I got the Music in me!

“And I love my knitting friends.
Who think I am funny, and encourage my silliness.”

My favorite silly thing to do is sing. You know how sometimes you get a song stuck in your head? Then you tell somebody, and they get it stuck in their head too? Then they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on. . .? Yeah, I am the one that usually starts it.

Well, I have always had a thing for music. I was in the choir in grade school, and in the band in grade school and middle school and high school. In high school, I was in the concert band, the marching band, the pep band, and the orchestra. I even skipped my lunch period to join the jazz band! Back then, they called us “band fags” if we were really into the music. Now I think the jocks call the musicians "band geeks". . .a little kinder, but not much. But, then, we call them jocks. . .need I say more?

Anyway, I loved music, and I still do. I have sung in the church choir and smaller ensembles as an adult, and I have had a solo or two. (Truthfully, I am not a solo singer, so I am not hurt when my name doesn’t come up for the lead anymore.) And I sing all the time! I make up songs for my family, like

to the tune of revelrie:
It’s time to get up!
It’s time to get up!
It’s time to get up in the morning!
I don’t care if you
came in really late,
it’s time to go start the day!
I said, “Get up right now!
Or else you’re in big trouble!
Get out of your bed,
face up to the day,
or be grounded tomorrow!”

Don’t I have lucky kids?

But my kids are nearly grown now. One is married, and the other is headed to college next fall. So, now I make up songs for other people. Sometimes I just hear a phrase, and it sets me off on a tune-gent, and wouldn’t I be remiss if I did NOT share my musical joy? I even hear the music and share it when I am knitting. Check me out on Ravelry, I am PKJewelry over there, and see what I mean. I sing a lot on one of the groups. Can you figure out which one?

Thank you for being a friend. . .

“And I geek on the computer.
Where I found Ravelry.
And I love Ravelry.
Where I found a local group of knitters to meet-up with.”

I don’t just love to geek on the computer and Internet, I am pretty good at it. I can sit at my desk for hours, typing and laughing and finding my next project. . .it’s like I am made for it! At many other activities (ball-playing, bike-riding, little-league-watching, walking) there is at least some chance that I will hurt myself. Like, remember in high school, where they make you take freshman gym for a semester. . .well, you know that kid who always got hit in the face with the kick-ball after someone yelled, “Catch it! It’s coming right to you!”? Yeah, the one with glasses, who also fell to the gym floor and had to be sent to the office afterwards for masking tape to fix her glasses? Yeah, that was me. I faked my period no matter what the season was. . .oh, except for ping-pong.

I once sprained a finger playing ping-pong.

But I can sit here at my keyboard for hours, and the only thing that happens is my eyes glaze over a little. I have found my endurance sport!

So, I am on the Internet at home, and I am on the Internet at work, and I am even on the Internet in the car and out on the town with my new, fancy phone! I am in computer-geek Nirvana.

If you are reading this, and you like yarn and knitting or crocheting, you may already know about Ravelry. If you don’t know about it, click on that link back there and check it out! Not only can you catalog your projects, and yarn and tools for yarn-crafts, you can catalog other yarnies! Yeah! I know. . .pretty freakin’ cool, eh! I’ve met lots of great people on Ravelry. . .here are some of them now:

And if you are reading this, and you are one of them, (cue music)

Thank you for being a friend
Traveled round the yarn and back again
Your heart is true, you’re a pal, my fellow knitter
And if I threw a party, invited everyone I knew
I would see, the mostest yarn would be for me
Wool in red, green, yellow and blue. . .

Thanks, Friends, for your support and kind words which landed me my first etsy sale on Thursday! Yippee!

"So, I knit"

Thus began the first post of my blog. I guess it adequately sums up how I got sucked into blogging and Facebook and Ravelry and everything else I do, with technology and otherwise

I learned to crochet as a wee one, my grandma taught me. I made blankets, purses, Barbie clothes, baby doll clothes and beds, hats, even a hideous orange-and-white sweater that I actually wore to school a few times. Hideous may be too mild a word, but I loved it. I do not, however, have a photo.

Awwwwwww. . .

I do have photos of some of my better crochet:

Somewhere along the line, I decided I'd like to learn knitting, and my hubby's grandma said she'd teach me. I learned to knit and to purl, but not how to cast on properly. I guess I was doing some form of the backwards-loop cast-on. I hated the feel of the knitting, I hated the curled up edges that I didn't understand, and I hated the uneven fabric that I could not control. I put down my needles.

A few years later, after all of our Grammies were gone, I decided that I was losing touch with who women used to be. I wanted to make things with my hands, and I wanted to do it well, but the thing I wanted to make the most was. . .socks. Socks? Why socks? Dunno, but that's what I wanted to knit. It was 2005, and I wanted to knit socks.

I went online and found a tutorial (Socks 101, which has disappeared into I-don't-know-where, sadly), then I got my hands on some yarn and double pointed needles. I just dove in with reckless abandon, and at the other side I found that I had learned to knit socks! To date, I am sure that I have knit somewhere between 100-200 pairs of socks. I have given many socks away, and I have kept more than my fair share. Above all else, I have accomplished my goal!

Yay Me!

No, dear. We are not "so bad off" that I "need to make" my own socks. Quite the opposite, here look at the price of this yar. . .nevermind.

Welcome to the new, the improved. . .no, wait, just new, BLOG!

So, I knit.
And I geek on the computer.
Where I found Ravelry.
And I love Ravelry.
Where I found a local group of knitters to meet-up with.
And I love my knitting friends.
Who think I am funny, and encourage my silliness.
And I love silliness. . .and crafts.
Which is why I knit and make jewelry and other things.
And I love making things.
Which is why I currently own 20 Knitting Row Counters.
And I love my Row Counters.
And my friends love my Row Counters.
And they encouraged me to open an etsy shop.
So, I opened an etsy shop.
Where I learned that I love to be on the computer.
So, I thought about starting a blog.
And my friends encouraged me to start a blog.
So, I started this blog.
And I love that I started this blog.

Welcome to my blog, and to my story of knitting, friends, computers, row counters, and general silliness. Glad to have you stop by.

And, oh, that picture. . .yeah, that's me, with my purple nosewarmer last winter. Lovely.