Tag Archives: Blogging

Fun Day

Yesterday was fun by my standards. I fell in love with playing around on computers from the first time I saw the original Apple 11c. It intrigued me and caught my imagination and sense of fun. I was hooked. My first computer provided lots of fun and learning.

Fast forwarding more than twenty years, One of my ideas of fun is still to have computer time.  I enjoy playing around on the internet; blogging and playing around with themes. My free time yesterday was spent making some changes to this blog. My goal was to minimize some of the clutter and still place information on the site that I want to have here. That meant weeding out and replacing dead links;playing around with color changes;rearranging some pages and adding links to a side bar.

In the middle of doing those things I learned how to use and work with  custom menus in order to make them look pleasing to me. I also learned where and how  to make sticky-notes. Those were some fun and simple  skills to acquire.

There are more things to do but they will have to wait until time permits.

 

Knit and Crochet Week Day 1

KnitCroblog1

Today’s Topic is: How and when did you start knitting/crocheting?

Because I knit and crochet this is a two part question.

I became thoroughly fascinated with the art of crocheting when I was five years old when I was in Kindergarden. My mother worked so I spent the afternoons after school was out with an elderly lady who lived a few doors down from the school. In good weather she sat outside in her front yard and crocheted. I vividly remember watching her make the most beautiful pineapple doilies using very fine thread and tiny steel crochet hooks. I was completely fascinated. She sat and made beautiful creations without a pattern meanwhile talking with me. One time I asked her how she could it without a pattern and she told me words to the effect of “I have done it so many times the pattern is in my head. ”

I was hooked and in love. From that time my goal was to learn to crochet with thread. My mother had different ideas saying that crocheting was only for poor people or old ladies. I did not care. I knew that one day this is what I wanted to do.

I was 12 or 13 before I finally learned to crochet using a book to teach myself. This was a bit of a challenge because I am left handed and the only books available to me in the 1960’s were written for right handed people. I was able to look at the pictures and follow the written instructions. It worked. I managed to learn enough basic skills to satisfy my curiosity until I became an adult.

Growing up I met some of my parent’s older relatives who crocheted. I was always fascinated.

Even as a young person I had distinct tastes in crochet hooks. My choice was the Boye hooks because they suited my hands and style better than other hooks.

I did not resume crocheting with any degree of seriousness until after College and Nursing School. At that time I was able to purchase my own books, yarn and tools. I discovered books such as:

I spent many hours devouring them. I learned to read English and American instructions. I learned so much there is not room to list it all here or anywhere.They remain treasured volumes in my collection.

I made my share of Granny squares and some small items in yarn. for many years knitting and crocheting took a back seat to to other interests.

I allowed myself to take a  Crocheting class at what was then Lee Wards in the 1990’s. I quickly learned that I knew more than I realized. I came away from the class with a large amount of much needed self  confidence. It also helped increase my love for and fascination with this wonderful art.

There was finally courage to try my hand at thread crochet! I successfully made an assortment of small doilies, coasters and a couple of collars to satisfy my hunger for thread. I had to face the reality that my eyes limit some of what I can feel comfortable doing. This is one of those things. I own some magnifying equipment and have the ability to purchase more, but it is not worth time or energy to do so at this time.

I learned to knit when i was 8 years old. Knitting lessons at a local Sears store were a gift from my mother. it was an alternative to my desire for crocheting. I learned to knit right handed on some 14 inch size 8 metal needles. I still own them today.

The lessons were good. i learned a lot and took to knitting easily and naturally. Reading patterns was the same way. In addition to basic  knitting I learned to treat yarn with respect and care. I made lots of slippers and other small items. I distinctly remember my mother being annoyed at my ability to knit without watching what I was doing.

I continue to knit and crochet to this day. There is normally at least one project on hooks and needles at the same time. There is still much to learn and do.

As much as I enjoy knitting, my first love continues to be crocheting. Memories of my first encounter with that amazing lady, her tiny steel hooks and fine thread continue to inspire me.

Thank you kind babysitting lady whose name I do not know! You have given me the gift of a lifetime.

First Love

My original motivation for having a blog was to talk about my adventures in knitting and crocheting. I was just starting to knit dishcloths. since i wasn't working outside the home, I relied on patterns from library books and books from my own collection. I learned very quickly that the internet is a very rich source of free patterns for all manner of dish and wash cloths. Rather than saving all the links in the Bookmark folder of my browser, I decided to list them on a side bar of my blog. Little did I know, how many were and are available. After a very short time my list had grown to the extent that it seemed most practical to devote an entire blog to this topic. Thus was born Dish and Wash Cloth Mania.

What started as a very small blog, has grown over the years to  have more than forty pages and more links than I can imagine. I continue to be fascinated not only making dish and wash cloths, but by searching for them on the internet. 

There are some amazingly creative designers and artists who share the
fruit of their love and labor with the rest of the world by turning
their patterns into dish or wash cloths, They are all beautiful! Due to piracy  and copyright issues, some designers have begun making
free patterns available only through Ravelry. I respect this.

Over the years, web hosts have gone out of business; designers have died or moved on to other activities; and others have quit offering free patterns in favor of selling them.In spite of these things the availability of free patterns remains astounding.

If you never tried making one, please do so. You might find you like them.

Promises to Myself

I have thought a lot about making New Year's Resolutions again this year. Because the truth for me is that they normally get broken very quickly, I have decided against making any. Instead, my choice is to make some promises to myself. On the surface, it might not seem like there is much difference in the two. For me there is a huge one. A promise is a firm decision that must be kept. A resolution is not nearly as strong.

Here are a couple of promises I have made to myself, listed in no particular order:

  • I will work on losing weight and improving my over all fitness on a daily basis. I do not  want to  end this decade of my life  overweight and out of shape. One of my Grandmothers died a miserable death of heart failure and and I am going to do everything in power to avoid the same fate. 
  • I will use the contents of at least one of the four 19 quart containers of yarn in my stash. These containers and others have  yarn from Grab Bags purchased from Pisgah Yarn and Dyeing Co. in the past couple of years. There are already some specific plans for it.
  • I will try some of the patterns from a variety of sources that I have been saying for years that I will try. This is the year to do so.
  • I will finish the partially completed baby blanket that has been waiting to be done for months.
  • The gift for the grand daughter of a friend of mine will be finished and delivered.
  • My dishcloth blog: Dish and Wash Cloth Mania will have much more time devoted to it than it has had for a very long item. It has been ignored all too often in the past two years. From now on things will be different.
  • I am going to try very hard to blog here at least once a week. One of my goals is to be more creative in how this is done. This is a work in progress.

There are lots of things I want to do and write about this year. I am not making any promises about them. We will have to see how life works out.

May each of you have a Blessed New Year!

Computer Time

My original plan for today was to spend every free minute possible knitting or crocheting. After all, there are at least three projects that need to be done in the next 2-3 weeks. They are all large and two of them have a few parts to them. Instead I took a lot of computer time.

If you don't know me personally, you might not know that I am an organization freak. Everything must have a place and be in its place. The exceptions to this are the spare bedroom which serves as a homeschool and craft room and Munch's room. I can tolerate a bit of clutter in them.

My computer on the other hand has been what I consider a complete mess. Links have been misfiled or double filed; the toolbar has had far too many things on it;  and bookmarks had not been backed up in ages. the list could go on for a bit longer. You get the picture.

I have been gradually cleaning this mess up in the last week. Despite my best efforts progress was slow. This morning I got up early and hit right into it. It is now almost 8pm and it is finally done. The tool bars on my browser have been put in order; many bookmark files have been checked and cleaned out; a lot of dead links have been removed; and the bookmarks file has been backed up. There have even been a few changes made to this blog. 

Somewhere during the course of cleaning out files, I even found a link to one of my all time favorite Firefox Add-ons: Get Mail which informed me that it is now compatible with the current version of Firefox. That was good!

This has been a productive and relaxing day.

Computer Time

My original plan for today was to spend every free minute possible knitting or crocheting. After all, there are at least three projects that need to be done in the next 2-3 weeks. They are all large and two of them have a few parts to them. Instead I took a lot of computer time.

If you don't know me personally, you might not know that I am an organization freak. Everything must have a place and be in its place. The exceptions to this are the spare bedroom which serves as a homeschool and craft room and Munch's room. I can tolerate a bit of clutter in them.

My computer on the other hand has been what I consider a complete mess. Links have been misfiled or double filed; the toolbar has had far too many things on it;  and bookmarks had not been backed up in ages. the list could go on for a bit longer. You get the picture.

I have been gradually cleaning this mess up in the last week. Despite my best efforts progress was slow. This morning I got up early and hit right into it. It is now almost 8pm and it is finally done. The tool bars on my browser have been put in order; many bookmark files have been checked and cleaned out; a lot of dead links have been removed; and the bookmarks file has been backed up. There have even been a few changes made to this blog. 

Somewhere during the course of cleaning out files, I even found a link to one of my all time favorite Firefox Add-ons: Get Mail which informed me that it is now compatible with the current version of Firefox. That was good!

This has been a productive and relaxing day.

Changes

The past few months have been full of changes. Many of these are fiber related. Most of my stash of acrylic  yarns have been given away to a local charity. My stash of cotton  yarns has been gone through, inventoried  and rearranged. I have printed out and filed numerous  patterns.

I have made a few changes here this evening. Links on the page Places I Visit have been up dated. there were several dead links that needed to be handled. I did the same thing with links on the side bars. It is nothing exciting. They were very important changes to me. 

Excited!!

In the scope of life this is a minor thing, but at the moment it is a big issue. My Flickr Photo Album is working. I had to install Java in order to access a Chat Room for a knitting group to which I belong. After doing that, it dawned on me to check to see if that action made a difference on this blog. It did.  the one Photo Album I still have up is now  functioning properly!  I learned something I did not know before today. The next time there is a problem on this order I will double check to see if Java has been installed.

There are new Ballband cloths posted as of today. Take a look at them if you want. The ones I make are fairly small to meet my own needs and wants. The pattern is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. The possibilities are endless, in terms of size and color combinations.

Have a fantastic Day!!

More About Changes

After last night's post about problems with Flickr badges, I did a bit of research on the Flickr forums. It was most interesting and educational. The essence of what I learned is that there is a problem with the code used for the Flash badges. There is also a fix available involving making changes in the code. A lot of times I can handle doing such things, but this one went over my head despite my best efforts to make the appropriate changes.

I have written support at Flcikr requesting help. It is only fair that they recieve the courtesy of me patiently waiting a few days for a response. I am gladly doing this. In the meantime, my hands will be busy with knitting and crocheting. My current plan, if I don't hear from them with a solution in the next day or so, is to make a photo album on Typepad.

In the meatime, there is plenty to keep me busy. :)

Vacation-Yes!

Following the proper procedure set forth by my employer, I requested vacation time two weeks in advance. My request was for two whole weeks, including weekends, one of which is my regularly scheduled one to work.  The  new schedule came out today and it shows I am on vacation after Friday of this week!!

I am so excited! We have been planning this time off for the past month and a half.There is lots of family time planned for fun and household projects. A lot of my free time will be spent completing some UFO’s; starting some new projects  and working on both of my active blogs.  There is so much to do and only two weeks to do it.