Inspiration: What Crocheters Want in a Yarn Shop

 Source: Crochet Inspiration by Sasha Kagan, a stitch compendium.  Check out this review!

Last year, a new LYS opened less than a mile away from my house.  Count me among the lucky.  FiberSpace is an attractive little yarn shop tucked away in a little corner of Alexandria, focusing on moderate priced yarns (almost the entire line of Berroco), as well as some higher end fiber. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable, the store just this side of funky. I mean, what else can you say about a store that successfully pulls off a retro outerspace theme. But, what I think makes this shop so special is that it carries several yarns that help to sustain womens' cooperatives in developing countries.  Their social consciousness extends even further -- last weekend, they donated 20% of its yarn sales to OxFam to help with disaster support in Haiti. From two days of sales, this little store is sending almost $1800!

What I also love about this shop is that it does not eschew, or shun, crochet.  Nothing irks me more than walking into a yarn store to spend my hard-earned money and being made to feel like I am some hick from the mountains.  Okay, so I grew up in the Intermountain West but I am far from a hick.  Although far from being crochet-centric, FibreSpace wants to encourage more crocheters to see them as a resource.  Recently, the owner asked, what do crocheters want in a yarn shop?  I mentioned a few things:

• Crocheted project samples -- inspire us by showing how your beautiful yarn looks crocheted into a little garmet
  
• Crocheted yarn swatches -- it helps to see how a yarn will work up
• Good, attractive crochet books -- there are so many new ones out there
  
• Adequate crochet notions -- such as crochet hooks you can't find in Michael's or AC Moore
  

Bottom line, think about what attracts knitters and other fiber artists to your shop, your yarn, your classes, and then do the same for crocheters.  Inspiration is our muse too.

So this is the question I pose to you crocheters out there:  What do you want in a Yarn Shop?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Spiderman had his Aunt May. Harry Potter relunctantly was raised by Aunt Petunia. Dorothy yearned for her Auntie Em (can you just hear the Wicked Witch screaching Auntieeee Emmmmm in a mocking whine - sends shivers down my spine).

I'm watching a Lifetime movie, Saving Sarah Cain, about a newspaper columnist who becomes the legal guardian for her deceased sister's five Amish children. It reminds me of another Aunt-who-suddenly-becomes-Aunt Mommy movie, Raising Helen, about a woman who becomes the legal guardian for her deceased sister's three children. Sound familiar? This plot has been repeated countless number of times. In all, these aunts (hardly ever a single uncle) seem to be clueless characters in a Mission Impossible movie, trying to decide how to answer the question, your mission should you choose to accept it, although they act more like fish out of water, unsure. perhaps unaware of their unrealized dream of being a mother. Of course, once they realize this, then, magic of all magics, they get a man. God, I am tired of these movies.

So what has this post got to do with crochet? Nothing. It's just that I am a bit weary of stories about kids being given to an unqualified relative who has to be dragged kicking and screaming into a life-altering experience. There are so many flesh-and-blood women, and a few men no doubt, who have willingly opened their homes and hearts to their nieces and nephews for the simple reason that they are family and family takes care of family. No tricks, no guilt trips. And even though it may take a village to raise a child, it often is up to an aunt or grandmother or even an uncle to keep a family together. I just wish they would do movies about families who just happen to have an aunt with nieces and nephews and not make that relationship the premise for the plot.

Wyld Ryd

Almost every Saturday, I volunteer at a genealogy library. Volunteering means hanging with my other crochet buddy, Meredith, who always inspires me to think outside the box when it comes to crochet and knitting. We discuss our current projects, new yarn finds, our families, our ancestors. It is, after all, a genealogy library and we are there to help patrons with their often elusive family searches.

Last Saturday, on my way to my "volunteer" (a genealogy library but my girls have always called it going to the volunteer), I pulled up behind a black Lexus sporting license plates that read "WYLD RYD." I thought, what a great title for a blog, but gave it up because cars and crochet don't mix, right!?.

I had brought my ball winder with me to wind a few skeins of yarn in preparation for some lace projects I am getting underway. Holiday gift giving and all that. Note to Vern and Con: yes, you each will be getting a lace shawl. I don't own a yarn swift so I thought I would take advantage of the highback chairs at the center to serve as an extra pair of hands. First up was a skein of KnitPicks Bare Peruvian Highland Wool fingering weight. Gonna use this for StitchStud's Peacock Track Mystery Crochet-A-Long. I plan to dye it in peacock blues and greens. Next up, Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm's Sock Weight, perfect for an oversized scarf. Although the chairs were a tad bit narrow to hold the yarns with any real tension, the skeins rolled off nicely as I wound them into balls. Then came Araucania's Lonco Multy. Some of you already are aware of my love-hate relationship with this yarn. I've been avoiding working on a second Bird of Paradise Shawl because of the hours spent unraveling this tough little cotton yarn.

Hoping to avoid any opportunity for a mishap, I grabbed the leather office chair. Its back is wider so it should hold the yarn better. As I cautiously started to unwind the skein, the chair shifted, revolving slowly like a yarn swift. I pushed it along and the yarn came off with little hesitation. I held my breath. The chair jerked to a stop as the yarn snagged. I cursed the yarn and wondered why I even bothered. In frustration, I gave the yarn a little downward tug, surprisingly freeing the yarn. I nudged the chair, smooth sailing for a few yards. Another snag, another damn, another tug. I spun the chair, faster. Another snag, another tug, finally, freedom. Soon, the chair was turning like a kid spinning on a merry-go-round. Patrons walking into to the library stopped short, fascinated by the spinning chair as yarn was pulled off and formed into a little ball. Finally, the last length of yarn left my hand, completing the new yarn ball. I reached out, stopped the chair, and took a deep breath -- I had been holding my breath somewhat. What took 13 hours to wind the first skein, only took 45 minutes for this ball. Cue the chorus of angels. I was in yarn heaven.

Lesson learned? Yarn can be quite temperamental. Some can be quite easy going, allowing you to wind it up with a child's helpful arms. Others need a swift kick in the @#$ and can only be controlled by the unyeilding arms of a yarn swift. Although I know that the unusual way the Araucania Lonco Multy was put up into a skein had a lot to do with my earlier problems, I realize that I had unwittingly created more twists and turns as I tried to "figure out" each and every snag by untwisting every perceived twist, only to twist it upon itself even more. Human nature being what it is, we try to outwit such yarn and think ahead of a snag, a twist, a perceived tangle. But under the constraint of a yarn swift, you are forced to let the swift and the yarn work together. Your hand just goes along for the ride.

So, if you need an extra pair hands and no yarn swift is handy, go to work and give that office chair a wyld ryd.

P.S. Get yourself some Araucania Lonco Multy but don't forget the swift.

You Say Crotch-et-y, I Say Cro-chet-ee . . .

Crotch-et-y --adj. Capriciously stubborn or eccentric. Given to crotchets, subject to odd notions, whims. Having a difficult and contrary disposition.
--Synonyms: fussy, eccentric, grouchy.

At lunch last week my good friend Linda said I was a bit "crotchety." It all started when another friend noted that I was the only person at the table wearing a watch, adding that, "in this day and age, why wear something that only does one thing?!" Lazybones that I am, I told her I refuse to pull out my cell phone or blackberry just to see the time. Looking back, I guess I was a bit stubborn in my defense of wristwatches, admittedly a bit capricious since my watch is stuck on 9:00 as I wait to find a replacement battery.

Naturally, lunch and meandering conversations being what they are, we were stymied by the question, what the hell is a crotchet?

Some have suggested that perhaps being crotchety might be an affliction of people who crochet. Hrmp! While it is true that "crotchety" does sound and look very much like "crochety," and that only a T separates the two, it doesn't help that Internet search engines assume you can't spell and must mean "crochet" so offer links to all things crochet. The etymology of "crotchety" is related to the crotchet, which in 1573 was a "whim or fancy," which seems to have taken its meaning from a 1394 usage as an architectural ornament of curled leaves, which in turn may have been taken from the Old French word for hook. The Online Etymology Dictionary says the sense evolution is obscure. Really?! Seems to make perfect sense to me -- curled leaves resembling a hook that during the Renaissance might well have been considered quite whimsical or fanciful. A hook is also a barb and can be quite sharp. Thus someone who displays an odd fanciful or whimsical notion or uses a sharp tone (i.e., grouchy) is crotchety. See?! Not exactly rocket science.

And certainly not limited to the practitioners of my favorite craft, as we all know and bitch about crotchety knitters, crotchety weavers, crotchety bosses, crotchety neighbors, crotchety friends, crotchety . . . The list is endless.

Being called crotchety gets one to thinking, thinking about getting old. Admit it, only people of a certain age remember when that word was in common usage. When have you ever heard people complain about some "crotchety little kid?" I turned "mmph" this year and it finally hits you that you are now the third oldest person in the office and that you are old enough to be mama to almost half your co-workers. It's a bit mind-boggling, considering that you feel as young as they are. Sometimes act like it too.

Am I a crotch-et-y old lady? No?

Am I a cro-chet-ee old lady? Yes. And proud of it.

Off the Hook no more

I'm back. I know. It's been a while since I last posted. Actually, way too long.

The last six, no, seven, weeks, have been very busy, what with moving, working full time, packing boxes, running an evening Girl Scout camp for a week, unpacking boxes, locating stuff I had accidentally packed for three swaps all due in July, getting kids into and motivated for summer school, trying to process a grant award, painting a bedroom-living room-dining room-hallway-kitchen, moving, preparing and running for a national 3-day public meeting, coordinating not one but two reports of recommendations to the head of my Agency, dealing with a mailperson who insisted that my new place was vacant and thus sent all my mail back as undelivered including my new driver's license, fighting with the phone company to get my dial tone, taking a 12-hour train ride to and from the 2009 Summer Knit and Crochet Show in Buffalo, and . . . did I say moving? Seems like I have been doing everything under the Sun. Everything, except crochet. Came pretty close to making this Cancer very crabby.

But now the move is over (except the 40 boxes in my living and dining rooms waiting patiently for a spot of their own), the meetings and reports have been conducted and submitted, the grant almost finalized, the swaps sent off and received, the Postal Carrier straightened out, the camp successfully run its course, the rooms painted, and the dial tone returned for good. To top it all off, the trip to the Crochet Show proved to be the most relaxing thing I've done in a long time and was sorely needed. This Crab is ready for crochet.

I'll keep you posted.

More frequently.

I promise.

BTW, the crab above is the work of Portugal artist, Joana Vasconcelos, who transforms manufactured objects into works of art, often using crochet. Click on her WORK and select a year, such as 2007. Pretty cool stuff.