Terrapin Station

Friday Five: Corner Shops

Here's the Friday Five, as posted by ME: 

1. If you suddenly received a ton of money and could open up some kind of store or service just for the pleasure of having it (assume it wouldn’t have to be too financially successful!), what would it be?  I'd love to have a knitting/crafting store where people could come and work on their projects and get help and hang out and talk.  The closest place to me for this is ... not very close.  45 minutes into the Dallas metro-mess, a foray I almost never attempt. 

 

 

 

 

photo courtesy of Charles Chips

2. What service or store that no longer exists do you miss most?  I miss when we used to have milk delivered.  I barely remember it, but I do remember it.  Also when the Charles Chips man would deliver barbecue chips in that big tin.  Mmmmm. 

3. What local business do you think you could make better if you were to take it over? And if you don’t mind sharing, what changes would you make? Hmm.  I doubt I would make it better, but if I were to take over our local awesome used book store, Recycled Books, I would arrange it in a way that made sense to ME. 

photo:  Recycled Books on the Denton Courthouse Square. Three stories of awesome (includes basement). Located in the 1901 Opera House.  Painted LAVENDER.  Photo source:  The Painted Area blog

4. What spot nearby seems to be impossible for businesses to survive in?  I'm not sure it's the spot but rather the businesses there...but there's a little cottage south of downtown that has had a pet boutique, a candle store, and most recently, a vegan store called Vegan Freak.  I'm sure these small start-ups find a tiny building like this one perfect for their new endeavors.  However, it's out of the way (as you see) and not really close to other shopping venues.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo of the former Vegan Freak courtesy of Yelp.

5. We’ve all seen stores that combined books and records, beer and laundry, or coffee and whatever. One of my favorite places to get coffee in Honolulu is a cafe and florist, and there is a car garage that’s also a diner in a town nearby. What would be a cool hybrid of two disparate ideas for somewhere you’d like to hang out? Knitting store and music store.  By music store I mean something like the old Sound Warehouses (any Houstonians remember this?) They had these listening booths and you could take any LP or cassette (this was 30 years ago, folks) and you could listen as long as you wanted. If you didn't want to buy it after the listen, no worries. 

Photo from Rocking Houston (a real blast from the past, if your past was there)

#reverb10 Make

December 6 – Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it? (Author: Gretchen Rubin)

I made some Hot and Sour Soup (recipe in my notes), and I made some Apple Streusel Crumb Thingy with Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and a recipe from the Pillsbury website.  And it was EXHAUSTING.  I used to love to cook complicated things, but not right now.  All that chopping and prepping, all those dishes, egads! 

I just want to grill some meat and veggies.  Or eat what I call Single Girl Special:  rice with spaghetti sauce and some cheese mixed in. 

Or hey, I could go out to eat. 

What would like to make?  I'd like to start a kimono sweater for which I bought a pattern and handspun, hand-dyed yarn oh, 2 years ago.  But it doesn't tell what size needles to use; it just says, "needles of size to achieve gauge."  And I've not been able to make myself sit down and swatch to find out what that means. 

Sigh. 

I have holiday time coming.  Then, then I will do it.  I will sit by the Christmas Tree and knit.

Oh, that is, if I get the dang tree put up.  :)

Knitting is the saving of life

From Knitting Daily, an Interweave Press publication, which I receive via email. 

  Virginia Woolf (née Stephen)

NPG 5933. Virginia Woolf (née Stephen) by Vanessa Bell (née Stephen), 1912. Oil on board, 15 3⁄4 x 13 3⁄8 inches (400 x 340 mm). National Portrait Gallery, London. 

In 1911 or 1912, when Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) painted this small portrait of Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), Virginia was working on the draft of what would be her first book, The Voyage Out, published in 1915.

The writer hated to pose and be looked at. The indistinctness of Virginia's features—the eyes and mouth are smudges—might suggest that Vanessa accommodated her sister's dislike of being scrutinized by neglecting to clearly delineate those features.

In fact, the simplified forms and strong colors typified Vanessa's style at the time. All elements of the painting are reduced to flat planes of color outlined in black, with virtually no modeling to suggest three-dimensionality. The colors are bold but not pure—mauves, greens, and blues, orange, turquoise, and gray-green—against which the pink of the knitting is shocking. It is likely that Vanessa experimented with these flat, strong colors after seeing paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cézanne in a small exhibition organized in 1910 by her then-lover, Roger Fry. Vanessa characterized her response to the exhibit as "a sudden liberation and encouragement to feel for oneself which were absolutely overwhelming."
It was well-known among her friends that Virginia was a knitter. After Virginia's death Dame Edith Sitwell reminisced: "I enjoyed talking to her, but thought nothing of her writing. I considered her 'a beautiful little knitter.'"

Virginia thought of knitting as therapy. Early in 1912 she reported to Leonard Woolf, before they were married and shortly after she had been in a rest home, that "Knitting is the saving of life." That salvation worked until 1941, when Virginia took her life.

—Fronia E. Wissman

Knitting World Takeover...Our plan is progressing splendidly!

The Meetup group I started for Denton knitters is featured in today's North Texas Daily (the student paper). 

Here are my famously knitting hands from the article. 

MWA HA HA!!!

Poormouth* here

I am home for 2nd day with sinus headache.  It makes me wicked dizzy to move around much but I've propped myself in front of this computer and thought I would check in. 

This is the first day of classes so not a great day to be out...but last time I went to work with this, it wasn't pretty.

I love:  Mucinex DM. 

I read a book yesterday, interesting story but excessively poorly edited.  I hate that.  It makes me dislike the book.  I shan't recommend it. 

I read another one, wonderfully written, funny, excellent tight dialogue, and it's British so I got to hear lovely English inflections and turns of phrase as I went.  And it's about knitting, what a bonus!  It's called The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club.  It's on at Amazon for a bargain price, and it's available for Kindle as well. 

Another interesting but unrelated find:  George Bullard:  http://bullardjournal.posterous.com/ via a FB link from BesoMami.  Good stuff about congregational development and growth. 

Wouldn't you think I'd have something else to say, but my head's not quite right.  (Maybe it never is but we will leave that one alone.)  So I'll stop for now.  Good to read you all. 

*When I was growing up, poormouthing meant complaining.  However, I found this on the web:  "(Poormouth)...comes from a Gaelic expression -"putting on the poor mouth"-which means to exaggerate the direness of one's situation in order to gain time or favour from creditors."

So if I owe you any money you can expect to have it be late...!

World Domination plan...begins...

Today at lunchtime three friends and I sat in my office, and they began to knit. 

I put that in REALLY BIG LETTERS, because it seems very momentous.  If all of them continue with knitting...if even one of them does...the world has changed.  There will be more creating in this little neck of the woods we call home. 

It was awesome!!  It makes me smile all over my face to think about it. 

Life's good, ya know?

Knitting and other diversions...

Image from Distance Knitting.   

I found this photo via Google Images this morning and used it as an illustration over at RevGalBlogPals, for a FreeForm Wednesday Festival. 

I.LOVE.IT!!!!!!  It makes me think of a crazy quilt!  It's everything I love about knitting; colorful, various, surprising, textured, and beautiful.  Delicious, in fact. 

I was thinking of knitting anyway, because (let's face it) I think of knitting a lot.  And because Monday was the monthly knitting meetup at Barnes and Noble. 

Monday morning before work I was looking at the front page of the newspaper...then I turned to the inside front page and was shocked to see the following at the top of the page:

TODAY'S EVENTS

7 p.m. - Mary Beth Butler welcomes crafters to her knitters' monthly meeting at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 2201 S I-35E.  Call (BN phone number) or visit www.bn.com.

I sort of squawked and DH said, "What!?"  I showed him.  He was impressed.  "You did it all by yourself!" he said.

Well, no, not really.  In December I started a group on Meetup.com, which BN agreed to host.  They suggested our first meeting be in January (fine with me) and they have done a great job of publicizing it in their in-house newsletters, with signs in the store, and apparently in the newspaper!  I had no idea!

I told the group on Monday night that I'd like to think of a different name...it's not MY group, really!  I am not teaching lessons; I just wanted some folks to knit with.  Also, the other things in that column are titled more descriptively:  Lions Club, Toastmasters, Duplicate Bridge Club, Alcoholics Anonymous...So I'm taking nominations for names.

In further amazing news, one of the women in the group said she worked at my university.  (Well, lots of us work there...it's a college town.) But I asked what department...turns out she is an ESL teacher in the department where I work!  She has worked there 3 years but I had never met her.  We talked about a weekly knitting meeting in her office at lunchtimes...

Knitters, they are everywhere! 

Then first thing this morning, a friend at work said to me, in an ominous tone, "I need to talk to you."  Nervously, I followed her into her office (she works directly for my boss so I was a little nervish). 

"What can I do for you?" I asked, and she said, happily, "I need you to to teach me to KNIT!"

Phew....that worked out well!  She's going on vacation next week and wants to get a start before that.

I said, great, told her what supplies to get, and went on about my day.  Later in the afternoon I walked into the hall, where she and two more co-workers were gathered.  They said, "We ALL want you to teach us to knit!"  First friend had already gone out at lunch to pick up needles and yarn!

So tomorrow at the noon hour, you may find me and three lovely ladies in my office with sticks and string, headed down the path.  God bless 'em! 

That's the other thing I love about knitting: the community it creates.  You can do it by yourself, and that can be a lot of fun, but there's something about knitting with others that's just a gas. 

World Wide Knit In Public Day is coming!

  

Did you know that this weekend, June 13-14, and next weekend, June 20-21, are designated as World Wide Knit In Public Days? 

Get your pointy sticks ready and show the world you are a knitter! 

I will be at a motorcycle rally this weekend and looking for other knitters...will I find any?  I'll let you know!

Just Because I Love This

A Belemnite is an extinct cepalopod, which presumably looked something like this (they know this from fossils that have been found):

And now, for maniacs like me who want to knit every blessed thing, you can now have some  Woolly Belemnites:

 

Aren't they fab!?  Ordering info for the woollies on their name link.  Have fun!

That is all! 

That Sock

 

Ah, aren't you nice...you asked to see the sock.  Well, here you go.  :)  The heel appeareth!