Knit Fast, Die Warm: Winter is Coming.

As the last days of summer fade away, the speed and voracity of knit projects have begun to pick up.  It’s as if the first cool evening kicks off a primal urge to start making warmer things.  I’ve started picking into the stash of yarns I’ve collected over the previous months and begun to knit the holiday gifts for friends and family.  This winter is predicted to be pretty ugly for the southern states this year.  I’m not looking forward to it but damn-it I’m doing my part to try and keep the people I care about warmer this year since winter doesn’t really kick in down here until January-ish.

How about you folks?  Do you have the same urge to start picking into heavier projects?

Public Acts of Crafting – The Challenge

Over the past few weeks I’ve talked to a few crocheters and knitters about their crafting habits and have overwhelmingly found that they hide in the safety of their homes to work on projects.

I don’t get it.

So many projects are portable why not take them with you?  Let’s be honest with ourselves.  How many times do you go into a public space, pull out our cell phones and start looking at whatever app amuses you this week?  What do you gain from it?  Very little. Right?  Just think about it, before the rise of the smart phone we had more direct social interaction with those that where physically around us.  We went to the coffee shop and struck up conversations or actually noticed the independent art exhibit on the wall.  We where much more observant of what was going on around us. We had more interaction with people.

So I propose a bit of a challenge. Pack up a small project and toss it in your bag.  When you have a few moments whip it out and throw in a few rows instead of grabbing that cell phone.  Let’s see what interactions it triggers.

I travel a lot and frequent the local coffee house more often than I would like to admit.  About a month ago I started taking projects with me and have had some amazing interactions with people around me.  Public crafting has introduced me to new people and conversation, a few of these people are beginning to turn into friends.

Give it a shot and see what happens.  Don’t worry what others think, just do, and see what happens.  Besides, taking a few minutes to make something tangible instead of beating the next level of Candy Crush is probably more fulfilling. Think of this as a revolution!  Be the interesting person in the room!  And feel free to share your public crafting stories in the comment section.

Hey There!

WIP Late January 2015

Let’s go ahead and get the first post thing out of the way.  These are usually introductory, right?

I was one of those kids that had to stay busy all the time.  If my nose wasn’t in a book, I was making something.  I learned to crochet at 7 by watching my great-grandmother and my mother teaching me the basic stitches.  Knitting was introduced to me in my early 20’s by a co-worker.  Both fiber arts, past learning the basic points, was largely self-taught by spending hours in books and on the internet to learn techniques. At this point in my life, hanging out in my early 30’s, I really can be called a crafty bitch.  Fiber arts aren’t the only modes of creation but by far are my favorite.

So here’s the deal, I created this blog so I could stop talking about my projects on Facebook all the time.  I’m sure at this point it’s beginning to annoy the ever-loving-shit out of my friends.  Over the past few months my need to create has been intensified and has no sign of slowing down, and I’m learning new tricks and techniques with every project.  So there you go…and here it is…hang around long enough, see what I’m up to, see what I’m working on, and if you’re good I’ll throw up a pattern here and there.