Kim is an Einstein

I know that when you blog, you're supposed to blog about your own stuff. But this time, I am feeling compelled to blog about Kim's Einstein Coat.


Besides, I did take the pictures, so I guess that counts on some level.


Kim has knitted a lot of other things (her latest obsession is Fair Isle), and she helps people with their knitting every day. But this is the first sweater she has had time to make since we opened the shop.


She used combined Oceania with Harrisville Highland. Isn't it fabulous?

Yup. I think she looks happy.

Out of the Mouths....

An interesting thing happened yesterday at the Friends School Workshop.

We had a friendly little group of knitters sitting together in a circle of couches, and an 8-year-old boy joined us for a few hours in the morning. He was a fabulous knitter. He brought along two colorful knitted bags he had made (they weren't just ordinary bags--they had stripes of blended colors at the bottom, and a mesh pattern at the top, shaped into handles), and he brought along a pinwheel baby blanket he was making, as he explained, using the Magic Loop. (To those of you in Zimmermania--he was making the pi shawl with a yarnover increase on each round to create a spiral pattern.)

So we're all sitting there chatting aimlessly for about an hour, and suddenly, the kid pipes up. He says something like this:

"You know, my problem is that I have too many projects." We all look over at him.

He continues, the words pouring forth: " The thing is, I find a pattern I like, and I just have to make it. The only thing I want to do is go to the yarn store to get the yarn for it."

He has everyone looking at him, and I suspect that all our mouths were gaping.

"So I get the yarn, and I start the project.

"Then, I'm partway through that one, and I see another pattern, and then I don't want to make the first thing any more. I want the new pattern and the yarn. And then all my projects pile up, and I don't know what to do."

This child is apparently looking to us for advice, and we're unable to do anything but sit there, just staring at him in astonishment. Or perhaps he is just making a confession. We don't know anything other than that we have the same problem he does.

"It starts at age 8," one says quietly.

Another group member is curious: She asks the child how he stores his yarn.

"Oh, I put it in plastic bags. And then I put those bags into big plastic bins. I push the air out of the plastic bags to flatten them so I can fit more yarn into my bins."

Someone else says quietly, "This makes me feel better."

Then we all sit in silence for a moment, absorbing that this 8-year-old boy is an absolute mirror of every single one of us. We can't offer any honest help or any advice to him, and we all know it.

So we don't even try. Not one person sitting there can do a thing for that child.

*****

Today I'm mulling over what we should have told him.

There are just two thoughts that keep coming to mind over and over:

1. I should have had some sort of advice for him but I still don't know what. He was talking to the wrong person.

2. Maybe it would work better to squeeze the air out of my plastic bags, so I can fit more yarn in.

Preparing for Saturday

I'm still preparing for tomorrow. The granola looks pretty good. In fact, it might be my best batch ever:



You have till 5:30 today to sign up for tomorrow's workshop!

Having My Cake...and Eating It, Too

I have a sweet tooth. Kim calls me a cookie monster. She's right: I'm all about eating cookies. I have been known to steal cookies out from under people. But I also love pie and cake and just about any other baked good. And oh--dark chocolate.

This past week, I made the best cake ever. It's a chocolate-zucchini cake. I made it with really good chocolate.

I am planning to make it for our Friend's Workshop this Saturday--among other things. If you haven't signed up yet, you might want to. We're going to spend the day knitting, quilting, and eating:


Want to join us? Give us a call at 238-4151, or stop by to sign up!

Buy me Some Peanuts and Crackerjack and a Funnel Cake and a Cheesesteak and Chocolate Fondue and Maybe Some Dipping Dots if I'm Still Hungry

Tonight was a perfect night for a ballgame--dry, cool, and comfortable.


Our Stitch Your Art Out group had a great time.





The quilting and knitting guilds had tables set up:


Kim and I posed with Ike the Spike, and Ike made us pretend we were on CSI:


The players blew bubbles:


But they also played really hard and won the game!


And then it was over....


maybe until next year?

It's a Sure Sign!

Okay, let me tell you about Sign People.

When we first opened--which was 6 years ago--we needed a sign. So we started calling around. We called about 10 sign people from the yellow pages, and the response from all of them was....

crickets

I was still teaching at Penn State the time, and one of my students said that she knew a sign guy. So I called that person. I told him what we wanted. He sent me a proof. I asked him if we could make the sign bigger.

crickets

About a month later, having not heard from him, we were surprised to have a truck pull up, and a guy install the original small sign:

Their sign was the left sign. Note from the picture how you can't read it from the street. On the right side, we had a bar sign that had come with the store. Our store really does not have that "smoky bar feel," but at least the bar sign was set so far back that you couldn't notice it anyway.

Although it was imperfect, we had a sign, and we decided to let it go. It had taken a year to get that far.

A few more years came and went. We knew the sign needed to go.

It was time to find a new sign guy.

I called a guy who was very responsive. He immediately sent us an idea for a sign that had lettering which looked as if it belonged on "Joe's Garage," except that it was colored teal and pink.

I told him we'd get back to him.

So then I called a person whom I was told had made many of the beautiful signs around town. I called him about 5 times to try to get a hold of him. Although he never returned any of my messages, on the 5th try, he did actually answer the phone and seemed to want to help us. And then....

crickets

One day, about 6 months after that, I called him. He called back. "I'm calling you here from the beach in Florida, and drinking a Pina Colada," he said. "I'll get with you when I'm back." I waited.

Crickets.

I was talking to a friend who owned a yarn shop in New Jersey, and telling her our tale of woe, and she said that they had had the same problem. The sign guy they used was smoking dope--literally.

So after a few weeks more, I called our sign guy back. (Hey, at least he was only drinking.)

He seemed more enthusiastic this time. He even sent us an idea for a sign!

Here was his idea: He thought was should have out in front of our store a giant, pink spool of thread the size of a barrel. It looked like something that would advertise for, say ... the world's LARGEST ball of STRING! Yes! A sign for a souvenir shop in Florida! Here in Pine Grove Mills! One thing I will acknowledge is that people would have found us.

I'm just not sure that they would have actually stopped.

I suggested that maybe he could stop in to see what our atmosphere is like to make a sign that is a little more congruent with our business. He said that he didn't need to do that--that he just "created things."

I drove around town for 3 hours one day, taking pictures of signs we liked, and emailed them to him. He said that they were all his signs. This was promising!

So we went back and forth with some more ideas, none of which would have remotely worked for us. I suggested again that he stop by. He said that there was no need to do that: He didn't work that way.

And then he stopped calling. I guess it just didn't work out between us.

A few more months went by. A number of people informed us that we needed a better sign. One of them was our printer. He told us to call the Sign Stop. So that's what we did.

It was kind of weird: they answered the phone.

By now, Kim and I had come up with what we wanted the sign to look like, and so we had both the Stop Sign and my friend Ellen, who is a graphic designer, work on our concept. Again, we went back and forth a few times--but in normal ways, ways that seemed to make the sign better. We like the Sign Stop very, very much. Thank you, Scott!

And today, on June 26, 2009, on this very momentous day, we got our sign:

Remember to Turn It Upside Right, Guys!


Ta da!


Kim sez: I Can Haz a Sign? I Can Touch It?



Be Careful with Our Sign!


We are So Happy!

There is only one little problem with our sign. We know about it. We can't do a thing about it. Fortunately, it will go away in the fall....

...but it will come back in the spring.

Thank You, Kim

It's handy to have a business partner (most days, at least--heh).

You see, it was only a week ago that I was feeling completely overwhelmed and paralyzed by projects. We have been working to prep for summer and fall, and it was getting to be a bit much. So I made a list of them, and I asked Kim to help me set priorities--what to finish first, next, and so forth.

Number one on the list turned out to be the summer sweater I had started back in April, which was almost finished. It was called Hey Teach!

Because Kim said I should, I have been working on it all week, and tonight, I finished it:

Well, actually I lied. Kim said that number one was getting the block designed for this week's block of the month. In fact, I promised her today that I would work on it tonight. So far, that hasn't quite happened. But Hey Kim! the sweater--it is finished.

P. S. Remember that our Anniversary Sale starts tomorrow and goes for a week. Come on in! And while you're there, feel free to pressure me to finish designing the block.