What do you consider the perfect amount of stash?

To be quite frank, I have no clue. Sometimes though, you just need to make something, to fulfill a deep desire in you to craft, and when that time comes I want a yarn that fits that mood. I have yarns that are cheep and silly, yarns so expensive I have to wait to find the perfect project for them, and some yarns that I've been given from friends that I don't want to use just because that would change the nature of the gift for me.

Right now my stash is hovering around a boxful, and that is about enough for me. But it fluctuates.

What did I look forward to most about summer break?

I think every year since I was eight, it has been camp. I've been going to the same camp for 14 years, first as a camper and then as staff. My family has moved around a lot, so Camp is the place I've grown up. It has my childhood friends, and I know every inch of it like the back of my hand. I can walk from one end of camp to the other without a flashlight when there's no full moon and not trip (or not trip much).

The sights, the smells, the lake, the songs... it all cements into the place where I've grown up and where I've sunk my roots into.

Cheep Therapy

So the last few days of camp have been a lot more difficult than I expected. After being a counselor for four years, I decided to join the program staff and teach swimming lessons. It's a very scary transition for me because I don't always do well with change, and it's always difficult to step outside of your comfort zone, and I'm definitely doing that.

In reaction of being pushed out of my comfort zone, I've moved from Knitting (a new, uncertain craft for me) to crochet again, and I've been mass producing washcloths. I've got some cheep cotton yarn and I've been pumping them out. They're both simple and brightly colored and crochet, and they're a source of comfort- one of the first things I learned to use on the hook I got when I was seven, and single crochet... the simplest thing in crochet beyond the chain. I'll have to take some pictures of the ones I've made, but I'm a little behind on uploading pictures onto my computer and thus onto the net. It's been very very busy.

In other news, I'm rather excited because Secret Pal 12 is underway, and I've both contacted my Secret Palee and been contacted by my secret pal. For those of you who don't know, Secret Pal is a circle of people on the net that participate by sending fiber-themed care packages to each other. I have some ideas on what I want to do, but I have a question for those who have participated, and even those who have not. Have you ever received some really cool, creative packages? What made them special? I'm perfectly willing to mine good ideas off others (after all, copying is the highest form of flattery), or use others ideas to jump start my own. I want to make my packages special!

Let me know.

What's your favorite summertime drink?

I'd have to say water. I'm not a big fan of Lemonaide, though I do like it, and there's nothing that compares to a big glass of really cold milk, but the thing I drink most is water, no ice no lemon.

Mmmm. Nothing beats that.

Missing my boyfriend

I've been feeling kinda low lately because my boyfriend and I are on two timezones apart. He works at Philmot, which is a boyscout camp in New Mexico, and I work at Camp Chimney Corners (an AMAZING camp) in Massachusetts. Days off are normally for 24 hours, and there's no way we can see each other all summer. Then, before we can get together I fly out to North Carolina where I go to school, and he is doing a semester at sea that goes out of Wood's Hole, MA. There's a good chance I might not see him until winter break.

So this summer we are going to be communicating entirely by handwritten letters, and last night was the last night I could talk to him via electronics. To compensate for missing him, I'm making him a pair of socks. As I knit the soft material, it's both soothing and fun to answer questions about him to my friends. Luckily, I'm now at camp working, so I have less time to be missing him. It's nice to watch the socks grow.

Do you use knitting or crochet as therapy?

Christmas/Summer Blanket Stories

My Christmas and Summer Blanket started on Christmas of my junior year of college, four years ago. My grandmothers had given me carte blanc in the yarn store, and the result was me buying yarn for my first pattern where I followed the directions- almost.

From the first I knew this project was going to be big. I have a big family (two parents and four children including me) and we have an appreciation for a blanket that can span the length of the couch and cover all of our legs for movie night. It was no wonder that I wanted a big blanket, something I could imagine surrounding family in folds of love and bright colors.

However, having this big blanket did present some problems. Namely, ability to transport. I found after a certain size the blanket could no longer be comfortably carried in a craft bag, and it began being brought out less and less. Thus, it became my Christmas/Summer Blanket, because those were the times I worked on it- over Christmas when I had the leisure to sit down and watch a movie with my family while having the work cover my legs, or during the summer when, working at camp, I could pull it out during freetime and have a solid hour to work on the project.

It came with me on all the long drives with my parents to look at colleges. My father and I made the 12-hour trek down to Davidson with me merrily crocheting and chattering (when I wasn't driving). There's a series of four stripes (which I got done on the way there and back) that I associate specifically with my father and driving down to look at Davidson College. The talks about what I would encounter, planning my life, and good advice all seem to be embedded in the stitches.

So tell me... do you have a project that captures memories of when it was made, or in use? Just a reminder, commenting will enter you into my June contest for the mystery yarn!

Contest!

So as I've been getting ready to go to my summer job at camp, I've been going through my stashes, trying to decide which projects I'm going to bring to camp, and what yarns. Since a large part of the first two weeks of camp has evenings free, and there is a bunch of staff training, this is one of the times that I make the most progress on my projects all year. So careful selections are in order.

Which brings me to the point of the post. I'm putting together a bag of yarns that i don't think I'll ever use. These are yarns I bought for some reason or another because I loved them- the color or the texture simply pulled me. Some are novelty yarns, some are leftovers from other porjects, and some are yarns that I've simply moved on from- they just don't appeal to me any more.

I will be frank. Some of these yarns are leftovers. Some of these yarns are in strange colors. But they are also (in my opinion) jewels.

So, after a bit of debate in my mind, I've decided to run my first contest to give away these yarns. During this month any of the comments on any of my posts will count. Then, at the end of the month I will use a random number generator to find which person will win the yarns. You are unlimited in the number of entries you can submit, as long as you leave thoughtful comments. This means that you'll get more chances the more you post on my blog!

I plan to put a photo up, once I get new batteries for my camera.

So tell me, are there any yarns you hold on to for one reason or another?

One of THOSE projects

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Originally uploaded by jenamberautumn

Everyone has one of those projects that goes on and on and on. For me, it's my Christmas and Summer blanket. I started this my junior year of highschool, and now just over four years later it STILL isn't done. It's not that I don't love working on it... I do.

And it's not that I don't think it's beautiful... I do.

It's just that it's gotten so long and so big... it's a problem carting it everywhere.

So today I wanted to take another look at this blanket, and share some of its stories.

This blanket was one of my first big project I ever did. I got the pattern in an old crafting book... the standard crochet ripple afghan pattern, and then proceeded to modify it so that it would be wider, because I love really really big blankets. And I was making it for myself, so I wanted it really really big. It was one of those strikes of fortune... my grandmothers had given me carte blanch at the yarn store, and I went and picked out all my favorite yarns. The original pattern called for nine rows of a color, broken up by three rows of the base color. It was really retro. But very soon into making the blanket I decided I wanted to change it up more. Instead of doing nine rows of one color, I would do nine rows of color, and three rows of white. I like how it turned out. Basically, I do whatever I feel like when it comes to the pattern.

Now, this whatever I feel like doesn't come without problems. You see, I didn't quite measure out the distance right, so on one side the "V" goes down where on the other side it goes up. They're both susposed to go down for pattern reasons, and I find that I need to 'compensate' a little on the pattern. Also, with all the color changes the sides are rather ragged, but I think that's ok because I"m going to edge the whole thing in white when I'm done. So it will look normal, I swear!

In the next few days, I'll be posting on some stories that involve my Chrismas/Summer afghan. But in the meantime I'd like to ask you. Do you have a project that goes on and on and on? Is it one that you enjoy, but for some reason just get to only once and a while? I'd like to know.