Am I Really Old Enough to Teach Knitting?

Not that I mind teaching, don't get me wrong...but the knitting stereotype of the old grandmother teaching her grandchildren still sticks in my mind. In fact, I love to knit and most people who have learned from me will tell you that I do pretty well. Most of my students are visual learners, as am I, so we understand each other. This is excellent because most people who know me can relate how I am always trying to make up new words and gesture wildly when I can't think of the words I really want, which is often.

I'm not what most people would consider old, just in my early 30's. Kids call me the "fun Aunt" who likes to sugar them up and send them home. I'm the one who always has time to bake and do creative things, the one who's not burnt out yet because I don't have children of my own. This makes me feel incredibly young, which is why I wonder about the aforementioned anecdote. Why does knitting, something I dearly love, make me think of elderly women? There are countless movements recently that pitch fiber arts in a younger, hipper light. Things such as "Yarn bombing" have even reached little Keokuk, IA. I noticed an elegantly wrapped signpost the other day and wondered if I should covertly add to it or just start my own. Surely I have some old yarn left over from making baby blankets for all my friends that could be sacrificed for such a cause. The whole world should know that knitting is not just for grannys anymore. Sometimes it's for people who will never be grandmas, like me.

To get back to the teaching though, for several months now there have been a small group of women coming over to our house to learn the basics. It's a little daunting coming up with lessons as I never know what they will remember from the class before and if they will be ready to move on. We went from knit and purl stitches in lesson one to binding off and cables in lesson two. For some this might seem to be a jump, but I don't believe in keeping people in potholder stage for very long. Knitting should be fun and experimental and progressive. People in ruts don't have very much fun.

The problem is, there has been so much ice and snow in the past month that we have missed the last few weeks. I'm afraid we may have to go back to potholder stage and refresh before moving on. At least they will already have a feel for it and perhaps it won't take the whole lesson. I don't charge money because these are my friends and the joy I get out of seeing someone "get it" is worth more than anything. Besides, once they love knitting, they will probably love yarn and I can ease them into a spinning addiction as well. Bwahahahaha!

One Goodbye and Two Hellos

At last I feel ready to write about this. As some of you know, I had 2 two lovely bunnies. Well, Gidget died about 5 weeks ago of a massive tumor in her lower abdomen. We had little warning, but she stopped eating one afternoon and the next day she was gone. It was a complete shock to me and I cried for days, but Willie Rabbit seems to have taken it in stride. It's almost like he knew about it before I did. Well, he actually probably did come to think of it.

A few weeks ago he started tearing apart his cage, a sure sign of restlessness. He also started to paw and nip at me, which is also a way to show his discontent. So we decided that it was time to take him to the St. Louis House Rabbit Society to find a new "special friend". He met 7 new prospective bunnies on Saturday and seemed to hit it off with 3 of them. So we took him back on Sunday and he completely rejected one of the girls right off the bat. That left us with a set of bonded sisters who he seemed to not mind so much. There was a lot of mounting and flirting going on, so we brought them home.

On the paperwork their names are Opal and Pheobe and they are both large New Zealand Whites. They weigh in around 15 pounds a piece and dwarf Willie who is only around 5 pounds, but he seems to love large women. Gidget was twice his size. He has good taste as his bunny slave (me) is also a woman of substance. My hubby has always wanted to name our next bunny Eddie so we would have an Eddie Rabbit like the country singer.
When he heard our new buns were both girls he decided to name one of them Edwina and to call her Ed for short. I named the other girl Cecilia who will probably end up being called Cici, although she might get stuck with Bitey if she keeps on insisting on taking chunks out of my arms.

We have had several bonding sessions between Willie and the girls over the past week and things seem to be going well. The last two were half hour car rides in a plastic laundry basket. They all hunkered down a cuddled together, which was amazing because 2 times ago CiCi took a huge bite out of Willie's butt. This time all they fought about was who was going to do the grooming. They even still behaved after we got home and put them on our bed top. We will keep trying and I'm sure that soon they will be able to live together unsupervised.

Moving Day and the Aftermath

Well well...So I have once again neglected this blog horribly. This time hubby and I have been occupied buying our very first house, and then moving into said house. We had quite a few wonderful and kind friends who volunteered to help us move all our stuff. One of them likened our apartment to a clown car, stuff just kept coming out long after it should have. I wish I had pictures of the before and after, but I was so frazzled that no pictures were taken, at least by me. My friend will be bailing me out later though as she took quite a few. Whew!

We closed last Thursday, then packed up the apartment and moved this past weekend. True, there are a few things still left there, like bunnies, but we should be completely out by the end of the month. Our new fridge arrived last Friday and we expectantly watched as the delivery guys hefted it up the porch stairs. After about half an hour of grunting and trying two different doors the sad truth reared it's ugly head. The fridge was one-half inch too wide to fit through the door. Grr. So we had to drive an hour to the nearest place to buy appliances and select another fridge. That one arrived today and graciously slid right into place. Whew again.

We decided to leave Willie and Gidget at our old place until we get the kitchen cleared or boxes and trash since they will be staying in there mostly. We hope it will be less traumatic for them to be by themselves at the apartment for a few days rather than at the house with all the moving of boxes and furniture.

I felt bad this morning when we went over to feed our bunnies. I found them huddled between the only piece of furniture left, a plant stand, and a few empty boxes. (They do still have their hutch, but they don't like to stay in it.) They keep running from where the couch used to be to where the kitchen table used to be, which were their favorite hiding places.

As far as we could tell, there had not been any excessive shedding of newspaper or cardboard. Of course, the apartment looks like it's been blown up with all the pet hair, wadded up newspaper packing and cardboard boxes lying around. Gidget could have ripped up an entire week's worth of paper and I probably wouldn't have known any better. We hope to have the "family" all back together in a few days. I already miss their little bunny antics. I haven't seen a binky in days.

Bob has to go back to work tomorrow, which he is actually looking forward to. I have the morning off, not that I'll unpack many boxes, but at least I'll be able to sleep in. Ah homeownership is sweet sweet bliss.

World Sheep Festival at Bethel Missouri

Over the Labor Day weekend I had the joy of being able to attend the World Sheep and Fiber Festival at Bethel, Missouri. All my other attempts at going to fiber festivals this year had been foiled by things such as weddings, meetings and lack of funds. Finally I was able to sink my hands into all sorts of sweet, sweet fiber.

This was the first year I was able to participate in the Fiber Competition by entering a few of my hand spun yarns along with a scarf and hat set and of course my beloved crocheted Ernie the Giraffe. Everything I entered placed in one category or another. Not really sure how the categories were broken down, but whoever did the judging liked my work and I am thrilled.

My husband and I were also on our way to visit my sister in Columbia, MO so he got to see the festival for the first time. To be honest, I think he was bored out of his mind, but he did enjoy the sheep dog trials. Another good thing to come out of his being there is that he agreed to help me get a new spinning wheel once he saw how nice the "real" ones are. Yay! In a few months, I hope to be the proud new owner of a Fricke wheel.

I came away with 4 ounces of heavenly fawn coloured Alpaca fluff and 8 ounces of absolutely divine Baby Camel and Silk blend. Hubba hubba, I really can't wait to start spinning that one. In fact, I'm going to go pet it again right now.

Create Crochet Midweek Madness Sale!

I've been gearing up to list a bunch of new hand spun yarns and hand dyed rovings in my shop, but just had not gotten around to it yet. It just so happens that the Create Crochet Team on Etsy, which I belong to, is having a team sale this week. It's a great opportunity to show off what we as a team have been doing.

As a part of the Create Crochet Midweek Madness Sale, my shop, Handmade Sunshine will have a promotion running from August 25, 2000 until September 1, 2009. All items in my shop will be 10% off when the buyer enters "CCT" in the comments field during checkout. Additionally, all my yarns are on sale at deeply discounted prices. Click the listings to see your savings.

The Create Crochet Team Blog has a list of all the shops participating and what promotion they are running. Additionally, at 2PM EDT "Etsy Time" on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 all the team members are blasting Etsy with new listings. The goal is to get all the recently listed items on the front page to be from our team for a short period of time. Don't miss this chance to get beautiful goodies at a discounted rate from some very talented people!

Willie is a Disappoving Rabbit!

I submitted a picture of Willie to the people at the Disapproving Rabbits website last week and today they featured him as "Dust Bunny's Revenge". I'm pretty excited about it, but Willie couldn't care less, as usual. In fact I'm pretty sure that he is now actually disapproving of his "fifteen minutes of fame".

The picture is a result of my trying to catch him taking a nap by the vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately, I woke him up and got a steely-eyed bunny glare instead of the extreme cuteness I was going for. He was all like, "How dare you disturb my bunny slumber! Now your vacuum cleaner must pay...again." In truth, I think most of the chewing was done by Gidget, but we all know he backs her up on everything.