New Year, New Things.

Halloween is a wonderful excuse for spooky celebration for people of all ages in the United States, but its true roots are in the Celtic New Year, Samhain, the one night of the year when the veil between the tangible world and the Other Side parts, and those who died during the year have an opportunity to pass on to the next life.

If you have read my past Halloween posts, you will know that Trick or Treat originated in Ireland, with people leaving cakes and ale on their doorsteps to appease passing spirits (it didn't take adventurous young folks long to figure out that they could get a little tipsy and also have a feast of sweets if they braved the night and absconded with the offerings for the dead). And the Jack O'Lantern was set out to light the spirits' path on their journey.

This New Year is bringing some new things to our family. Some planned, some not. One of the downsides of having a yarn store is having almost no time in which to blog, but I am trying to amend that.

Unplanned: our bathroom floor quite nearly collapsed the first week in October, and for the next few weeks we made do with the half-bath to wash ourselves up (and an occasional shower at my Mom's apartment) while the bathroom was gutted. Our old molded plastic tub had been leaking onto the floor below from inside the drain -- without our knowledge, of course -- for quite some time, and had rotted through the subfloor and joists. We were literally about to fall through the floor! It was a lot of hard work, but now we have a lovely new bathroom with a tile floor and tub surround, and a piece of granite left over from someone's much larger and much more extravagant kitchen as our bathroom countertop. There is also a good, solid cast iron tub. I will boast just a little and admit that I designed it myself to best take advantage of space and storage. I will post pictures soon.

Planned: we must choose to part with a dear old water oak which is immediately behind our home. It is an old and dear friend, but it is sick, and near the end of its life cycle. It is over 90 feet tall with a great deal of rot in its core, and we fear it will come crashing down through the house if there is a big storm. We take ending a tree's life every bit as seriously as euthanizing a dear pet, but we plan to make amends to its spirit by planting a trio of young cypress trees in its place.

Planned: The next thing is: a complete rearrangement of the Knitting Asylum to make it more cozy: new and better shelving that will hold MUCH more yarn, cushy old chairs rescued from thrift stores, and I am slowly starting a new selection of yarns for the fall and winter. Updates with photos will follow soon. My loyal employee Wren, and a few loyal customers are helping me re-design, and we are using a lot of Feng Shui principles for good traffic flow and also for good luck, because, quite frankly, I need it. The store will also be much more snug and welcoming for those who wish to sit and knit for awhile. I am very pleased at the progress we are making and slowly but surely it will be snug and cozy. We are even planning a tea station.

Also planned this month: a huge garage sale with my dear friend Diana to unload clutter from our homes and earn enough for some pocket money and maybe a dinner out with her family, my family and a couple of friends.

I am trying to get back on a quasi-normal blogging schedule. There will be lots of neat new information about the store, very soon -- and just in time for Christmas knitting, too!

More to come soon...

Dez

Publish Post

Help Extend A Life.

If you knit or crochet, and you are anywhere on Planet Yarn with the rest of us, you have probably heard of the wondrous dyeing abilities of Ray Whiting, and, hopefully, you have had at least one little moment of knitterly weakness on the www.kntivity.com website.

Over the last several years Ray has rebuilt his life after Hurricane Katrina as a full-time dyer of wools, bringing us wondrous colors and even machine washable laceweight. Ray is a "roll up your sleeves and get to work" kind of guy, but at the moment he is faced with a crisis that he can't solve through hard work and talent alone.

Ray needs our help.

Not for himself, but for a beloved family member.

Ray's son-in-law, David, was recently diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and is in need of blood. He is being treated at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas and he needs both blood and platelets.

For some reason, MD Anderson doesn't take credits from other blood banks, so well-meaning knitters in distant cities can't give credit through their local blood bank. As a result, blood donation is limited to donors in the Houston area, or people who are willing to drive to MD Anderson in Houston. Donors can find information about how and when to donate here:

www.mdanderson.org/how-you-can-help/donate-blood/...to.../index.html

It doesn't matter what blood type you are. If you donate on location, your donation will be cross-credited within their own system. He is in most dire need of platelets. Blood donations can be made in the name of: David Allen Rogers.

If anyone in Southeast Texas is willing to drive to MD Anderson and donate a pint of blood, Ray and his family will have your eternal gratitude.

When Ray told me about his son-in-law's situation, I promised to put out a call for blood donors.

But there's something else Ray told me: his son-in-law's insurance is leaving the family with large deductibles and co-payments. Ray didn't ask me to ask people for money, but me? I'm a shameless beggar when it comes to begging on behalf of others.

So if you'd like to give blood, but you live too far away to make the drive to MD Anderson, please consider making a donation in whatever amount you can afford towards David's medical bills. Even a few dollars help with mounting medical bills.

If you would like to help, please make your check payable to:

David Allen Rogers

and send it:

c/o Ray Whiting

14435 Eagle Pass St.

Houston, TX 77015

If you'd rather not write a check, you can contact Ray through the Knitivity website (above) and I'm sure he can figure out a way you can help through Paypal.

Thank you all so much for considering donating blood or donating toward the family's medical expenses. Whether or not you are able to help, please hold Ray and his family close in your thoughts while the medical team at MD Anderson tries to buy David more time with his wife and family.

Thank you.

Reason Number 8,576 That

New Orleans Is Worth Saving:

My favorite door in town.

Two blocks from my mother's house.

A Knitting Hero of

The American Revolution

It's the Fourth of July, Independence Day in the United States, and now that we're done with eating and watching fireworks, I want to share one of my favorite stories of the American Revolution with y'all.

This is the tale of Old Mom Rinker, the humble and clever wife of an innkeeper in a small town near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Like most innkeepers' wives, she started her day long before dawn: preparing food, washing dishes, preparing more food at midday, washing pots and pans, and then serving supper and ale to local patrons late into the evening, all the while tending to her own family's chores.

At some point during the American Revolution, a group of British officers took a fancy to the Rinker family inn and occupied it, demanding bed, board and service. Of course, she and her family had little choice but to house the British and wait on them at every meal, and to pour ale and whiskey late into the night while the Redcoats spread out their maps on the inn's tables and plotted against General Washington's army.

Fearing that a man would understand their battle plans and betray them, the British officers banned old Mr. Rinker and the other men in the Rinker family from the dining hall in the evenings while they made their battle plans -- but of course they needed to be waited upon, didn't they? They needed someone to fill their plates and tankards, to keep the candles burning and to keep the lamps full of oil as they worked. So they insisted that Mr. Rinker's wife act as their servant.

Old Mom Rinker was no fool. She served as an informant for General Washington's army by offering the most excellent table service to the Redcoats, standing by with food and alcohol, ever ready with more at the side-board so she could always be in the same room while the British spoke of troop manouvres and supply logistics.

Of course, the British officers completely ignored the possibility that this smiling, attentive older woman might be a spy. How could she possibly understand the world of men and warfare, troops and supply lines, rifles and cannons? So they smiled back at her as she topped off their glasses and placed another slice of pie before them.

And every evening ... back in the kitchen ... out of sight ... Rinker took detailed notes on paper, which she then folded carefully around a small stone. This tiny, precious bundle was then wound inside a ball of knitting yarn, safely hidden from the enemy's sight until it could be delivered to a messenger. After all, who would search an old woman's knitting basket for military intelligence?

Thus these important missives were safely hidden. But how to pass the message on?

Every day at about the same time, Old Mom Rinker carried her knitting basket to a flat, rocky outcrop at the edge of a small gorge near the inn, and sat there for a while, knitting stockings -- the picture of domesticity.

If the Redcoat officers noticed her at all, she simply appeared to be a matronly woman, working at her daily knitting, as most women did in the days when families produced nearly all of their clothing at home. From the officer's point of view, perhaps that rocky outcrop was her favorite knitting spot because it provided a pleasant view of the woods below, and a warm, cozy spot to enjoy the afternoon sunshine for half an hour before returning to the drudgery of the kitchen. The sight of Old Mom Rinker in her favorite spot, at about the same time every afternoon, would not have caused the least bit of alarm. Just another part of a housewife's routine.

From the point of view of a sentinel waiting deep in the woods below, her appearance on the edge of the gorge, high above the treeline, meant another thing entirely. It meant that there was news to be gathered.

So each day at about the same time, a mounted solider from Washington's army would arrive at the base of that little cliff, emerging from the woods below. When she spotted him, Rinker would nudge the ball of yarn over the edge.

The ball of yarn -- with a little bit of extra weight from the small stone inside -- would fall, bouncing off the rocky escarpment, unwinding as it descended. And Mom Rinker's detailed notes about British troop movements, so carefully wrapped around the stone, would fall into the hands of the soldier waiting below, who would wave his hat to indicate that it had been received before quietly turning his horse back toward the woods, using an Indian trail which met the narrow road that ran along the bottom of the gorge.

Mom Rinker would rewind the length of yarn, tuck it back into her knitting basket, and continue her work for awhile before returning to her chores at the inn.

You want to know what she was knitting, don't you? Of course, Mom Rinker was hard at work knitting warm stockings for Washington's troops, as were all the local women. These stockings, along with other warm clothing, were delivered by a brave young girl dressed in boy's clothes, a fine young horsewoman who knew the woods very well, and who went from camp to camp with saddlebags full of warm clothes, which were always welcome because they were in such short supply.

The British never suspected a thing. And Old Mom Rinker continued her spying and reporting every night for the duration of the conflict.

And that, dear readers, is the story of how a grandmotherly woman and a ball of sock yarn helped win the American Revolution.

For my American readers, I hope you had a happy Fourth of July. For those of you who live elsewhere, I hope you enjoyed the story.

Doldrums.

We all know what "the doldrums" means. Most people think of it as that listless and dispassionate feeling one gets in the dog days of summer, when it's too hot to move or even think very much. We call it "the doldrums" because we know (and hope) that it is a temporary state, and that, unlike true depression, it will pass on its own accord in a few weeks without the need for talk therapy of medication. And indeed, that is one correct definition of "the doldrums:" an attack of lethargy, sluggishness and a general lack of worky thoughts.

"Get your own nap chair. This one's taken."

But how did the term come to define ennui? In case you forgot, I'll remind you: "the doldrums" is a term used by sailors dependent on wind power to move their ships. In the tropics, due to shifting wind patterns at the Equator, it's not difficult to find one's self in a place devoid of wind, afloat in water as still as glass, not going anywhere, and not knowing when the wind will blow again. A sailing ship in the doldrums is helplessly stalled until the wind deigns to get busy...and when it does, it's more likely to be a dangerous storm, instead of the strong, steady breeze one needed to fill one's sails.

Excessively long periods of the doldrums cause despair, and even panic among sailors not equipped with electronic communications to alert rescuers. Throughout history, long periods of the doldrums have driven fearful, hungry and thirsty sailors (and perhaps a few pirates) to mutiny:

The nautical use of "the doldrums" give us, not only the term "the doldrums" for periods of anxiety-filled ennui, but it's also where we get the term "dead in the water," which most landlubbers use to describe a situation where progress is not being made. But perhaps the doldrums are most famously responsible for inspiring Samuel Taylor Coleridge with an excessively quoted quote:

"Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink."

Although the Ancient Mariner had far more grievous maters besieging him than a pokey economy, it was a long hiatus in the doldrums which pushed him into his predicament.

When I first opened the Knitting Asylum, I knew what I was getting into. I had no delusions of blissfully knitting the day away, surrounded by lovely string and a cheerful gaggle of knitters. I knew that there were orders to be filled, inventory to be counted, tax forms to fill out, price labels to affix to everything from yarn ball bands to stitch markers. I knew that half of any retail job is paperwork and bills, and more of it than any sane person cares to think about on an average day, much less do voluntarily.

A person also must do promotions for one's shop, and devise attractive displays, and if one has no real advertising money, one has to spend an awful lot of time engaged in self-promotion on the Innerwebs and running around town posting flyers announcing, "Here I Am!"

So I entered this business of selling pretty string, and with my stunning luck, I had already committed myself to it financially the very same week the stock market tanked and the recession got underway. And I find myself in a similar pickle to the Ancient Mariner. "Yarn, yarn everywhere, my bank account doth shrink."

I've worked hard to keep my yarn little store afloat during these difficult economic times. But now, on the Gulf Coast, just as the rest of America is beginning to recover from the recession, the people of the Gulf of Mexico face a regional deepening of this recession due to the horrific oil spill along our coasts.

It hasn't been a good year for business. So far. So...

O Wise Knitters , Spinners, Crocheters and Weavers:

During the month of July, I am conducting a "Make Your Own Sale" Sale. Every time you come in during the month of July, you will pull a folded bit of paper from a jar (perhaps a pretty one) and upon that piece of paper will be printed a number. The number, which ranges anywhere from 20-75, will indicate the percentage deducted from your purchase that day, excluding items already on sale.

During the month of July, I am will also continue my sale on spinning wheels and weaving looms, and I've bumped the discount up to 30% off. Tempting?

And August will also be the month for my first ever "Sweat" Sock Sale. Just because the heat is making us all sweat so much, we deserve a sweet deal so we can sit on the couch and knit socks without working up a sweat ... so all sock yarn in the store will be 20% off in August, and there will be larger discounts on select yarns.

Bear with me as I muddle through the summer.

Why We Stay

It has become my habit each year to greet the onset of Hurricane Season, and each year, I sit down at my computer with the fear that I may have run out of new things to say about it.

Somehow, that's never a problem. Sometimes I approach the season with humour; other times, with frustration or sadness. This year, as we check our emergency kits, stock up on new batteries and non-perishable foods, and consider whether or not this is the year we should finally buy a generator, I think it's time to answer the perennial question posed so often by people who do not live here:

"I don't get it. Every so often, a storm comes and wipes you guys out. Why do you stay? Why don't you move someplace safer?"

So, if you have ever wondered this about us Gulf Coast residents ... or people who live in fire or earthquake zones ... I shall atempt to answer your question.

My answer is not intended to offend anyone, but I have noticed that, more often than not, people who ask this sort of question usually do not hail from a place with a great deal of its own history, or a place with a truly unique culture -- a local culture distinct from the homogeny of McAmerica. Either that, or the unique and wonderful place where they live is fortunate enough to have unremarkable weather and stable geology.

If you live in a subdivision outside of a relatively new city, a city less than a couple of generations in age, a city that maybe wasn't a city until the interstate highway allowed the heart of town to develop around its multi-lane concrete arteries ... let's call it Anywhere, USA ... you might not understand why people can so passionately cling to a house and a patch of ground in a geographic location which routinely plays host to earthquakes, floods, brush fires, or weather that can kill you.

If you live on Anystreet in a subdivision in Anywhere, USA, your house, be it modest or grand, probably doesn't look terribly different from all the other houses on your street. I'm sure it's a very nice house, but it may be one of seven different floorplans, with a choice of five tastefully neutral exterior paint jobs: ecru, camel, cream, sage and mocha. You may have subdivision restrictions dictating what sort of fence you can build, how tall it can be, and what sort of things you can park in your driveway. If you read the fine print of your subdivision restrictions, you may learn that you can't plant a vegetable garden that's visible from the street, that your front door must be painted one of three specific colors, that your bird feeders, barbeque grill or your kids' basketball goal must not be visible from the street, and that you must have a certain sort of mailbox at the end of the drive. They may even tell you how many pets you can have, and what breeds they must be.

All of these strict requirements are often policed by a stringent homeowner's association, with the goal of a community so uniform in its neutrality that it can be decreed to be imbued with "good taste" and, hopefully, high property values. Individual self-expression is probably frowned upon if you live in such a community.

Most Americans don't have the sort of job that makes it difficult to consider living elsewhere. Perhaps you are a chemical engineer, a nurse, a computer programmer, or a math teacher. You may be a police officer, an accountant, a welder, or a mechanic. No doubt you work hard for a living, and you value the time you spend at home alone, or with your family, on the weekends. You probably love your home, and, as far as I'm concerned, there is absoltuely nothing "wrong" whatsoever with your choice of home or your way of life.

But living in a relatively new subdivision, in a relatively new city, and having a mobility-friendly job seldom comes hand-in-hand with a strong sense of place and a warm sense of community.

If you have kids, they are probably in a decent public school district, and no doubt there is a wide selection of familiar American chain restaurants, a hospital, a Home Depot, WalMart and a bank within reasonable driving distance of your home. If you are religious, a place of worship in the faith of your choice is probably not far away, along with a convenient Texaco station, Albertson's or Safeway supermarket and a CVS or Walgreen's drugstore. The local mall features a Gap, Toys R Us, Petsmart, Old Navy, Pottery Barn, Stein Mart, and Bed, Bath and Beyond, along with other similar, familiar franchise stores.

You probably know only a few of your neigbbors reasonably well, and you may have only a nodding acquaintance with the others.

If you live on Anystreet, you probably weren't born there. You may have been born in Boston, Cleveland, Detroit or Buffalo, and perhaps your parents have retired to Phoenix. Maybe you have a brother in Alexandria, Virginia and a sister in Los Angeles. If you're lucky, you see them a few times a year and you go out to eat at the Outback, Chili's or Applebee's in their neighborhood. You don't have to look at the menu. You already know what you like.

And of course, anyone who has served in the military, franchise store managers, contract nurses, and those who work in the world of corporate management or consulting ... if that sounds like you? Then you knows all about getting transplanted from Anyplace, TX to Anyplace, CA or Anyplace, FL. If you live a life where you are transferred a lot, those familiar chain stores and restaurants can provide a needed sense of familiarity and continuity to your and your family.

But you can always do it someplace else.

If you are an American and, and you have wondered why we stay here on the Gulf Coast, and what I've said so far sounds something like your life ... I'd guess that your family, while happy and content, probably has no deep roots in any one place for more than one generation. You and your siblings likely grew up and moved far away from home, and from each other. Your own children will eventually get jobs as pharmaceutical reps, or insurance agents, or restaurant managers, and they, in their turn, will move far away to New York, Sacramento, Raleigh, or Dallas, where they may purchase a house much like yours: on a street in a subdivision, with a familiar chain supermarket, bank and drugstore, with good schools nearby, and familiar franchise retailers close at hand.

Like you, your children will probably consider themselves to be reasonably happy with their lives, and, like you, your children will have difficulty understanding those of us, in other places, who keep rebuilding after Mother Nature knocks us down.

"Why don't they move?" you may ask the television when the news features stories of people rebuilding after another hurricane, another wildfire, another Midwestern flood. "Why don't they move to another city, to a safer place?"

If you live in Anywhere, USA, and you program computers for a local bank, and your spouse is a physical therapist, it's likely that you can easily imagine mobility. It's different if you are a jazz club manager, a tour guide, a shrimper, a Creole chef, a trombonist, a costume maker, an underwater welder, or a maker of fishnets. How many places in America can a parade float builder look for work?

You may think of your childhood home, not as a city or region, but rather as the house and immediate neighborhood you grew up in, which is probably in a different city or state than the house you live in today. And I'm willing to bet that today, as an adult, if you are a resident of Anywhere, when you think of "home," you think of the house you live in, and not your general region.

If, in the unspeakable event that Anywhere, USA gets blown off the map or burnt to a pile of cinders, you can probably imagine collecting your insurance, dusting off your resume, and relocating to Reno, Denver, Miami or Bakersfield. You can get a job programming computers for another bank. Your spouse can find work at a hospital. On the weekends, you may eat dinner at an Outback or TGIFriday's, and even though it is in a different state, the food will taste the same, although you will try to find subtle differences. Your teenagers will buy their clothes in a different shopping mall, but the plastic sack they carry home will bear the same logo from the Gap or Urban Outfitters.

And so, if circumstances force you to relocate, it is not so terribly hard to imagine shopping at a different mall, programming computers for a different bank, driving through a different McDonald's, or buying your groceries at a different WalMart. It's not so difficult to imagine moving into another new (or relatively new) house or apartment, in another subdivision full of mocha-, sage- and cream-colored houses, and calling it home. And because you can easily imagine calling a new place, "home," you may not be able to understand those of us who have difficulty with that concept.

If, on the other hand, you are a person who lives an a venerable old city with a strong identity of its own, like San Francisco, New York or Chicago, in a neighborhood where family-owned businesses have been handed down for generations, you may feel a twinge of empathy with people who, like you, buy their groceries at Langenstien's, fill their prescriptions at Uptown Delivery Pharmacy, buy their lunch at Guy's Po-Boy's, and drink their beer at the Buddha Belly (where you can also eat lunch and do your laundry). You understand people who buy dog food at Ott's Pet Shop and tacos at the Flying Burrito. Yarn comes from the local yarn store, not Hobby Lobby.

If you live on a ranch with deep roots in Western history, and you worry about wildfire when the grass begins to turn brown in the summer ... or if you can glance out your window in San Francisco and gaze upon a row of turn-of-the-last-century homes, glinting in the morning sunlight in shades of mango, carnation pink and violet, and you worry that they may not survive another earthquake ... then you will understand the firm sense of place held by a New Orleanian or someone on the Florida coast.

And we, in turn, will understand your desire to cling to your home, and although we may fear earthquakes or fire a bit more than you fear tornadoes or floods, we will understand why you stay.

Likewise, if you are lucky enough to live in a small town, devoid of suburbs, malls and big box stores, or if perhaps you live on an island, in a place with a culture and rhythmn and cuisine of its very own ... or if you live in someplace outside of America, a place with a rich culture going back thousands, rather than hundreds, of years ... you will understand this possession of place with a fierce clarity.

I was born and raised in New Orleans, and although I've lived in Baton Rouge since 1979, New Orleans is my home ... but so is all of South Louisiana. My roots run deep here, even though my ancestors mostly arrived after 1880. The rhythm and spark of our culture run strong in my veins. You don't need to live here very long to feel it. You just need to reach down, touch the ground and take its pulse.

I don't stay here because I like the weather. And even though I bemoan the onset of our beastly summers, and complain mightily about the heat, and threaten to retire to the Pacific Northwest or Ireland any second now ...

...somehow, I'm still here.

And it's not because I like the suffocating summer heat and humidty. It's not because I think hurricanes are exciting or because the occasional tornado or toppled 100-foot tree adds a little pizzazz to my day. It's not because I like cockroaches the size of a grown man's thumb who can fly. It's not because I like worrying about the spring floods overtopping the levees, or because I like stupid politicians who play on people's fears instead of inspiring their dreams.

I stay because South Louisiana isn't Anyplace (although I see the tendrils of Anyplace taking firm root in newer parts of Baton Rouge). I suppose I could wax poetic about live oak trees, gumbo, zydeco music, the primal scent of a cypress bayou, traditional New Orleans music, jambalaya ... but I won't, because I'll give you some credit for already knowing about those things, and for understanding that those very things are precisely what make this entire region distinctly and magnificently different from Anywhere, USA.

This hurricane season, those of us living on the Gulf Coast of the United States of America are facing the worst oil spill in U.S. history in the opening weeks of what is expected to be a fierce hurricane season. We are entering hurricane season with a growing catastrophe already on our hands, because getting some measure of control over the spewing well is just the beginning of a long, hard road -- exactly in the same way that the disaster was only beginning when Hurricane Katrina's winds died down.

There is already an unimaginable amount of oil out there in the Gulf just waiting to make its slimy and suffocating way onto shore and into the marshes, just waiting for the turn of the tide ... oil that will be pushed even further into our delicate marshes and wetlands when storms start marching across the Gulf this summer.

Even without any assistance from hurricanes, the disaster is just beginning to unfold.

How you can help: ABC news has posted some good links to assistance agencies here ....

Please click the link and see what you can do to help.

I will continue to post contacts for helping agencies as this disaster continues to unfold.

Dear Readers:

In an attempt to minimize expenses I am now accepting small advertisements form the Google network on my blog. I hope no one finds these offensive, as I picked the least obtrusive format available.

Onward, through the fog...

Aloha, everyone!

This is Lisa Louie, posting from Maui, with supply list and homework for the upcoming classes. As Dez mentioned, Gauge Games during regular Knit Night is a fundraiser for the Battered Women's Shelter. Cost for Hot Stuff and Putting More Art in Your Craft is $25 each class, or $45 for both for early bird registration. Later registration is $35 each or $65 for both.

Gauge Games:

bring:

tape measure or ruler
pen/pencil
paper if desired
calculator if desired
a few straight or "lollipop" pins
about 50-100 yards of relatively smooth, medium or light colored worsted weight yarn- same as you used for your homework
appropriate sized needle ( or crochet hook if crocheter)

Homework:

Cast on 26 stitches in above yarn and needle. Work about 6 rows of garter stitch, then work 2 stitches garter, 20 stitches stockinette, 3 stitches garter. Work until piece is about 3 or 4 inches long. Leave on needle, bring to class.

Putting More Art in Your Craft

Bring:

3 or more different colors, textures, fibers of a fairly small amount of yarns. Leftover skeins work well. You will need somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 yards for this project.

A selection of assorted size dpns or short circular needles or if you are a crocheter, a selection of crochet hooks

stitch markers
pen/pencil
notebook/ paper
beads and other embellishments if desired

an open mind and willingness to explore

Homework:

You will be creating a small hand made bag during this class. Please create the bottom before you come. Work either a square or a circle about 3-4 inches across before you come. Bind off.


Hot Stuff:

Bring:

Bring a pattern or patterns that you would like to adapt to warm weather wearin' with you. Pen/ pencil and something to write on will also be necessary.

This is a discussion/ question and answer type of class instead of a hands on learn a new technique kind of class. Yes, you can knit in class as we won't be working on a specific project.

If you've got questions, let me know. I hope this covers everything.

Aloha and mahalo,

Lisa Louie
Kahului, Maui, Hawaii

Aloha, Baton Rouge!

Fiber artist, designer and knitting instructor Lisa Louie of Maui, Hawaii (who is also my dear friend and occasional guest-blogger) will be on the mainland during the last week in April with featured work in the “Art Healing Lives” art exhibition at the Minnesota Textile Center, and during the first week of May, teaching classes at the Knitting Asylum here in Baton Rouge.

When Lisa is not teaching knitting and creating fiber art, she teaches at an educational support center on Maui for kids struggling with learning disabilities and for adults working on getting their GED.

She will be making a stop in Baton Rouge for a few days to visit and teach classes at the Knitting Asylum.

Classes to be offered are:

Gauge Games: Unveiling The Mysteries of Gauge

Gauge Games will be taught informally on Thursday, May 6 at the regular Knit Night activities from 6:30 till 8:30 at the Knitting Asylum. There is no set fee for this class. Instead, Lisa requests that attendees make a donation in the most generous amount they can afford (be it $5 or $500) for the Battered Women’s Program. There will be an alternate location if too many people sign up to fit comfortably in the shop. “Gauge Games” is a fun, highly interactive class. Bring yarn and appropriate-sized needles, and a notepad and pen. Details for a small “homework” swatch to bring to the class will follow soon.

Hot Stuff: Knitwear for Steamy Climates --
10:30 - 2:30 Saturday, May 8

Ever laugh your head off (or look enviously at) the long-sleeved cotton “summer sweaters” designed for people who live in climates where it actually cools off in the evening? We Southerners all know that the only real use for a worsted cotton garment in our beastly summer climate is on the back of your desk chair in an overly refrigerated office. Lisa will teach you to substitute cotton, soy, bamboo, linen and other warm-weather fibers to their best advantage for your own spring and summer designs, and to adapt or modify existing patterns for realistic use in our beastly summers -- for example, a worsted cotton cardigan modeled on a beach in Maine can be converted to a highly wearable shell top for office or casual wear. Bring a pattern or two that you’d like to adapt for hot-weather wear, and a pen and notebook. Class fee will probably be $25. A yarn sample pack for swatching will be available for under $10.

Art Knitting: How to get Art in your Craft --
2:00 - 4:00 Saturday, May 8.

Lisa will guide students through creative exercises designed to infuse your own designs with your unique style. Class description details and fee will follow. Fee will probably be $25.
Expanded class description and materials description will follow soon.

Please sign up by replying to this post with your name and the name of the class that you are interested in.

This post will be edited periodically to provide additional details as soon as they are known.

I hope you all consider participating in this unique opportunity!

Still Here; No Pictures.

I say it every year:

I do not mind paying our taxes. Everybody needs to pay their fair share; I think we can all agree on that. And I am not the least bit interested in all the grossly misinformed anti-tax politics flapping around out there on Faux News these days. The simple fact is that the overwhelming majority of regular people in America simply do not pay excessive taxes, and we all need things like roads, schools, courts, law enforcement, public universities, scientific research, a military to defend us, health care, social security, and other things that help keep us civilized ... although perhaps not quite as civilized as Canada, France, or Amsterdam...which is another topic altogether. There may be hope for us yet.

But what I do mind is doing tax. It's like still having to do math homework after all these decades. Even though I am forty-eleven years old, working on tax makes me feel like Mrs. Hernandez is still leaning over my shoulder with her beehive hairdo and her little black reading glasses pushed down on her nose, admonishing me for "not showing my work," even when I get the right answer. Forty years after fifth grade, math homework still gives me a stomachache.

Because my husband and I are both self-employed, it's not like we can just staple our W-2s and the receipts for our doctors' appointments and our annual donations to National Public Radio, the local humane society and Doctors Without Borders to our 1040 and wave bye-bye to it. We have to hire somebody to do it for us, mainly so I don't try to do it all myself and end up stealing a barrel full of Valium from our neighborhood pharmacy and hiding out in a climate-controlled self-storage unit until October.

This "somebody to do it for us" is St. Peter of the Paperwork, who goes by the street name "Peter Barrios, APAC, CPA" and if you live in the Baton Rouge-y neighborhood and you need a super-nice man with a briefcase, a superhero cape and superhero hair to keep you from losing your mind and eating your solar calculator, I strongly recommend that you look him up in the Yellow Pages, or Google the Innerwebs, or just call him (225-924-3031) and get him to do what he's good at, so you can you do something that you're good at instead.

In order to spare Peter the annual ordeal of rummaging through our Volkswagen-sized Rubbermaid tub full of receipts, bank statements pennies, paperclips and a few slightly dusty breath mints, I put everything in supersized expanding files, with the addition of professional, businessy labels: "Stuff I Am Pretty Sure Is Deductible," "Crap From The Bank," "Stuff That Might Be Deductible," "Way Too Many Pharmacy and Doctor Bills," "Stuff That Looks Important," "Bills and Invoices From The Shop," "Sales Receipts From The Shop" and a really fat file labeled, "Lots of Itty Bitty Receipts: Do These Things Count As Business Expenses?"

I didn't go to business school. I can count, and add things up, and get people to buy stuff if I am lucky, but really? That's about it as far as my seat-of-the-pants MBA goes. My head is full of biology, humane laws, wildlife management skills, dog training, cat psychology, snake handling, writing, knitting, spinning, weaving and dyeing. There is also a little room left over for reading, ghost hunting, history and hiking. I am just not a businessy sort of person. I even look weird in a suit.

So today is my last day of highlighting items on our credit card bills and putting big red marks by them so Peter will see that they are deductions for things like business and medical travel ... my last day of stapling tiny, crumpled receipts for tape and notepads to a bigger piece of paper listing what they are for ... my last day of putting bank statements in piles and cussing at the stapler and the calculator ... and then I can bring the box with all seventeen pounds of this crap over to Peter's office, knock on his door, and run like hell.

Then I can come back to the shop and play with yarn. This month, I am rearranging the shop and checking in new spring and summer yarn, especially lots of Tahki bamboo and cotton and Tofutsies and other fun stuff. While I am doing this, Tahki Loop-d-Loop Quartz, Tahki Ceylon Silk, Brown Sheep Cotton Fine and Cotton Fleece, and all plant-based spinning fibers and plant blends are 20% off for the duration of April.

And?

I hear tell that Koigu has roving. I am trying to get some.

Prizes and Patience

I know it has been a long time since I promised to announce results and dole out prizes for those of you who donated to Doctors Without Borders. I'm afraid I was a bit overwhelmed with family duties these past several weeks, and I apologize if I caused anyone any inconvenience or excessive knitterly anxiety because of my delay.

However, I am glad to report that, including those who posted to participate in the drawing, and those who contacted me by email but did not wish to receive a prize, we raised $1,090 through the Knitting Asylum blog.

I want you all to know that I consider a prize drawing to be serious business, and I believe that the individuals in charge of selecting winners should be completely impartial and unbiased.

This is why I do not even draw names at random from a hat myself. Instead, I defer that duty to the Prize Selection and Disbursement Committee here at the Knitting Asylum, who take their jobs very seriously, and who strive for absolute fairness.

Process: The name of each participant is written on a piece of paper. The piece of paper is then folded into a neat little square, and deposited into an enticing-looking cardboard box. The box is given a good shaking up before it is presented to the Prize Selection Committee. Members of the Committee take turns drawing names from the box, without consulting each other, unfolding the pieces of paper, or reading the names of those chosen, although in one instance of enthusiasm, two Committee members did briefly squabble over possession of a folded piece of paper. The still-folded pieces of paper are collected by me, and prizes awarded in the order the names were drawn from the box.

Here is a member of the Prize Selection Committee just after drawing a folded square from the box.

And the winners are:

Two Skeins of Wool in the Woods Spring Frost: Marina McIntire

One Skein of "Mardi Gras" Handspun: "triedandtrue" on Ravelry

Necklace Stitch Markers and one box of chocolate-covered Macadamia Nuts: pdxknitterati/Michele B

One Skein "Driftwood" Handspun and one box of chocolate-covered Macadamia Nuts: Emmy

One "Good to Go" small project tote bag: janeyknitting AT yahoo DOT ca

Please reveiw the blog two entries back to see a picture of your prize!

In addition to the prizes above, the Knitting Asylum has also included a few promotional goodies (tape measure and pens) from the shop.

Thanks so much to everyone who donated to Doctors Without Borders.

Now I am going to go back through the emails to contact everyone so I can get your physical mailing address and get these in the mail as soon as possible. If you read this before I contact you, please email me at: dezcrawford AT gmail DOT com.

Again, thank you for your patience. I will get the prizes in the mail as soon as I have contacted each winner.

Again, we raised $1,090 US for Doctors Without Borders. Good job, readers, and thank you so very much both for your donations and for your patience in hearing the contest results.