Do I matter or have value?

It occurs to me that the economic times, not just since 'the crash' in '08, but maybe for years or decades earlier, has taken the love factor out of the employer/employee relationship.  

It has been some time since the employee was beloved by a company.  The employee represents the face of the company and the quality of the employee is a large factor in repeat business.  How inclined are you as a customer to go back to a business where you were treated poorly?  That feeling is based on your interaction with the one person you dealt with, not with the business owner.  But, I'm thinking it has been a while since you heard of an employee who was treated as if they were one of the family.  

I think there are a lot of contributing factors.  Financial cost of business goes up, but what consumer expects to pay for product does not rise as quickly.  

Myself, I have never wanted to be a business owner.  I am able to find contentment in putting in my hours, doing my shift, and going home.  I have learned by necessity I can get by on very little, my needs I am well versed in minimizing.  I just want my family and to be creative, and I find my creativity limited if I have to focus on the paperwork.  Paperwork zaps my soul power.  I don't think my soul functions when it spends a lot of time focused on paperwork, my nightmares usually have to do with a lost note.

However, I am empathetic.  I have been someone's employee for about 35 years, never anywhere for very long.  As someone's employee, from behind the counter you do hope to put down some roots.  You hear all the pros and cons of your company and the longer you are with the company, the more you defend them, the more your heart breaks when you decide to leave, even more so when asked to leave.

So, when I mention an employee being part of the family, I am trying to depict employees who are cherished, encouraged to grow, cared for when down or mourned when lost.  I don't mean the low kind of people, who would steal from the company or expect what they hadn't earned, but the ones that showed up for work early, skipped breaks or minimized lunches, stayed late and went out of their way and invented new ways to contribute to the business.  The humane person would want to make sure that employee had what we all need for benefits ~ the assurance that when something catastrophic happens, things will work out, because steps were taken to minimize the impact and to prevent them from happening in the first place.  In this way, insuring that the face of the company always greets the public with a smile as well as a great product.

In the Self Storage industry, being an employee is a very lonely business.  You almost never see your co-workers, because you actually work miles away from each other and when you do, it's most usually in a training forum.  Personalities are never learned.  The time you spend with your supervisors is also for training and/or discipline.  The supervisors I've had have been unable emotionally to attempt to bond with me for fear that they'd have to let me go, someday, and it's hard to fire a friend.  

Another factor is communication. Not everyone has the same level of desire when it comes to offering customer service.  It's really hard getting to know your co-workers when they can't understand why you are going out of your way to offer their information to someone you are communicating with about their property.  With supervisors there is a huge amount of time is consumed 'putting out fires' but when a message isn't returned or a proposal takes months to acknowledge (regardless of acceptance or denial) alienation between employer and employee is an ever widening chasm.

When we left the last company, it was a huge effort not to do so with any bitterness.  We showed up to give our notice with an afghan I made for the new grand-baby.  She expressed a shocked disbelief.  It was heartbreaking to realize later that it was an effort wasted to attempt to tip-toe away, but really, we had been existing in a 'low state' for a long time.  Partly because we'd been led to believe this would be a family atmosphere, where we could be a contributing factor and partly because our attempts to contribute were so ignored and rebuffed.  

We are now with another Storage company and in some ways it's better, but in others it much worse by far.  We are getting answers to questions for the most part, so that's a good thing.  The company has been passed down to someone who only expects the negative outcomes, so the answer is most often 'no'.  The kinds of communication that keeps everyone on the same page is lacking, so confusion flourishes and is a massive effort to fix problems.  Gossip is also a massive problem to the extent that the men are the major spreaders of misinformation, which was a surprise to me to see.  Usually guys have better things to do!

The reason this all comes to mind is because we have a company, non-training but for social, gathering coming up.  My husband and I are having an unproductive discussion about attending as we always have.  He doesn't tolerate insincere-ness very well, and I have a problem with crowds that has triggered panic attacks in the past, so he uses these as reasons not to go.  My feeling, however, is to shelve those reasons, to go and be as friendly as I can make myself be, hoping that sitting on the edge of the crowd, smiling and waving at those I can make eye-contact with, is enough to let everyone know that we hope to be here for a while and that we sincerely are striving toward good things for everybody we meet.


Whether or not that helps anyone in the long run is hard to tell at this point.  In the here and now, is the only place it seems to matter, so we take the warmth to remember in future.  In the meantime, we all matter to someone.  It may not be at work anymore, unless it's to make a customer's day with a laugh, but as a means to an end, you matter to you, first, and to me, next.

Fiber Train Festival 2012

So, I moved from Portland, Oregon, to Boise, Idaho, early last fall, did you know that?


I realize now that I must have taken the creative atmosphere for granted.  I loved going to knitting groups, especially at Wynona Studios in Oregon City, various fiber events and gatherings like Sock Summit, meeting the Seattle to Portland Yarn Train and the Spinning Guild events.  I went to a couple of Knitting Guild events, too, but they were a little stiff.... perhaps that's a story for another blogpost.

There is a great new book, Craft Activism by Joan Tapper http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10437293-craft-activism after a wonderful chapter about Ravelry, she describes Portland:  'Portland, Oregon, may be home to more than half a million people, but to outsiders it sometimes seems as if all of them are artists. "Portland is the kind of city that fosters creativity"...'  Oh, yes, I miss that.


Boise is a whole other place, craft-wise.  Before I got here, I was scoping out Ravelry to find what events happen or where the shops were, hoping for a knit group close to me.  The posts I did find weren't very current, and some out-right outdated.  Not to worry, I would be bold and figure it out.  I hope.


Turns out, as far as knitting gatherings go, knitting together was a new concept.  There are a couple of gatherings, one that meets every other week at various restaurants around town (I went once because they had decided to meet at a place not far from my post office, so I could find it.  Haven't gone back yet, because a.) they have been meeting a places I couldn't find and b.) food seems to be as big or bigger deal than knitting, and since food is one of my least favorite topics, well.... ) and a Knitting Guild meeting.  There was a stitching group that met at a library.  That was disappointing too because they meet once a month, and I was the only knitter.  A yarn/quilt shop relocated to within 10 miles of me after I'd been here a couple of months, so, finally, I found a regular hang-out. 


As far as events, things haven't gotten too far there either.  There is a minor league baseball team here, but as of yet, the season hasn't started (don't they know it's summer?!?) and I wait and search and hope, but have not heard if there is a Stitch & Pitch. I've heard rumors that at the farmer's market, someone is selling alpaca yarn, but the details on that factoid were iffy too.


And then finally there was this:

  This event took place over the Sunday and Monday of Memorial Day weekend, located where the usual Saturday Farmer's Market happens. The website is still up if you wish to look at how fun the event was going to be. http://www.fibertrainfestival.com/

I have not seen my Ravelry button since the move, but they had them there for the first (number) of people who showed up so now I have two.  I guess when I find my other one, I will have a pair to make earrings out of them or maybe wear them front and back so other Ravelers will know me coming and going...      But clearly, I was under-dressed.  I did not know this was a pink tutu event.  I would have worn my purple tights, too, then me and this little girl could have been twins!

Two alpacas (I think the lady said they were a year old) and a mohair goat made star appearances.  The chocolate colored alpaca was singing in a low tenor voice.  I would have sung along, but did not know the words.

I met a lady who was displaying her hobby of turning grocery bags into other, better, bags.  I hope she can get stocked up before they are banned everywhere.  One of the gals that I see at knit-night here picked one up and loves it, lightweight and stands up for holding her current project.  I loved to see her product and told her when I was in elementary school and lived in Seattle, my mom made a rug from plastic bread bags that stayed by the back door as a great mat for wiping the mud off your shoes!

There were lots of ready-made products to see, a blacksmith was there with his fire smoking.  These yarn bowls were from the local shop that was instrumental in organizing the event.  I liked the leaf designs, and the
way the 'Y' on the YARN bowls made the natural slot for the fiber to flow through, but my favorite design was the ones at the top that also had given place for your needles to rest.

One vendor I went there to see was Knit Girl in Idaho, who I had not met before, but whose stitch markers were displayed in the first Jane Austen Knits magazine.  I picked the one that says 'An artist cannot do anything slovenly ~ Jane Austen' and she gave me a freebie marker for being there early.  It's the little sheep one on the right.  She has her product on Etsy but she is also on Facebook as Knit Girl in Idaho.  Her website/Etsy page is:  http://www.knitgirlinidaho.com/


The rest of these images are of the yarn bombing done in honor of the event that we saw on the way home.

Many thanks and deep appreciation to Superman for taking me, driving me so I could knit en route and not get lost either. This was the first time he and I went together. I think he enjoyed seeing everything and he was the one who pointed out the yarn bombing.

When I was a preschooler we drove across country.  We stopped to see a great-grandmother in Idaho and I remember as we left there were rolling hills of green, and nothing else, forever. 

I have often dreamed of those hills and as an adult passing through, I couldn't find them. It's made me feel as if I imagined them.  Turns out, that earlier memory did not occur on the interstate which is now the way to go, and has been for the last 40 years. 

And, thus, another mystery is solved....

About the Knit

Photo is 21st day of Sky Scarf. For those of you paying attention to that.

I've been giving a lot of thought to knitting and it's value and importance to me. I suppose it's like a lot of crafts that a person could pick up. Why didn't I crochet, or cross stitch, or (bohemian 'hippie' that I've been called) macrame? I do still have that 5 gallon bucket of beads to play with too.

I told you before that my mom was a crocheter. It has it's place, I do crochet at times. I prefer blankets that are meant for warmth to be crochet. I have serious hotpads in the kitchen ~ those are crochet. It could be that in my youth to choose my own path, to stray from my mom I deliberately opted for knitting as different from my mom's craft. I don't remember thinking that way about it. She had knitted once upon a time, there's a picture of my brother in an argyle pullover somewhere to prove it. There's an on-going discussion on Ravelry over the choice to knit or crochet.

Knitting creates a finer fabric. If you look closely at it, there are rows of UUUUUUUU to a knitted fabric. Crochet makes a denser fabric, close examination and person experience of the stitches show the thread looped around and pulled through to differentiate between each stitch, making the knitted U's more delicate by comparison. Really, knitting is only one stitch. First you learn the knit stitch. Then you learn to knit it backwards, which then becomes a purl, but if you turned your work around, you'd see the purling is really knitted from the other side. So you knit, frontways and backways, knit an purl. You can change the color, the order of the stitches, decrease a few, add a few, drop a few deliberately accidently on-purpose, thosands of stitches later you have... something.

I do remember thinking about how precise knitting is. When I was in high school, they were just starting to look at computer programming as a topic to teach. (Pay attention: this is the Star Trek: Next Generation portion of this post.) The first thing I looked at was binary code. Binary is computer language, a language of 1's and 0's. 0000111110000011111. How fun is that. But it's precise, like knitting is. If you were to look at knit and purls like 1's and 0's, they are very similar. It can be mind numbing, if you're not doing something interesting once in a while like a cable, or lacework, or changing a color.

So, after a time, the mind starts to move on while the hands are repeating the same motion again and again. My husband finds me often sitting at the computer, playing with my Nintendo DS, texting on the cell phone with double pointed needles and sock yarn in a whir of motion in my hands. He used to be amazed, now he just starts taking things away, saying I hog all the electronics (not really fair as I did leave him the remote and let him sleep) but he never takes the knitting.

But without the electronics, you can get obsessed with what your working on. Usually, I'm knitting for someone else. I don't usually keep anything I knit for myself. I believe it got to be that way because the project was TOO well known to me, I knew everything that was wrong with it and not enough about it was right to be as perfect as it was precise. Having been there through every last stitch, perhaps I was just fatigued with it by the time I cast off. When it's for someone else, every stitch becomes a wish: Wish the color is right, wish it fits them well, wish it keeps them warm, wish they became aware how beautiful they always were, wish they knew how much they were thought of with each stitch, for their happiness, their health, the joy of being thought of THAT much.

With that much thought, one can only set themselves up for disappointment in the recipient. The Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee wrote a post around Christmas time about the proper way to receive a handcrafted item, even if you don't know what it is. Here is the link if you missed it: it's quite funny and applies to any gift to be received, in my opinion but if you don't want your favorite knitter hero to risk their needles on your eyeballs, it might be a good idea to remember this post:

http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2011/12/24/merry_christmas.html

There are some tactless people who have only ever received one handcrafted gift and wonder why it never happened again, just as there are people who go through life behaving as if they were dropped on their heads as babies and never behave without stupidity.

However, I think I've given away enough of my projects not to really be too interested in what they think at the moment they received it. After all, couldn't it be that what they received is just an example of the depth to which we are loved, and when confronted with that without notice, who CAN wax elequently enough? For example: My Dear Lord God, when I think about how wonderfully I'm made and how much thought you must have given to creating me and those things that make my life enjoyable and me happy.... Well, I'm overwhelmed and beyond speechless and thankfulness cannot be adequately expressed. After all, this isn't a gold statue at an showy awards show, this is real. So is my knitting.

When I knit and I'm beyond the point for the Health, Fit and Loved parts of the brain, I roll around to the good I'm doing in the world. For awhile, I've caused no disturbance to humanity, I've not indulged in anything that dulls what is real, I've allowed time to pass and at the end of time I've made a pair of socks to keep toes warm that are deep down in the boots, hands warm enough to wiggle a text, warmth to the electrons of the brain functioning, a shawl to wrap around and know it was really a hug for the hard days, a cape to twirl about and make the last dance never end, my favorite dogs keep walking with their heads high and tail wagging.

I think what it gives me, especially in the dark days of winter ~ is mostly a crystal clear HOPE! I can focus on something good to come if I just keep working at it.

Middle of January

I have been knitting. Trying to keep my head above water, I've realized I have an excessive amount of Works In Progress (better known to Ravelers as WIP's).

# 1. Majority of my time recently has been spent on a sweater for Superman. It is made with recycled yarn from a sweater by Banana Republic. Fine Italian Merino. It chills me to think I'm knitting with something so fine, but if it hadn't been recycled and available from my favorite little shop of wonders, I wouldn't get to do this at all.






# 2. I realized I have a skein of MadelineTosh sock yarn. It was received in a package I got from a Purple Swap participated in two years ago. I think I forgot I had it because I went to Sock Summit I at about the same time and I was high on some kind of beautiful fiber overload. I started a little shawlette with it to take to a local knitters meet-up (more about that in a moment). The pattern is a knitted triangle, from the center of the long side, and should take just the one skein. I hope.# 3. The Sky Scarf, mentioned in the last post.



# 4. Sock yarn raglan of my own design, of Red Heart Heart & Sole, that I found at a dollar store not to long after we moved here.





# 5. Inspired by an article in Knitters Universe, for which I've received a free subscription after meeting Benjamin Levisay at Sock Summit II and having my picture posted on FaceBook by him in my sweater I knitted from their big K100 edition (because he's so cool he recognized it and named the pattern), YAY!, I've been making i-cord and knitting a chunky sweater. The spool of fine thread was gi-Normous and, amazingly, I'm thinking I may not get to finish what I'd planned on it, so I've come to a standstill on that.



But it's still sitting here bugging me and I'm blogging to ignore it.














#6 to infinity: Numerous other projects got packed in the move and have not yet been rediscovered.

There's a little shop that moved closer to my location (or to me!) here that I've been attending Thursday knit nights. FUZZ is located in Eagle, Idaho. It was in downtown Boise, but I still am struggling with finding my way around and from the passenger seat of the truck as Superman zooms past everything, I had yet to find it. One of the co-owners has been telling us that business is different in the new location. For instance, most of the shop visitors in the old location were morning shoppers and in the new it's become later in the afternoon. So far the knitting group is small, usually less than a half dozen.

Just this week I connected with another group that I've been following through Ravelry since before we moved under Treasure Valley Area Knitters, who are unaffiliated with any one shop. The moderator sets a specific place and each week they show up to a different spot, sometimes it's a coffee shop, a couple weeks ago it was a new Spaghetti Factory, this week's location was a Brew/Pub & Grill called Sockeye. (Funny story: a few weeks after we first got here, I noticed a sign out front that said 'Socktober' and assumed it was a knitting shop. Silly knitter self just assumes EVERYTHING is a knit shop!) Those gathered seemed to be mostly transplants to the area like myself, mostly in the medical profession, and varying skill levels of course. A sweet couple of young ladies across from me told me there are not usually any fiber or knitting related events in this area to look forward to (oh, Wail!) and that they're headed to the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival. I've not been to that event, but I'm sure it will be wonderful, so maybe I will at least hear all about it at some point.

Anyway, all of these projects are in my Ravelry profile, if you are on there. I've been keeping that fairly well updated. Blog you soon!

January 1

All of last year kind of got away from me.

Things that happened for us where some exciting adventures in knitting, like Seattle Mariner's Stitch n Pitch, Sock Summit II, a Yarn Crawl and the first time I've participated in WWKiP day. (World Wide Knit in Public)

Lots of music events and new friends to meet... like every week!

Also, personally, there was one really big change, a move with a new job.

Some losses: We lost our little Maggie after we got to the new place. (This is one of the last pictures we took of her, on the last adventure away from the house, she's on the left.) That was so very sad for a long time, so eventually we consoled ourselves that we'd brought her home for a few weeks before she was gone and got another rescue pup, Joey.

He's kind of his daddy's boy already. They often nap in this fashion and Joey doesn't care much for being parted from him.

We do still walk as often as we can. The last few weeks have been mostly around the property we manage in the mornings and at the warmest part of the day in the late afternoon. On our days off we load the dogs into the truck and go over to a pathway next to the river. The dogs always know when we are going and get pretty excited.

I've been pretty busy knitting and think I may be connecting with a new knitting group here. New to them, too, because the store was moved and apparently if they had a group there, it didn't come with to the new location.

So, a few days ago I received a package from the home knitting group. It included a few balls and instructions to construct a Sky Scarf. (Here's the website: www.leafcutterdesigns.com/projects/conceptknit.html ) The idea is to take a moment and look out at the weather, particularly the type of sky, and knit two rows of a scarf to match.

Challenges for me: Well, two rows ~ That takes incredible restraint. Also, blue being the least favored of my personal choices for colors.

So, this means for 2012, I will be charting the skies above my new home. Looking up is a positive thing. Here is the cast on and two rows today, knit to resemble the clear blue of this morning and the cotton ball clouds with it. This does not match the sky of this afternoon, which is that first picture at the top there, when we went to walk on our pathway. Earlier was more textural anyway...

Hoping you're safe, well & warm and the next calendar year brings us all more to look up and see than last year.

A Tale of Two Socks

I think I may have told you my nephew is in the Army.

When he was first deployed I made him a pair of wool socks and a helmet liner.

http://www.citizensam.org/html/patterns/knitting_instructions_helmetliner.html

This is the link, to the pattern which is a charity project. I have made a few, to participate in the charity, before I knew my nephew was going. The wool socks were the basic ones I've always made, so don't know if there is a pattern for them. I think I've posted my disorganized notes about them here sometime ago....

Anyway, when he was home on leave last May, he said that he'd shrunk the socks, somehow didn't realize what 100% wool meant, and his helmet liner was MIA. (He loaned it to a friend when he wasn't on duty and his friend was injured and taken to hospital.) He's since got it back.

So the first thing Auntie(Me) does is pick up the yarn to replace the helmet liner, fairly easy for me to find, and start shopping for better sock choices.

Right about that time, Cascade Yarns released a Superwash Sock yarn. I'd read about it but it wasn't what I wanted. Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash Worsted is the yarn requested by the Military for the helmet liner, you'll see that in the pattern. I made the first one with that because I didn't want him to have it confiscated if it wasn't up to snuff. The first pair of socks I made were intended to be worn in layers and in boots so I didn't think it would matter.

It's seems difficult to find sock yarns that are not an ombre or varigated, or something a MAN would want to wear. Although these yarns are beautiful and really fun to knit up, I can't imagine a soldier not being teased without mercy for donning self-striping socks. Really, without making this a political statement, I would prefer for all military personnel to be using/wearing American made products. Somehow it just seems wrong not to. So if I make something to send for personal use, I would have preferred it be American made.

Not too many weeks later, Cascade 220 Superwash Sport showed up at the same yarn store as I had purchased what I needed for the helmet liner. So, I picked up a skein of the black. (MSRP is $7 for 100gms and 220 yds or 200 meters.) It's content is 100% merino wool from Peru, very soft to work with, but not very tightly wound. The fabric it creates is sprungy (not sure if that's a word, but that's the best I can describe it). I tried toe-up but it was painful. Top down seemed easier. I ended up with one in each direction for the pair, nobody else could tell the difference.

(In fact, this was the socks I was working on at both the Seattle Mariner's Stitch & Pitch and while walking around at Sock Summit II.)

I mentioned at that same shop that I knew Brown Sheep Company marketed their yarns as 'American Made'. When they also produced a washable sock yarn, I hoped to try it also. I was extremely happy to see it when it appeared in the same shop! I immediately pick up two skeins (comes in 50gms, I paid $6.20 had a discount but I've seen it at a few websites for closer to $5) to make a second pair without question. This was exactly what I had wanted. I also like the idea that he would have two pairs. About this time I learned he'd gotten the first helmet liner back, so he would have two of those also.

Brown Sheep's sock yarn is called WildFoote Luxury Sock Yarn, is 75% Washable wool and Nylon. The wool type is not specified, but I have to assume it's sheep, as the company's name. Seems to have great stitch definition and stretch, but it's not soft on the hands. It creates a crunchy fabric, but when I washed it and rinsed with hair conditioner (as a friend recommends, makes sense as the wool fiber is a hair also) both socks are equally soft. In fact after washing and laying flat to dry, or blocking, both pairs of socks seem soft and the stitches are smooth.

I think if it's up to me and the yarn is available to me (as I mentioned in my last post, I've moved) Cascade Yarns makes a great product, but I would prefer my projects be American made fibers as they are knitted by one. Just seems to be more logical that way.
(The last picture is after blocking. The one at the top is before blocking, the black sock at the far right is toe up and the other is top down, the same as the pair in grey.)