What Happened To Our Beautiful Weather?

World Class Yarn Shop

What Happened To Our Beautiful Weather?

We had a great Spring. We got the garden planted in May and it is growing wonderfully. May is fairly early for our area. We had just enough rain and warm days. Now suddenly we went to a more average June but the weather we have now is like early June – maybe even early May. We had 3 1/2″ of rain on Saturday and Sunday. We have had some very strong winds and today we have big gusts of wind and rain. It is more like November, except for the temperatures which are in the low 50’s. It isn’t nice out there! We have an agility trial in Duluth this weekend and hopefully it will improve by then. As it is now, a Yorkie would be blown off of the dog walk.

I am crocheting some coasters in No.30 crochet thread. I am also working on some filet crochet. It isn’t as if I haven’t enough unfinished knitting projects to work on but my hands suddenly wanted a hook and small thread and my eyes wanted lace. Gail Mathers gave me some old crochet magazines – you do know that I collect old patterns in any form, don’t you? – And one was called Magic Crochet. It is no longer published and was a magazine translated from the French. It is awe inspiring. I actually went onto Ebay to find more of them. I don’t do Ebay and I was considering asking Carolyn Bergman to do the ordering for me. But Gail Paull heard me moaning about getting Carolyn to do it for me and brought me the most magnificent birthday gift the next week. She culled her collection of crochet magazines and brought me a lovely addition to my collection which included a number of issues of Magic Crochet. I am in hookers heaven!

The collection lead me to the coasters and then to filet crochet. Then I started to think that the Yorkshire Terrier Club Of America holds a Roaming Specialty each year and they have raffles. And part of that is our Working Yorkies group who also hold raffles. A perfect place for putting in filet crochet pieces of Yorkies. So I contacted my friend and fellow Yorkie owner, Joanie Carl who does graphic work and asked her to collaborate with me to design some Yorkie filet crochet patterns that I can crochet up for the Working Yorkies and the YTCA.

Having just finished my hat for the International Free Form Crochet group’s 2011 book, I needed a new creative venture. One downside of having a yarn shop is that you need to make models as the pattern says so that people can reproduce them at home. If you get too creative, they are of no use to other knitters and crocheters. It stifles my head and hands. It is clear to me that I need to be working on some project that is all my own and doesn’t belong to the shop or I become cranky. The need to produce something that springs from my own creativity is very important. I encourage others to stretch out and see where you hands and head take you. Don’t just recreate what you have learned from others in a new gauge or yarn but let the yarn, your tools of choice, your imagination and the skills that you have learned take you to new places.

And this is great weather to do it in. It rather fits blizzard project time, the times that the weather allows us to snuggle in with a hot cup of and play. This is a real gift from our creator and not a time to despair that we can’t be out playing.

Have a great day, no matter what weather that you have and don’t bemoan those days that you can’t be out in the garden or at an agility trial but treasure them as days to create.