I don’t know about the rest of you, but since I’ve started knitting and crocheting in public (KIP or CIP), I’ve discovered an odd thing. People start to think of you as the authority on your craft.
Now, I’m not even close to being the authority. While I love to knit and crochet and love a good challenge (my next plan is to learn Entrelac), I’m far from being an expert. I have one friend who’s capable of not only knitting two sleeves at the same time using two circular needles—she’s capable of doing this and carrying on a conversation at the same time! I have as of yet to figure out how to knit garter stitch and talk, let alone anything else. I have friends who have mastered the art of felting, lace, and still others who are complete experts at stranded knitting. I can do these things, too, but there is usually a liberal use of life-lines, swearing, and honestly, I’ve only ever felted by accident.
In spite of this, I find I constantly have people approach me about knitting, like I’m some sort of ambassador the Kingdom of Yarndom. I’ve had people come up to me at doctor’s offices, Starbucks, support groups, work—work is the funniest. One time, a manager burst into one of my work meetings, clutching a granny square afghan. She spread it out on the conference table, and asked, “Why is this CROOKED?” Just recently, one of my coworkers asked if it would be possible for me to teach her how to knit. Right now, I have her checking the needles she bought for size, so that I can bring in suitable yarn for her. One person came up to me yesterday, wanting to know how to sew knitted sweater pieces together.
In some cases, it doesn’t even matter if they’ve seen me KIP—sometimes, the people are complete strangers who just happen to have heard about me through a coworker or friend.
Now, if I could just figure out how to make money from this…
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Knitting, Crocheting, and “Snowpocalypse”
Last Saturday, we in New England were all hit by Storm “Alfred.” What started out as a freak snowstorm, where we thought the worst would happen was that we’d have to shovel our way out of 8” of snow, quickly turned into a nightmare. Due to heavy snow on limbs still covered with leaves, several of our trees came down; along with enormous pine branches (we have 100-foot pine trees on our property). The entire night you could hear popping and cracking up in the trees as more and more debris rained down onto the house. About two hours into the storm, we lost our power—which means we lost our electricity, our heat, and our running water.
The next morning we ventured outside and found that our two beautiful trees in the front yard were decimated to the point where there’s hardly anything left but the trunks. The ENTIRE front yard was filled with debris. Dogwood trees came down in the backyard, and again, the entire area was covered with branches and limbs. The roof was covered, to the point where I couldn’t tell the people at CL&P whether or not our electrical wires were still attached to the house. It was the sort of fall-out that we couldn’t possibly clear out ourselves, but would need professionals ($$$).
Despite all this, we count ourselves lucky in that a) we were unhurt, and b) the house and cars were fine. We STILL don’t have power, but there is a shelter in town where we can get warm, charge up things, get coffee, etc. The seniors in town are bunking there overnight.
An odd thing happened…I didn’t want to knit or crochet. I’m not sure why this is. It might be because I usually do my yarn work with others, and that was impossible, as NO ONE had power, and certainly not the usual hangouts at which we congregate. My other favorite thing is to knit or crochet in front of the TV (out of the question), or listening to a podcast (I couldn’t waste the battery power on my Blackberry listening to podcasts). Also, everything I’m working on, except for the socks, is sort of complicated, which means I can’t work under low light, and I didn’t feel like doing the socks—too boring.
Also, I think I was (and still am) in a state of shock. At most, in the past, we’ve lost power for a day or two—not SEVEN, and we’ve never had the house and yard in the kind of shape they’re in.
I’m hoping to get back to normal yarn work next week, when (hopefully) we’ll have power and things will be (quasi) normal again.
The next morning we ventured outside and found that our two beautiful trees in the front yard were decimated to the point where there’s hardly anything left but the trunks. The ENTIRE front yard was filled with debris. Dogwood trees came down in the backyard, and again, the entire area was covered with branches and limbs. The roof was covered, to the point where I couldn’t tell the people at CL&P whether or not our electrical wires were still attached to the house. It was the sort of fall-out that we couldn’t possibly clear out ourselves, but would need professionals ($$$).
Despite all this, we count ourselves lucky in that a) we were unhurt, and b) the house and cars were fine. We STILL don’t have power, but there is a shelter in town where we can get warm, charge up things, get coffee, etc. The seniors in town are bunking there overnight.
An odd thing happened…I didn’t want to knit or crochet. I’m not sure why this is. It might be because I usually do my yarn work with others, and that was impossible, as NO ONE had power, and certainly not the usual hangouts at which we congregate. My other favorite thing is to knit or crochet in front of the TV (out of the question), or listening to a podcast (I couldn’t waste the battery power on my Blackberry listening to podcasts). Also, everything I’m working on, except for the socks, is sort of complicated, which means I can’t work under low light, and I didn’t feel like doing the socks—too boring.
Also, I think I was (and still am) in a state of shock. At most, in the past, we’ve lost power for a day or two—not SEVEN, and we’ve never had the house and yard in the kind of shape they’re in.
I’m hoping to get back to normal yarn work next week, when (hopefully) we’ll have power and things will be (quasi) normal again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)