and the last three days sick in our hotel with a nasty stomach virus. Yeah, I know. What a way to end a fantastic trip, huh? Luckily we’d gotten hundreds of great animal and landscape photos in the first few days, so getting sick at the end wasn’t as bad as it could have been, I guess.

I know you don’t want to know the gory details of what took place in that darkened hotel room, so let’s get right to the good parts, shall we?

(I’ve been slowly adding pics and videos to my Flickr account here, so you can go there to see the full collection if you want.)

Wish we'd been able to capture their faces, but it was probably safer this way!

First, the list of animals we saw: bison (hundreds), elk (ditto), mule deer, mountain goats, pronghorns, gray wolf, black bears (in town AND in the wild), bald eagle, blue heron, and black-billed magpies. The only large animal we didn’t see was a moose, but that’s ok. They seem almost boring compared to some of these other animals. And my love affair with our wild turkeys a few weeks ago seems downright silly now!

We had bear spray, so we hiked it anyway...scary.

And believe it or not, we saw almost all of these animals from the roadside.  We only got to take one hike (because we got sick), so the black bear family was our only backcountry wildlife sighting. We met another couple on the trail who had just snapped a picture of what looked like a grizzly, but we didn’t get to see it ourselves so can’t be sure. They were pretty shaken up by it though, and we joined with them for a while on the hike, feeling safer that way knowing that a grizzly might be nearby. Thank goodness we had our bear spray — I was shaking in my shoes for a while that day!

Giganto! Some of the bison were taller than our car...and weighed as much.

I got a huge kick out of the bison. Watching a big herd of them in the fields it was easy to imagine what this country was like when they roamed in larger numbers.  They seem so slow and lazy while they’re grazing, but don’t turn your back on them because they can be across the road in an instant — they’re amazingly agile for such big creatures. The rangers say that tourists get gored by them every year after not respecting them enough. Park guidelines require you to stay 100 yards away from bison and wolves, and 25 yards from all other wildlife.  Despite that, there were many people who were either stupid or reckless, as shown

Exhibit A: Some very stupid but lucky tourists

in Exhibit A:

There were times we had to pass within a couple yards of them on the side of the road, and that was intimidating even though we were inside our car.  Some of those big bulls were taller than the car and probably weighed more too!

The bison were easily my favorite animal of the trip; I think it’s because they seem so prehistoric. And they make a sound between a growl and a purr that I love. (I think I got some of that on video/audio but I have to do a bit of editing before I can upload that video to Flickr.)  I loved hearing the elk bugling calls too. And I’m fascinated by any animal that can wander in the woods with a heavy rack of antlers on its head. How do they keep from getting stuck all the time?

Massive bull elk seen beside the road

I find it hard to write much about this trip without using superlatives in every sentence: it was the biggest, wildest, most amazing, awesome place.  People are always telling me I HAVE to see the Grand Canyon. For some reason I can’t get inspired to do that (yet), but I’d urge you to go to Yellowstone for an experience you won’t soon forget. There’s nowhere else on the entire planet where you can see the animals and landscapes you’ll experience in this majestic national park. I plan to re-live it through my videos and photos for years to come.

Speaking of photos, my camera started behaving oddly during the trip, and now that we’re home I find that the LCD screen won’t show any images at all.  I’m thankful this didn’t happen during the trip, but annoyed that it’s happened at all. I can certainly take pictures using the viewfinder instead, but the LCD is so convenient for previewing pictures as you take them. I’ll have to think about what to do about this.  A quick google search found a place that will repair this particular problem for $129 plus shipping, but it wouldn’t be my first choice to send my camera off to someone in Tulsa or wherever they are. I think I’ll try to find someplace here in town that will fix it for me.  Or, I could use this as an excuse to get the bigger and more powerful camera I’ve been wanting…..hmmm, wonder if Eric would go for that?  Maybe for a Christmas present? On the other hand, I feel I should keep using this as long as it works. Seems wasteful to get a new one….but I really want it…. I spend hours drooling over some of the pictures other people post on Flickr, and I just KNOW I could get pictures like those if I just had a more powerful zoom lens….  Sigh.

And I’ve been wanting to upgrade my laptop for a while too, but have forced myself to endure the slowdowns, registry errors, etc. on my Dell Inspiron because I thought I’d only had this computer for maybe 2 years. But guess what? I found my original receipt and it turns out I bought this in Jan 2006 — almost 5 years ago! So I was feeling justified when I started shopping around for a new computer last week. But now it seems I have a decision to make….camera or laptop? Hmm, this will be a tough one — maybe I need to sell some yarn.