What's so funny about peace, yarn and pottery

My apologies to Nick Lowe.

I've finished the baby blanket for a friend and am still feeling the crochet vibe. So I've swatched these, using the "Big Round" pattern from Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks:

The cluster stitches in the middle make me think of cupped flower petals.

One of the things in my Knitpicks order is a yarn guide that you wear on your finger. It's supposed to help stranded color knitters keep the different yarns separate. However, I'm going to use it to keep the yarn off my skin. When I crochet for a long time, the yarn sliding across the top of my tensioning finger gets to be quite uncomfortable and eventually a little groove gets indented into the top of the finger.

In other news, I've made progress on Husband's afghan, finished one more blue stripe and have wound the yarn for the next blue stripe. Then I will sew the stripes together, pick up stitches on the left and right and knit the side stripes.

In the past, the sewing together was not fun for me, but now I rather like it.

And I've cut off ridge row at the bottom of the Honorine sweater and have begun knitting down. It's just stockingnette in the round, which some people hate, but I love because it's just mindless knitting. I wonder if I could get away with knitting at the board meeting this weekend.... Maybe I'll work on it during lunch and they'll see that I can talk while eating and knitting, and then it won't be so bad during the rest of the day. I did knit during a Georgia Progressive Summit meeting while one of my board members was there...

Anyway, next Wed, Sept 19, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot, will be in town to speak. Honorine will the be perfect project to take along.

Wednesdays are my pottery class. I have been loving it. We are learning to make very large wheelthrown objects. Usually my pieces are about 8 inches tall, and use 5 pounds of clay. In the first class, I threw a jar at least a foot tall, using 8 pounds of clay, and yesterday I threw a huge bowl (that's me, the bowl lady) using 10 pounds. And all 10 pounds put up a fight, but I got it done. The bowl's at least a foot tall and 15 inches wide. I wanted to make my mother-in-law a huge salad serving bowl and I think I got it.

I really like Mariella, the instructor. She's got a lot of energy and not very rigid. I've had instructors who say there's only one way to do this or that, but Mariella's not that way. She thinks imperfections show that these pieces were made by an individual artisan, and not stamped out by some machine. I like that attitude.

I'll miss the next class because of the Yarn Harlot, but I'll go to Mariella's Monday afternoon class instead. Because this weekend will the weekend of work so I'm taking Monday off. I'm going to sleep in, have a cup of coffee, and then go do pottery for as long as they'll let me. I have some pieces from the spring quarter that have yet to be glazed. And I'll have to buy another bag of clay, since I've used up the entire 25 pound bag in just 2 sessions.

It will be bliss. There is nothing better than throwing pottery. You have to focus just on centering the clay on the wheel, and that centers you. Then in pulling up the clay and working on it, you have to pay attention to what the clay tells you. All your motions have to be smooth, deliberate, and slow. You have to feel the clay and make sure you don't push it too far that it weakens and collapses. One instructor said "the enemy of good is better."

In the end, if you do it right, which isn't hard, you get a piece that's beautiful and useful, and peace in your day.

Weekend of work

This weekend is my organization's board meeting. I'm actually really looking forward to it. Last year, the board of directors started a new strategic plan process and this week we will pick up where we left off.

I have high hopes that it will give the org a good, strong direction, especially regarding advocacy. We're often asked to participate in coalitions to create social change, but until the organization, that is the board, lays out an advocacy agenda, I can't confidently step up and say Yes, my org will do this, or sign that petition. I have my own opinions about all these issues, but I know that they don't always coincide with the opinions of the board of directors.

The thing is, the people who made up the board last year, that set the general parameters of the strategic plan, are all gone. Either their terms ended, or they resigned. So we kind of have to back track and make sure that the current agree with what the previous board did. Certainly, the new board members were recruited because their past activities showed that their values aligned with the strategic plan.

As part of the orientation for this weekend, I'm going to give a longitudinal review of our programs. I've asked the staff to review their programs from whenever it started and summarize in one place all the activities and successes. Then I'm going to put it on flip charts and we can see if all our activities align. This may be the first time that we've done this in 12 years.

The poor advocacy staffer has been on the job about a month, and already she's reading through old reports and trying to make sense of past activities that she has never participated in. Complaining Employee of course is complaining about how hard it is to dig through old reports that admittedly were not recorded very well. That's pretty typical of grass roots organizations -- record keeping is not a priority, doing the damn program is. And frankly, don't we all avoid doing paperwork when we can?

All the staff are digging through old, incomplete, and disorganized records, not just Complaining Employee. So suck it up! There's a drama queen in very group, I swear.

At lunch one day, we were talking about friends who aren't really friends, and everyone had stories about friends who are self-centered and drama queens who stress you out, to the point that you have to sever the relationship. I said There's a drama queen in every group, very studiously not looking at Complaining Employee. And Complaining Employee agreed, talking about one of her clients as an example. I wonder if she got the point.

Anyway, the other big thing I'm hoping for this weekend: a renewed and committed board that will grow to include more members. Our goal was to grow the board to 9 people: 5 in Atlanta, 4 nationally. What we have now: 4 members, where the board chair is the only one not in Atlanta.

One big obstacle for some potential board members is the requirement that they raise funds for the org. And yet they have all these ideas about what the org should be doing. Where do they think the money will be coming from? It doesn't fall from the sky! I have to go out and find it! I'm the only one who does any fundraising for the org!

When I was the fellowship for the European exchange trip, I was like "Really? Little old me? Are you sure? I didn't do a national youth get out the vote campaign and speak at the Democratic National Convention like the other fellow. I certainly wasn't smarty-pants valedictorian and now professor and director of university think tank. Wow, I'm out classed here."

But now, especially as I'm developing next year's budget, I think "Hey! I raised over half a million dollars! Every damn year! I stepped in when the org was floundering and kept the doors open. My plan was to straighten out this org, institutionalize a lot of the things that were done ad hoc, get a record keeping system in place, and make it strong enough to continue for the next 10, 20 years and beyond, and then hand it off to the next person. Damn straight I deserved that fellowship!"

The fellowship is on my mind because at the end of the month, the org that sponsored the fellowship will be having their annual stateside conference and I've been finding speakers for it. Half the people I did my trip with will be coming and I'm really looking forward to seeing them again.

But first, I have to get through this weekend.

Red shoes

I still want red shoes. I want red, high heeled, look-at-me shoes (not to be confused with f-me shoes). Some thing work appropriate, fun, and comfortable.

Instead, I bought more yarn ($45.28 worth from KnitPicks and qualified for free shipping!) in yes, red, and black, and the new Folk Style book. Dare I make and wear the red skirt on the cover? We shall see.

The Honorine sweater continues apace. One elbow length sleeve done, the other almost done. Then pick up and knit the neckline, and then lengthen the bottom. It's just too short, so following Grumperina's advice, I'm going to cut off the bottom few rows, pick up the stitches, and knit down.

I remember reading about her doing this to something she made and e-mailed her to ask. And she was so sweet to e-mail me back. So I practiced on my swatch and now feel ready.

Off to a meeting. I wonder if they would mind me knitting. It's an afterwork meeting, with progressives, they should be okay with hand crafts, right?

Fall shopping

It's still above 90 degrees, airconditioning weather, but I started pulling out some of my fall staples: wool pants. They need time to air out before wearing. I've actually been wearing my silk and cotton sweaters and wool skirts all summer.

After mowing the lawn, then recuperating by watching 2 hours of the America's Next Top Model marathon, I was inspired to do some fall fashion shopping.

I started at Kohl's to scope out the new Simply Vera line by Vera Wang. Nothing I would wear, other than the black skirt, but I already have several. I was really looking for flat front pants I could wear to work. Being petite, finding pants is hard enough already. I guess I'll just have to go back to Talbot's for that.

I was hoping Vera would come through for me, but she didn't. Well, Simply Vera just started. Maybe in the future, she'd remember us shorties.

Next up: platform shoes, which I've been wanting for a while. Well, I tried some on and came to the conclusion that platform shoes look ridiculous on me, as I secretly suspected. First of all I looked at myself in a full length mirror, which you know never lies. Secondly, they were not comfortable. So that's that.

I comforted myself by going to Ross next door and getting several silk/cotton V neck sweaters for $15 each. I got all my usual colors: red, medium grey, black, and white. If only they also had cobalt blue, emerald green and lemon yellow, too, I'd be set for the rest of the year!

Brothers on the Move

Brother One and Brother Two are 2 living examples of this NY Times article about Gen Y's mobility.

In August Brother Two moved from Baltimore to New York City. This weekend Brother One will be moving to Los Angeles. Brother Two found a job in NYC before going. Brother One's first task in LA will be to find a job. They are 31 and 30 years old, smack in the middle of the demographic discussed. Both are unmarried, not dating, no pets, just themselves. They have absolutely nothing tying them to Baltimore or Atlanta, so why not move?

It's such an American thing to do. If there's no opportunity here, move on.

What Do Young Jobseekers Want? (Something Other Than the Job)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/fashion/06Work.html?em&ex=1189224000&en=cb121f533362cd17&ei=5087%0A

EARLY this summer, Joshua J. Pelton decided that he was meant to live in Orlando, Fla. So he quit his sales job in Detroit, packed his car with all the belongings that fit, put the rest in storage, and drove southeast daydreaming about sundrenched winters and packed nightclubs.

“I didn’t have much of a plan, but I knew I wanted to be here,” said Mr. Pelton, 24, who, in his emphasis on where he lives rather than what he does there, is typical of his generation.

Time was when applying for a first job meant papering the country with résumés and migrating wherever the best offer might lead. But this latest generation of graduates has already shown itself to be a peripatetic bunch — traveling more widely and moving farther from home for college.

Add to that the emphasis that Gen Y puts on quality of life — perhaps more than any group that has come before — and it would follow that Gen Y looks for work differently, too.

“To our generation, it doesn’t make sense to have a great job in a crummy city,” said Mark Van Dyke, 25, describing his decision to move three years ago from the suburbs of Chicago to Bellingham, Wash., where he worked low-paying retail jobs before finding one in marketing, at Logos Bible Software. It was all worth it, he said, because his new hometown is “on the Pacific Ocean but driving distance from snowboarding on Mount Baker.”

Sixty-five percent of 1,000 respondents aged 24 to 35 who were asked by the Segmentation Company, a division of the marketing consultant Yankelovich, said they preferred to “look for a job in the place that I would like to live,” rather than “look for the best job I can find, the place where it is located is secondary.”

They also told researchers that places must be safe, clean and green. The most-cited quality was tidiness and attractiveness (78 percent) followed by “will allow me to lead the life I want to lead” (77 percent).

Urban leaders are increasingly courting young workers, because as baby boomers retire, Gen Y will have to fill the gap. Across the country, cities are scrambling to become the place that recent grads want to be.

In the last decade only 14 urban areas nationwide saw more of these workers move in than move out: Las Vegas; Austin, Tex.; Phoenix; Atlanta; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; Salt Lake City; Portland, Ore.: Denver; Orlando; Nashville; Dallas-Fort Worth; Miami-Fort Lauderdale; and Greensboro-Winston Salem, N.C.

How to join that list? “That’s the question all our members are asking,” said Carol Coletta, the president and chief executive of CEOs for Cities, a Chicago-based association of urban leaders.
Her group financed the Yankelovich study, titled “Attracting College-Educated Young Adults to Cities.” Its advice? Spread the word that you are, in the words of the report, “clean, safe and green.” Those qualities won’t seal the deal, but without them, this age group won’t even look.
This philosophy is leading cities to market themselves aggressively to young workers. Orlando, for instance, paid for its own investigation to find out what they want. The results convinced the city council to authorize $1.1 billion in July to build an arts center, an event center and to upgrade a sports arena.

Boston’s mayor set up a task force to poll young adults about their needs, and intends to have their answers inform his development plan. Memphis and Philadelphia, in turn, have created programs (called Mpact in Memphis and Innovation Philadelphia) that woo college students and young professionals, in the hope that they will feel socially welcome and politically connected, and stay.

Those who set their sights on a particular city, however, are not always looking for something that can be built or marketed. Many choose on a gut feeling.

Joy Portella had a “life epiphany” about two years ago, at 33, and decided to leave Manhattan, even though it is the center of her profession: international development. If she were deciding on just a “career move,” she said, she would have stayed in New York or moved to Washington, D.C. Instead she chose a counterintuitive path and headed for Seattle.

Her move was “liberating,” she said. “Before, all my moves had been initiated by things I had to do — jobs or academic programs.” She decamped to Seattle out of desire alone, and now has a job she loves as the director of communications for Mercy Corps.

Ms. Portella knew little of Seattle when she decided to make her move. But she did have a job offer, having spent a year searching from 3,000 miles away.

That is not true of everyone. Mr. Pelton arrived in Orlando with no job prospects. He had sent out résumés while still in Detroit, but received no response. “I found that it’s much easier to find a job when you are in that city,” he said. He now works in group sales for the Walt Disney World Resort, and said the city fulfilled his hope that he could reinvent himself there.

“I can do my regular job, then I can go be a pirate at Magic Kingdom, or watch fireworks every night of the week if I want,” he said. “Growing up in Michigan and staying there, I had an image. I was the good quiet kid who did well in school and was always responsible. Here, I like to be a little wild on the weekends and go to the clubs.”

Casey Blalock, 24, is about to take the same leap any day now, moving from San Francisco to Seattle without a net. “I’m not looking to reinvent myself or find the meaning to life by moving,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “But I do think I’ll get to know myself better. I plan on finding a new job, volunteering, cooking, reading, hiking and enjoying a crumpet down at Pike Place Fish Market.”

If it doesn’t work out, she knows she can always set her sights elsewhere. Because an age group mobile enough to pick up and move once is just as likely to do so again.

Alan Caudill, now 31, moved from Pittsburgh to San Francisco five years ago, when the Internet start-up that employed him was floundering and he and his wife of two months realized they had never loved Pittsburgh.

“San Francisco culture was more us,” he said. “I haven’t been to an Applebee’s, eaten fast food or drank a Coors Light since we moved here (and I’m finally able to get a real burrito).”
While Mr. Caudill has found a job he enjoys, in software management at another start-up, he has also found that he enjoys the adventure of starting anew.

“We’re thinking of doing it again,” he said. “In the next few years we’re debating moving either elsewhere in the country — we love D.C., and Manhattan, and have family in Cleveland — or Europe or Latin America.”

Found my waist

It may seem strange that I've lived almost 37 years and just discovered my waist. For some reason, I thought my waist was where my belly button is, in the space between the bottom of my ribs and the top of my hips.

Then I started knitting the Honorine sweater with waist shaping and really looked at myself. Most patterns are not made with petite, short waisted people in mind, so I knew I'd have to amend it. I also borrowed How to be a Budget Fashionista by Kathryn Finney from the library. She had a tip that to find your waist, bend sideways, and where your body creates a crease, that's where your waist is.

That's when I realized that my waist was actually right at the bottom of my ribs, about 1.5 inches above where I thought it'd been. Hmm.

So what does all this mean? It means that I really am very short waisted and should really only shop in the petite section. It means that empire waisted dresses really are my friends. It means that I should shorten all the tops I knit, and don't have to buy as much yarn.

Now I wonder what else I've been clueless about.

What price art?

Went to the art fair in Marietta Square today. It didn't seem that good this year. I saw a lot of artists from the other art fairs this year, including the Folk Art festival from last weekend. Didn't buy anything.

There was a lot of pottery, but I didn't buy anything, since I'll be starting pottery classes next week. I've been making pottery for probably 5 years now, but really, all I ever make are bowls. At the art fair, I was mostly drawn to the bowls, but I did see some raku boxes that were very cool. I had planned on going back to that booth but forgot. Probably just as well.

There was a weaver, which was new. And 2 knitting vendors. One sold scarves, ponchos, and shawls from ladder yarn. She was asking $90 for a scarf. She said the yarn was from Italy and Germany. Okay. I've gone to Michael's Arts and Crafts and gotten one ball of nylon ladder yarn for about $7 and made the same kind of scarf.

Of course, I'm not counting my time, which is actually the biggest cost. I don't know how many hours I spent actually knitting, because for me, the actually process of knitting, of making something with my two hands, is the biggest pleasure for me. However, let's use the Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts as an example.

The book estimate that the scarf takes more than 8 hours to make, so let's say it takes 10 hours. So 10 hours of knitting x $5.15 an hour minimum wage = $51.50. Then add in the $7 for the yarn, the $5 for the needles, and we're up to $63.50. The vendor has to add in some more cost for ice packs and aspirin from knitting too much. So let's bring it up to $70. There's also the cost of renting the tent, the display booth equipment, a bit of the cost have to be built into the price of each piece, and then in the end, the vendor has to mark it up to actually make a profit.

Hence the $90 scarf. Which I won't buy. But others will, because they either can't knit or rather not knit that and use their knitting time on something else. Certainly I have bought pottery, even bowls, because I know that even though I could make it, I probably won't.

I have learned that lesson. Just look at my knitting queue, which I add to all the time. I just won't have time to make all the things I want to. So either it doesn't get made at all, or I go ahead and buy it, actually get to enjoy it, and support an independent artist.

The other knitting vendor sold felted purses for $100+. They were nicely lined with inner pockets, a key holder thingy, nice straps, etc. But again, I thought "I can make that! And I have made felted purses." And I'm thinking of making another, bumping it to the head of the knitting queue. It'll be easy portable knitting.

After Honorine gets done. More than half way there. Progress pictures later, when the sun it out.