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Archive for category It’s All About Me

Getting Back to Knitting Classes at Garden Home

Aug 23

Posted by TessM in Classes, It's All About Me | No Comments

Whew!  I just finished updating my sadly-neglected knitting class spreadsheet — including the dates for the next THREE terms at Garden Home Rec Center!

house being paintedI admit, I haven't been doing much teaching, or even knitting,  this summer — just some bits here and there.  The Garden Home classes always take a break over the summer, because there are so many other things to do here in beautiful Oregon, at least when the sun finally decides to shine.  But unfortunately, the spring term didn't fill, so I've basically just been lazy since the start of the year.

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The Dude and his Sweater

May 11

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Project Management | No Comments

It's amazing how a couple of weeks can just disappear.

Well, of course, I've just been doing things other than blogging:  for one, I have really truly been making some serious progress on the new website.  No, seriously!

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Use the Damn Saw, Already

Mar 10

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Knit Philosophy, Project Management | 3 Comments

Photo credit: ronnieb from morguefile.com

Pop quiz:  What do "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", Terry Pratchett and the New York Times all have in common?

I'm pretty sure you didn't guess this:  a knitting epiphany.

Continue reading "Use the Damn Saw, Already"

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

Feb 28

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, yarn | 2 Comments

… which translates as “thus passes the glory of the world”, or “worldly things are fleeting”…

I say this because I have managed, all on my own, to use up a ball-winder.  One of those little white-and-blue plastic Japanese ones, which begin to make a loud “CLACK CLACK CLACK” noise as they get older and the gears start to strip.  This was happening to mine, although the coup de grâce was when the handle finally broke clean off this weekend.

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A Very Quick Post

Sep 16

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Not Knitting | No Comments

…to say that I am sorry I haven't been able to respond to several new commenters here in the last few days.  I love seeing comments (as do most bloggers) but unfortunately, what with being in Chicago for my niece's wedding over the weekend, flying home on Monday, and then DH's APPENDECTOMY yesterday — well, I just haven't found the time to respond.

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HI! didja miss me?

Aug 16

Posted by TessM in Classes, It's All About Me, Not Knitting | 4 Comments

Wowsers, it's been an eventful couple of months at my house.  At my NEW house, of course — where I'd say we are about 2/3 unpacked by now.

I'm estimating it will take until December to get the rest unpacked and put away, donated, recycled, or thrown away.  Way back in the beginning, I said this was going to be a year-long project.  We first went out househunting with the realtor on December 29th, so at this point I'm still sticking with my original estimate.  (Although I keep hearing from people about how they have boxes still to unpack from moves that were three years ago.)

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Holy Lolcats!

Jun 15

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Not Knitting | 2 Comments

OK, OK — in between freaking out about carpet, flooring, paint, and drywall demolition, I sneaked off for a little fun.

June 3 was the second annual "I Can Has Cheezburger" night at the Mariner's ball game in Seattle.  And I was there.  Oh, yes.  And so was the New York Times, who decided to not only publish my (thankfully unidentified) picture right smack at the beginning, but also quote me.

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I’m kinda bizz-ee

May 7

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Not Knitting | No Comments

(Yeah, Lady Gaga got that line from me.  It's OK, we're soul sisters.)

For me, the last few weeks have been all about NEW HOUSE and especially, FRESH PAINT.

Up to now, most of it has been pretty no-brainer stuff.  For instance, I chose which bedroom is going to be the studio:  one of them is half a foot bigger, and has a much larger closet.  That was easy.

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A Distinct Lack of Blogging

Apr 13

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Not Knitting | 1 Comment

What can I say?  It's been 2.5 weeks since I last posted anything.  What kind of far-fetched excuse reason can I come up with this time?

view from new house How about this one?  it's because we're moving!

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My Knitting Wish List for 2010

Feb 18

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Project Management | No Comments

magic ball and beginning of raglan sweaterHey, I finally put together a list for What I Want to Knit This Year!

Yeah, well, so what if it's mid-February?

This idea has been kind of nagging at me for a month or so — but what finally prompted me to get it down on paper was an incident last week, when Linda asked, "So what are you knitting for fun?" — after seeing what I was knitting on for work — and I had to say, "Nothing."  That, my friends, is a sad state of affairs, and one I thought I ought to rectify.  I've gotten started on it, as you can see to the right, although that item happens to be the very last one on the list.  You'll have to read ALL THE WAY THROUGH if you want to know what that noise is all about.

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Not Exactly Juvenile, but Delinquent

Jun 23

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, New Zealand | No Comments

Good heavens.  It’s been a week and a half.  I’m a delinquent blogger.

According to the thesaurus, you could also say, "behindhand, derelict, disregardful, heedless, inattentive, indifferent, lax, lazy, negligent, regardless, remiss, slack, thoughtless, uncaring, unmindful".

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New Tricks?

Jun 11

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me | 2 Comments

Well, apparently it isn’t true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.  I learned a new one a couple of days ago.

OK, technically, I’d heard about it a long time ago from Marlene, who once told me that she often knits while working out.  Yeah, I admit I was skeptical — how the heck is that going to work?

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Hazards of the Brave New Online World

Jun 9

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Not Knitting | No Comments

A portion of an email I recently received from a person I went to engineering school with, who found me online –

… remember that you liked to knit.  It was one of your many odd/charming features!

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You Guys Rock!

Apr 7

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Not Knitting | No Comments

Last week, I wrote about some great things I am fortunate to have in my life:  DH, yarn, a specific cat.

This week, I have even more great things to write about:  specifically, Ben and Jerry's "Cake Batter" ice cream some really fabulous, generous knitters and blog readers, not to mention family and friends!  My heartfelt thanks to all of you — some of whom I have never even met!  You all blew right through the $121 fundraising goal:  now the Cat Adoption Team has almost $200 OVER $200! to help with the food bank, or finding homes for homeless felines.

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Home Is Where the DH Is!!

Jan 27

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Not Knitting, Project Management | No Comments

One of the cold hard truths I learned when I quit the engineering job and started setting my own schedule was this:

You can’t get anything done on the days when DH is home.

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Let It Snow

Dec 17

Posted by TessM in Fashion, Style & Fit, It's All About Me, Not Knitting | 3 Comments

Here is what it looks like from my office window and my backyard these days:

 

red tree in snowyard in snow

feet in snow

And here is the yoke to my top-down raglan sweater so far.

sweater yoke so far

With all this snow, and everything being cancelled, you might think I’d have gotten a bit more knitting done, wouldn’t you?

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Not Guilty, Your Honor

Nov 21

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Sox Therapy | 2 Comments

Oh, boy.  It’s been, like, a week and a half.  What happened to blogging?

Well, I’ll tell you what happened to blogging.  Life happened, that’s what.  That, and as I mentioned recently, knitters wanting knitting lessons have reappeared this fall with a vengeance.  In the past month, my teaching hours each week have been up 50-70% from the previous month.  Yeah, that cuts into the blogging time a tad bit — let alone the knitting time.

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Knitting on the Other Side of the World

Nov 7

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Sox Therapy | 4 Comments

OK, I know both of you were kind of worried about it, but I believe I have figured out an elegant solution to a looming knitting problem:

What on earth do I take along to knit in New Zealand??

Continue reading "Knitting on the Other Side of the World"

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Uh-oh

Oct 21

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me | No Comments

Seen in the latest Classic Elite Yarns email newsletter:

 

"Who doesn’t like a good excuse to get out the needles?" 

 

Holy crap — you’re supposed to have an excuse???

Continue reading "Uh-oh"

Sasquatch Report

May 27

Posted by TessM in Events, It's All About Me, Not Knitting, Sox Therapy | 11 Comments

Table of contents for Short Rows & Sock Heels

  1. Short Rows, Deconstructed
  2. The Double-Stitch Short Row Heel – aka the “yo-yo” or “jo-jo” heel
  3. Roomier Short Row Heels
  4. Sasquatch Report

Hey, we’re back from our trip to [Sasquatch->] over the Memorial Day Weekend.  And it was an interesting weekend.

(BTW, this post really does include something pretty interesting about sock heels too, although that bit’s way at the end.  Just skip down there if you must.)view of stage

Continue reading "Sasquatch Report"

…Previous in series

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Karla’s Gift

May 8

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me | No Comments

Earlier this year, one of my very good students & friends moved far, far away.  Very sad.  She is living somewhere warm & sunny now, so I’m not even sure what she’s going to knit from now on.

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I Think I’ll Keep Him

Mar 24

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Project Management, Sox Therapy | 6 Comments

Over the weekend, I had a touch of  "the depression" *.

Specifically, I had the knitting depression.

I didn’t have a single decent current project, the UFOs were one big pile o’ crap, I hated everything in my hotlist **.

Continue reading "I Think I’ll Keep Him"

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Happy Birthday to Me!

Mar 17

Posted by TessM in Books, Sites, Mags, It's All About Me | No Comments

As part of "fun weekend", DH and I went and visited a place on the other side of the river, called "SCRAP".

SCRAP — The School and Community Reuse Action Project – is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our mission is to promote creative reuse and environmentally sustainable behavior by providing educational programs and affordable materials to the community.

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Latest & Greatest

Feb 19

Posted by TessM in FO Files, It's All About Me, Sox Therapy | 2 Comments

Admittedly, I haven’t written much in the past week (heck, I haven’t written anything).  But, I have an excellent excuse reason.  Actually, several reasons…

#1 reason is, I have a bad Continental knitting habit of using my right index finger to help out on each and every stitch.  I don’t actually need to use it — I can knit and purl without moving it at all, if I think about it.  As I say, it’s a bad habit, which means I do it more-or-less unconsciously.  I even demonstrate it to new Continental knitters in my classes as a great example of what not to do.

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Cold Feet, Warm Heart?

Feb 12

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, Sox Therapy | 2 Comments

The other night, I complained mentioned to my loving, caring DH how my feet had been freakin’ FREEZING ALL DAY.

DH was kicked back sideways on the chair-and-a-half, with his legs propped up over the arm of the chair and his feet aloft.  He said smugly in a very meaningful manner,

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Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Jan 22

Posted by TessM in Books, Sites, Mags, But Is It Art?, It's All About Me | 3 Comments

The upsurge in the popularity of knitting in the past half-dozen years or so, coupled with the Internet, has been a mixed blessing to me.  Browsing the online knitting world, I am continually reminded that there are all kinds of knitters, many of whom I probably have little or nothing in common with.

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Outside the Comfort Zone

Nov 20

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me | 1 Comment

On Tuesday afternoons, for the past few weeks now, I’ve been helping out my friend Patricia [(namasteknitter)->http://www.namasteknitter.blogspot.com] with an after-school knitting club at her son’s elementary school.

You have to realize that this is a completely foreign world to me. I don’t have kids. I don’t really like kids. I was the baby of my own family, and I’ve spent my whole life around people older than me. I have never, ever, changed a diaper. I can’t remember the last time, prior to this, that I set foot in a school – but it was before they had metal detectors at the doors. To me, schools mostly mean taxes, and areas where you have to drive slower on certain days and at certain times. (Oh, and they don’t like for you to swear, either.)

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I’m in I’m in I’m in I’m in I’m in!!

Oct 17

Posted by TessM in Books, Sites, Mags, It's All About Me | No Comments

Of course, this means I’m in at [Ravelry->].

Actually, I got invited about a week ago, but haven’t had time to go exploring before now. What fun! Lots to do!

Unfortunately for me, someone already has the username “tessknits” – so on Ravelry I’m now known as “tessm”. Maybe we should start a group on Ravelry for knitters named Tess? Both of us!

Continue reading "I’m in I’m in I’m in I’m in I’m in!!"

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The Queen of Green

Sep 30

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me | 1 Comment

You may have noticed – I like green.

Just about any shade of green really, even the ugly ones – with the possible exception of really light minty green. See, I’m a natural redhead, and it’s something I just can’t help. One of my personal slogans is,

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(Breaking) the Sweater Curse

Sep 28

Posted by TessM in Books, Sites, Mags, It's All About Me | 4 Comments

So, you may have noticed that in the previous post, I said that my sister was knitting a sweater for her fiance.betsandmark

YIKES! but what about the famous, infamous Sweater Curse? 

Continue reading "(Breaking) the Sweater Curse"

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It’s My Sister’s Fault!

Sep 28

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me | 5 Comments

I can trace my original fascination with knitting back to age 6. That’s when my big sister, Bets, came for her very last Christmas visit home – because she was engaged, and would be married in April. (Bets and I are at either end of a large family – there are 17 years between us).

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In the beginning…

Sep 27

Posted by TessM in It's All About Me, It's All About the Blog | No Comments

“A year from now, you may wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb

OK, so I’m starting today. Hiya. Welcome to my blog! I intend for this to be a blog about knitting, mainly, with some color commentary about life and whatnot thrown in.

Continue reading "In the beginning…"

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