Gifts Come In All Forms

It is a supreme delight for knitters to be surrounded by people who accept us and our craft (read: obsession).  But let me tell you, it is indescribable when my loved ones actively spur me on.  It's like the difference between a parent telling their children they sing well, and requesting them to perform "Ave Maria" for the family and friends.  For whatever reason (human nature), no matter how genuine and heartfelt, words alone do not suffice to convince.  This is a truth well-established (and demonstrated in adage) since long before our time.

I've been lucky enough to have actions speaking louder than words all around me lately, concerning my knitting:  

1. Two friends recently commissioned me to knit for them.  The first completed request was a shining success: Debra's mittens were delivered to Friend 1, who beamed at them, then insisted upon paying for them.  And more than just enough cover the price of the yarn.  

This demonstration was considerably poignant for me.  I've had plenty of people request knitted items, and I never charge friends for my work, above and beyond the price of the fiber, and sometimes not even then.  I am not exaggerating when I say that the satisfaction of meeting a desire when "store-bought just didn't cut it" is ... euphoric.  

But often the requests I get from loved ones come with no acknowledgement (likely because of a lack of knowledge) of how much time and work it takes to deliver on those requests.  And that's fine.  I'm 100% okay with knitting being taken for granted.  The craft and my fellow crafters are taken for granted every day.  But the request itself; it acknowledges that someone likes what I do, likes it enough for that someone to want to own something I made.

I probably don't need to tell you it takes me hours to finish a pair of hand-knit mittens.  It's likely choir-preaching to emphasize that the work isn't limited to the act itself, but also the yarn selection, pattern research, gauging, and any number of "false starts"  - knitting a number of rows before deciding it's just not "right" and having to rip it all out and start over.  What can I say, like many in my craft, I'm a perfectionist.

I admit it, I also love compliments and recognition.  But either of those - I know you know what I'm saying here - either compliments or recognition mean so much more when unprompted.  I honestly wouldn't mention the work and time that goes into a project here if this blog weren't nearly anonymous (I've shared the url with a couple friends. Two. Literally 2 friends.).  Like many of my fellow fibre-freaks, anonymity is part of the rush.  Ask a knit-bomber.  We know why the elves helped the shoemaker.  I concur with the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.  If it paid enough to subsist on, I'd want to be the Knitting Faerie (it's so much more fantastical spelled that way).


So you see why being paid - my first item sold - tickled me.  I imagine it's the same feeling parents get when, years later, they're hugged and thanked for that special gift - the Cabbage Patch doll they waited for hours to secure, or the bicycle they scrimped and saved for, the myriad other items for which they went uncredited at the time.

My other requestor insisted on bartering with me for the wrist warmers she wanted.  She said she'd order me some heirloom vegetable seeds in exchange for me designing and knitting her some wrist warmers.  Again, the offer touched me.  I'm not even sure she realizes that what she proposed was extraordinary.


2.  Christmas was another demonstration of love and acceptance for me and my knitting:

My husband and my Mom both contributed to my arsenal of tools, reference materials, and media.  From the left:
- Four skeins of KnitPicks Imagination Hand Painted Sock Yarn, in Ruby Slippers and Munchkin,
- A gorgeous hand-thrown yarn bowl (regrettably I don't have the artist information yet - to be credited!),
- A subscription to Interweave Knits magazine,
- The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques by Nancy M. Wiseman
 

(I already wound the hanks of yarn into lovely usable cakes and couldn't resist starting a sock with the Munchkin colorway.  By the way, my still-to-be-named alpaca friend wasn't a Christmas present but he needed to make an appearance)

- A darning egg to maintain my hand-knit sock collection
- A lovely print, Balancing Act, from Sheep Incognito: The Art of Conni Togel

- A KnitPicks Corrie Vest kit

- A new project tote from Vera Bradley (in Very Berry Paisley)

(I got the matching needle case during a post-Christmas sale for $7.50!! Oh, how I love me a good deal!)

 

(The tote has plenty of room for a few small projects like Mel's Wrist Warmers, my nook, and a book I'm reading for book club, as well as convenient inside pockets to hold my nook charger, a small sewing kit, a snack, and a tube of my favorite handcream - L'Occitane en Provence lavender creme a mains.  Yes, you're right - next Christmas I definitely need to ask for a dpn holder.)

- and, Sock Blockers (in large) from KnitPicks

How did two non-knitters know with such precision how to buy such perfect gifts for a seasoned knitter?  Well firstly, they love, care, and listen to me.  And two other reasons.  

Back in the fall, my Mom was so kind as to accompany me on my first trip to the famous Duchess County Sheep & Wool Festival a.k.a. Rhinebeck.  By the way, this trip is definitely worth documenting in my next blog post - remind me to follow up.  She (unbeknownst to me) diligently took mental notes and business cards at each stand where I ooh'd and aah'd the most.  Oh, how I love my Momma!


Secondly, I have been maintaining an active WishList on KnitPicks.  I simply forwarded the wishlist link to my husband, and he chose a few items all on his own!  I love wishlists.  That way, the gifts are still incredibly thoughtful, but also perfectly tailored to my tastes :)


As for the Vera Bradley tote, he knew my favorite pattern and chose the style completely all his own, in a stroke of extraordinary brilliance and thoughtfulness.  When I asked how he knew I would love it, he simply replied that he thought it would be good for carrying projects.  Reader, I struck gold in the husband-department.


Blessed with support and love from friends and family.  I'm a lucky, lucky girl!


Mrs. Pi

In any other scenario, I'd kill to be Jennifer Connolly.

This photo is a metaphor for my life.

My ultimate goal has always been: be a Mom.  

When I was in first grade, when my teacher asked us to draw a picture of what we would be in the future, to make the world a better place, I drew a picture of me getting married (implication: make the world a better place by having kids and being a good Mom).  She said I did it wrong, made me cross it out, and instead draw a picture of recycling or being president or something like that on the other side.


When I was in elementary and middle school, I went to visit my aunt with the sole purpose of playing Mother's Helper and taking care of my baby cousins.


My first job was babysitting.  I did it for years, until my sister, D, had a baby and I could play the role of dutiful aunt and change diapers and play with my niece (and nephews, and more nieces from M in the years to come).


When I was in high school, we had to research and write a paper on our chosen career path.  I suffered complete writer's block, because I knew my English teacher was looking for more than "Stay At Home Mom".  I landed on "Kindergarten Teacher" because, well, it's the closest thing to SAHM I could think of.  My friend suggested "Actuary" because I was really good at Math, but I politely declined.  This fact would turn out to be poetic ... or perhaps ironic? ... about 10 years later when I sat for my first Actuarial exam.  And in my own defense, it was my last.


I went to college, because I genuinely wanted a degree and a career.  After all, I loved learning and French and Math, and English, too, in fact, and higher learning and a career was important to me.  It also sat at the back of my mind that I could always put this career on hold while I became a stay-at-home mom and return to it once the kids were in school.  And since I didn't have a high school sweetheart, I obviously needed to meet a college sweetheart.

I had a college sweetheart, but he turned out to be a Stage 4 Clinger.  Not really, but that's a fun phrase.  He was actually a codepedent, depressed intellectual who was so intellectual he dropped out of college.  Twice.  And apparently I have a soft spot for men who need fixing because I can't tell you how many times I called to wake him up for class or chapel or prayed for him to be the man I wished he was, until, five years later, I realized he wasn't.  That sounds terrible, and this is worse: I was looking for the father of my children.

I'm really making myself sound neurotic and crazy.  It's not like I obsessed over kids or purchased maternity clothes or "forgot" a pill every now and again.  Or even ever.  For crying out loud, I was 20 years old!  But the plan was always there, delicately lingering at the back of my mind: get married, be a good wife, have kids, be a good mom.  It was my Calling.

And life continued to happen, and I continued to meet men who were not the father of my children.  But I didn't let that stop me.  I made decisions in my life that I thought would prepare me for my ultimate, stable, predictable goal: I continued to advance in my career, and I bought a house.  As it turns out, the latter was the worst decision I ever made in my entire life.  I'm not kidding.  It was like a version of me trying to "live up to my potential," as Ms. Penelope Truck put it.  I am still recovering from that one, really, really, bad decision, and though the house sold a few months ago, the end is nowhere in sight.

Only now, at long last, later in life than I ever intended, now I've finally met the father of my children.  And reader, I married him.  (sigh. Jane did it so much less cheesy than I did)

But now I wonder.  As my career has taken front and center stage, and I am the breadwinner of the family, and I'm enjoying spending every available waking minute with the love of my life, dreaming of finally making it into the black and traveling around the world, but all the while the economy is tanking more than anyone ever thought it would, and like I said, my financial recovery is nowhere in sight ... 


I wonder if all along I've just been Jennifer Connolly.  Racing up and down crazy Escher-esque stairs, through beautiful stone archways, following that ever-elusive baby.  I'm going to finally fall through space and time, verbally duke it out with David Bowie, and return to accept the harsh reality of being a perma-babysitter.  I've extended the metaphor too far.  


The point is, while I've been scheming and dreaming, life has been happening and for better or worse, I'm childless.  Am I missing the point?

I Need Knitting Friends

I have awesome friends.  I like to think that I actually have the best friends in the world (no offense to your friends, reader).  Really, they are amazing.  They are supportive and generous and honest and ... like I said, amazing.

Allow me to elucidate:  

(No, I'm not going to spontaneously break into song - just humor me a paragraph or two)

I have wise friends, and hilarious friends, and nerdy friends, sincere friends, and kind friends, and insightful friends.  I have friends to call when I'm up for an obscure fantasy movie marathon on the couch.  I have book-club friends and theater friends and softball friends.  I have friends that could find you the best deal on the planet or teach you the skills to do it yourself.  I have school friends and work friends and family friends.  

Dang, it sounds like I have a lot of friends.  Not so; I have a small group of people who I really connect with.  Like Anne's kindred spirits.  It's just that every one of my friends fits into many of the above-mentioned categories, and others besides.

But.

I know, there shouldn't be a "but".  I should be perfectly content because, let's face it, I have the best friends in the world.  Whether I have a financial quandary or a personal issue, my girls are there with words of advice and encouragement.

But ... what happens (theoretically speaking) when I finish Debra's Mittens, and I have lots of these annoying ends to weave in, and I'm not sure of the best way to do it without ruining the mittens?  I consulted "Finishing Techniques for Knitters" and it's just not the same.  I don't have a LYS, so that's out.  I need someone to pick up one of Debra's Mittens, and consider, and draw from prior experience, and provide a brilliant solution that will blend all those internal flying tentacles of black, white, and lime green.  


I've done this wrong before.  I left my ends too short for Jacob's Gryffindor scarf, and they decided to poke out all over the place.  I weaved in one long end on a shrug and you could see it, this weird vein poking out down the middle.  I don't do well with ends.


I need knitting friends.

Mrs. Pi

Thing Of Joy, Them On The Green

The new VW Passat commercial (misheard Elton John lyrics) has brought a concept into the spotlight that is ... well, you could say it's a bit of a family tradition.  My life has been seriously littered with things misheard (nothing tragic, though).  A few years ago, the topic of "misheard lyrics" came up in discussion at work, and days later (ironically, Alanis? No: coincidentally) a friend of mine had the following word come up on her page-a-day calendar:

mon·de·green [mon-di-green]

noun

a word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of a word or phrase that has been heard.

Compare eggcorn.

See also malapropism.

Origin:
1954; coined by Sylvia Wright, U.S. writer, from the line laid him on the green,  interpreted as Lady Mondegreen,  in a Scottish ballad

(entry copied from here)

So there's an official word for it.  I'm sorry, Sylvia Wright, but you're Wrong.  The word shouldn't be "Mondegreen" but "Aminthankin" and I'll tell you why.

Some of my earliest (and fondest) memories involve my family, sitting down to dinner at the dining room table.  It was round, with leaves that made it ovalish.  It was a medium-brown wood, with awesome clawed feet and, here-and-there, the odd coffee mug ring or scratch on its wise old tabletop.  This was a time when it was neither shunned nor surprising to find an ashtray on the table - full, or just lightly dusted with cigarette ash, having just been emptied into the garbage, but not washed.  The dining set had chairs with spindly rungs.  Once, a rung broke off and henceforth became a "sword".  I specifically remember one of my two sisters, M, requesting that I play the part of Battle Cat to her He-man, so she could sit on my back, stretch the rung high into the air, and yell "By the Power of Greyskull..."

In fact, another day, that table held our family's first two cats - sister tabby kittens from perhaps a friend's cat's litter?  We had just gotten them, and were discussing names.  I think I was in the neighborhood of 3 years old.  However, despite the fact that it was nearly 27 years ago, I clearly recall M, then 5, soberly suggesting "Thing One" and "Thing Two" (from The Cat In The Hat).  Looking back, it would've made more sense to suggest Little Cat A and Little Cat B. We compromised and landed on Cleo and Tracy.  

A little while later, Tracy "ran off" ... an incident that would haunt me for years to come.  All we found was her little blue collar, and somehow my pre-K brain deduced that she must be out there, somewhere, waiting for us to find her, like a game of hide-and-seek.  Many hours I spent searching for Tracy, under the ruse of exploring the woods behind our house.  Strange that a kid should have a secret obsession like that ... but then again, I never claimed to be normal.

And I digress.  Back to the dining room table, around which we sat to eat dinner each and every night, preceded by a short prayer of Grace: "God is good, God is great, Aminthankin for our food.  Amen."  It's what I heard.  It's what I said.  Thankfully, and to the great relief of my immortal soul, I did not misinterpret Aminthankin as some lesser god, the provider of Kraft Mac & Cheese and Oscar Meyer wienies, to whom we'd also pray before eating.  Nope, I didn't know what Aminthankin meant, and I didn't really give it much thought.  It was a ritual.  A habit.  It came as naturally as turning off the lights before I left a room (if you know my father, you'd understand).  

Aminthankin: "And we thank Him ..."

And then there's another memory.  I can't have been much older.  We were riding in the car ... perhaps back from Grandma's house ... I was sitting in the middle seat of my dad's blue VW Jetta (in a time before cross-chest belts in the middle seat) leaning over, chin on palms and elbows on knees, so my head was between my parents in the front.  And Neil Diamond was playing.  And I was marginally amused by the fact that he was singing about "Reverend Blue Jeans".  Who is Reverend Blue Jeans?  Whoever he is, he sounds like a pretty good guy to me.

Reverend Blue Jeans: "Forever In Blue Jeans"

Again, when I was around this same age, M had a small pink radio/cassette player, with one speaker and a long antenna.  [Confession: I may or may not have broken this antenna and never told her.  I will consider my immortal soul free and clear of this 25-year-old burden]  I used to sit with that radio for hours, listening to Barry Manilow's Even Now tape (it was bright blue - ah, who am I kidding it is bright blue, I still have it), both sides, on the closest thing to "neverending repeat" there was in the 80s: *[play, flip the tape, play, flip the tape], repeat from * indefinitely.  My favorite song off that album was Copacabana, and I struggled to understand lyrics describing concepts completely foreign to my 4-year-old mind.  This one isn't as drastic, but endearing nonetheless.

She lost her - you bet - she lost her Tony: "She lost her youth and she lost her Tony"

Before you go accusing my parents of neglecting my ears, please understand that I was not alone.  Let me share just a few of my father's gems, either misheard or knowingly replaced.

There's a bathroom on the right: "There's a bad moon on the rise" 

(I still maintain that Dad made that one up, and everyone else is copying him)

Doctor Scholl's Chicken: "General Tso's Chicken"

In 1814, we took a little trip, along with Col. Mustard down the mighty Mississipp: "Along with Col. Jackson"

(there are additional, colorful lyrics about eating beans and passing gas, but I won't dignify them with reproduction)

Toe-Jam Football: Oh, wait.  Those were actual lyrics.

So really, I claim genetics.  Thank you, Dad ... for "the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me" (Alanis Morrissette).

Mrs. Pi

Living the Lie ... er, Dream

You know that awkward thing some bloggers do, when they haven't posted for a while?  They are very apologetic (not this kind) and make up some excuse for their absence, usually related to a holiday, or general busyness and some other kind of distraction.  I'm not going to do that.


Up until recently I was under the impression I had to do what I love for a living.  That if I didn't do that one thing that I'm most passionate about (read: knitting), and make lots of money doing it, I'd ultimately be unsatisfied, and I could never call myself a success.  I'd be living a lie.


And since I was not knitting for a living, there were times (usually preceding this lady's arrival) when I felt rather unsatisfied, like a failure, a liar for being in insurance instead of the fibre-arts.  Or a sell-out.  Or a coward.  


Then I got a wake-up call - or perhaps a satisfying confirmation of what I already knew - from one Ms. Penelope Trunk.  It's appropriate that one of her start-up ventures was called Brazen Careerist.  Ms. Trunk is nothing if not brashly honest, unassumingly witty, and painfully poignant.  Her writing is uncomfortable, challenging, like nothing you'll ever read.  And I think I love her for it.


Where or when did I originally get fed that line, that I need to do what I love for a living?  Was it one specific place?  Did it spontaneously generate in my mind, like flies on a cheesecloth?  Or does it permeate from every corner of popular media?  We've all read that story.  Jane or John Doe finds her/himself in dire straits (after all, you can get neither money for nothing nor chicks for free), begins by doing something they love, and they persevere, and toil, and by the sweat of their brow, they've made millions and are living it up in Zihuatanejo.  Oh, wait; no one loves digging tunnels in prison walls, not even Edmond Dantes (insert accent grave).  But he was rich, too.  Maybe they were onto something.


I can tell you one thing.  From the time I started college, I was bombarded with this word: Vocation.  Ok, two words: Vocation and Calling.  New vocab for me, but apparently not for Christian Academia.  From Day One in college - actually, in the case of the College Honors Program, prior to day one, during stimulating summer reading - I was told, directly and indirectly, that I have a sole purpose.  I have gifts and talents which brand me for one profession, and the purpose of college is to prepare myself for the rest of my life.  But no pressure or anything (to overuse a phrase).


So naturally, I changed my major 4 times from French to Accounting to International Business to Business Administration before graduating.  In four years, I might add.


But you know what I'm saying.  It's out there.  Taunting us.  "Other people are doing what they love and are madly successful, so why aren't you?"


But, like Ms. Trunk, I love many things.  Cheese, and pie, and math, to name a few.  I also love learning new things and stretching myself and meeting new people and finding out what I'm capable of, finding I can do things that I never thought I could (public speaking, for one).  What else do I love about my job?  Data analysis, and problem-solving, and learning how to become a leader.  Mentoring, being mentored, and gaining business acumen.  Building relationships I'll have for a long time.  Having a LinkedIn profile.  These are things I might be able to do as a professional knitter, perhaps.  But not like I can in the Insurance industry.


But, all that being said, I'm still trying a new knitting venture.  More on that next time.

Mrs. Pi