Birthday Blues (only very tangentially about knitting)

My birthday party was great: the food was great, the service was great, my friends are great. So why am I so blue??????

I sold the blue green variegated shawl to my friend, but only for half of my cost. What kind of a business person am I, anyway? I couldn't help it....Liz is one of my very bestest friends.......I made another one (again, to give away as a gift), but just when I was about to finish, I ran out of yarn. I sent an emergency e-mail to the yarn lady, but I think she is out of town. My spring boutique is only a few weeks away, but I hardly have anything to show for it since I keep giving my shawls away. What am I going to do?

I am so stressed out about work. I have mentally checked out (AGAIN), and right now all I am doing is playing catch-up. I had 37 voice mails (some quite angry!) and lots and lots of e-mails to go through. It took me 2.5 days to go through just that. Now I have to start looking at my calendars and working on those for the next few months.

At least I am staying on my diet, kind of. After 7 weeks on weight watchers, I ended up 3 pounds heavier than when I started. Which is not the result I had in mind (in my defense, I was depressed and it was MY BIRTHDAY month!!!!). Anyway, just so that I would take the diet thing more seriously, I signed up for 10 pre-pay meetings. I think I might be able to lose at least 1 pound this week. I hope so, anyway. Sigh.

I am looking at digital cameras, but I am trying to be careful budget-wise this month and next because I have to buy a plane ticket to Boston for my younger daughter's college graduation (she's graduating at least magna cum laude, and if she gets all A's this semester, then it will be summa cum laude. I have brilliant progeny! Woo-hoo!!!!), pay my hotel for three nights, and put aside enough money for the 2 sumptuous dinners that my little girl has planned for those evenings. Thank goodness my ex is paying for the rental car. I wish he would pay for my hotel room, too. And my plane ticket.

The High Cost of Knitting

This weekend, I finished crocheting the edges around the two purplish shawls I made and gave one away as a birthday gift and the other one as a sorry-I-didn't-deliver-your-Christmas-scarf-on-time offering. And, while I was visiting a friend in the hospital, my favorite yarn lady called about a project we are planning. I asked her, by the way, you never billed me for the yarn I bought last month, how much is it? I have made several shawls and given two of them away. How much are those balls of the Japanese yarn, anyway? She told me my total bill (> $700!!!!!) for the last batch of yarn and then told me the balls of yarn were between $13 - $16 each. And she told me how much some of the cones cost. I almost had a heart attack. YIKES!!!!! That means I have been been giving away shawls that cost about $60 in yarn! And these people weren't even my kids or best friends!!!!! So, the moral is, always ask for your receipt and WRITE DOWN how much your raw materials cost BEFORE deciding to give away your work.

She also told me that my shawls should START at about $125, and that one of her customers is selling shawls similar to mine to some of the high-end Beverly Hills boutiques for $300 wholesale. Geez. That's a lot of money.

The thing is, I actually enjoy making my shawls and scarves and everything else that I knit. If I were to turn it into a total business, then that would take some of the joy out of knitting. I hate deadlines and being rushed. (Ask any of my friends, some of whom are still waiting for their birthday or Christmas gifts). I love knitting for the holiday boutiques because I can knit whatever I want in whatever yarn combination I like and I know SOMEONE out there will love it and pay $50 - $75 for a scarf for Mom, Grandma, best friend, whatever. People are bolder when it comes to buying holiday gifts. But to commit myself to supplying some of the high-end boutiques here in Los Angeles? Ummmm.....maybe not.

On the other hand, I have quite the yarn addiction. At first, I tried to buy only $300 - $400 of yarn at a time--whatever I could pay off in one paycheck. Now it is up to $700 an order and I just placed another order for another 5 pounds of Fortuny-type yarn that usually sells for $115 a pound. I'm getting a great deal, but STILL. I work hard, but I don't earn enough to support this yarn habit. My favorite yarn lady said that I bought $3000 worth of yarn between the end of September to December 31st, 2004. And that is just from HER. For the record, she lets me make payments, so I don't put anything on a credit card. The other yarn people I pay cash up front, but then again, I usually don't spend more than $250 at a time. I think I bought about $1500 total from the other yarn people last year. Maybe I SHOULD try to sell my stuff at the high-end boutiques here in the Valley! At least to recoup my yarn investment (never mind my investment in equipment and other supplies!). Geez. I have to think about this for a bit.

My yarn stash and plans for my birthday party

Last weekend, I knit three shawls: 2 purplish shawls (variegated blue, purple and green slinky yarn that I ran with this neat variegated yarn that also had blue, purple, some green, and a glittery yet subtle thread) and 1 reddish shawl with a variegated yarn in oriental red, green, and yellow that I ran with a germaine in a oriental red. I just have to crochet the edges and put some fringe. And we all know how I feel about fringing!!!!!!

This weekend, I am going to knit. I've cleared my calendar and all I want to do is clean and organize my knitting room and knit. I've got way too much yarn....and I really should organize them. Right now they are "organized" in huge plastic bins that are marked "Stuff" and "More Stuff". Just kidding. Actually they are unmarked, but one plastic bin holds my so so yarn--acrylics and stuff I really don't like. I probably will donate all that yarn to weSpark, the cancer support group that helped me so much 2 years ago--and the other bin holds my "nice" yarn that I don't need right at this second. I also have a yarn tree that holds 68 cones of nice and useful yarn, stuff that I like to look at and touch. I have two other plastic bins. One holds finished stuff and the other holds unfinished stuff, like all the shawls I've knitted and my infamous brown suit that I am going to finish by knitting the two sleeves of the jacket and hemming the skirt and putting some kind of edging on the shell. And then I've got three huge garbage bags full of yarn I bought at Newtons and from Virginia a couple of weeks ago.

Besides my brown suit, I plan to knit a shell for my friend Cessy. Her birthday was in January, but I think they (my co-workers) all know what a procrastinator I am. I'll also do a worm trim on the poncho I knit for her daughter about 4 months ago so that I can give it to her.

My birthday is next week. Besides work, I am very preoccupied with planning my birthday party. I want to have it at this Middle Eastern restaurant (or, for those who don't know what Middle Eastern food is like, we can call it a "mediterannean-style" food). My eldest daughter and I love the food there. I like the shawarma and the baba ganouch and the humus. I eat there 2 or three times a week (yes, you've guessed it, I'm not much of a cook). My daughter was aghast when I told her I wanted my party there. She says "it doesn't have any atmosphere". Well, so what? It's my party and I'll do what I want!

I love dives, and while this restaurant is not really a dive, it is very homey and low-key, and it is located in a strip mall. Once in awhile I will see a sinister-looking group of people (mainly men), but other than that, it is a great family restaurant. I do feel kind of funny having my birthday dinner in a strip mall, but I really didn't feel like spending $500 for the bowling party or eating at one of the tonier Middle Eastern restaurants in Westwood or on Ventura Boulevard.

I'm Back!

Well, I am back. Back to work and back to knitting. I have been in a blue funk this month and had pretty much not done any work or knitting. But, it is a new month and I am determined to move forward and catch up with all the things I need to do. (It helps when your boss has a little "talk" with you!).

Anyway, Day 2 at Newtons was wonderful. Believe it or not, I won three more prizes, but I donated one back to be raffled off because I had won a similar prize the day before. I also cashed in my $75 gift certificate and bought lots and lots of wool yarn in basic colors to knit and felt for my May boutique. I was inspired by the hands-on felting class held in the morning. I wore my little cell phone/ipod holder to work for a week afterwards to show it off! Everyone LOVED it! It was nice seeing all my old knitting friends at the seminar.

Although I did not make my deadline to knit all the stuff I wanted/needed to knit, I did do SOME knitting. I made a green shawl (I may have talked about it earlier) that now needs to be blocked and fringed, a red shawl that I need to rip out and do over, and a purplish shawl that I've ripped out and will re-knit. I also knit 6 ultra-lash scarves as party favors for my friend's daughter's birthday party at Knott's Berry Farm. I just used whatever colors I had: three different purple scarves, two all gold, and a purple and gold L.A. Laker's scarf for the birthday girl. Also, I knit a long fairisle scarf and hat set in dark blue and light blue for my godson. Gee, this sounds like a lot of knitting, but really, all the knitting I've talked about here is only 1 day and 2 evenings' worth of knitting. Quick and easy. I LOVE machine knitting!

I want to finish my brown suit. I couldn't wear it for the wedding in January, but my birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I would like to have SOMETHING NEW to wear. I just need to finish the sleeves, hem the skirt and do crochet finishes all around.

I bought a couple of knitting books: Rhigetti's Knitting in Plain English and Sweater Design in Plain English. I've been reading the Sweater Design book because I want to learn how to design my own sweaters and also how to chart them. They are both good books.