Amy Artisan

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Category: Family (page 13 of 16)

O Tannenbaum!

December 8, 2006 / / 5 Comments

One of my favorite parts of decorating for Christmas is the Christmas Tree. The smell of the evergreen, the twinkle of the lights, the assortment of ornaments – each time you look at a decorated Christmas tree you see something new.

Our family collection of ornaments is a story of our lives – ornaments Mom & Dad hung on trees as children, momentos from places we have lived, collections of favorite things/animals, and on and on. There are so many ornaments that each year we choose which will be on the tree – I think we would need at least a 12 foot tree in order to put them all on the tree. Each year our collection grows – on the morning after Thanksgiving, Rebecca & I always have an ornament waiting for us at the breakfast table. For the last 10 years or more, most of the ornaments have been hand painted by Artisan Dad. (Note to self…need to photograph all of the hand painted ornaments & blog about them some day…)

Artisan Dad Ornament 2006

This year’s Artisan Dad ornament is very appropriate given the resurgence of my knitting this year.

Dad & I subscribe to the “you can never have too many lights” school of tree decorating. For the 8 foot tree at home I think we use at least 500-600 mini lights. For the last couple of years we have bought our tree on the day after Thanksgiving so that I can help Dad put the lights on the tree before coming back to Chicago.

Since I have been up in Chicago I have amassed quite an ornament collection of my own – I haven’t even brought any “childhood” ornaments from home. I’ve had assorted Christmas trees – decorating a potted Norfolk pine, a small fresh cut tree, silver ornament trees when work had me traveling in Dec. When I moved into my current apartment I started getting “full size” Christmas trees. Again this year the Frasier fir is in the living room by the window and the fresh cut evergreen wafts through the air. As I was putting each ornament on the tree I was reminded of dear friends and fun travel among other memories housed in the ornaments.

Artisan Tree 2006
Last December I came across Lolly’s posting about the fun knit Christmas trees that she pulled together based on Anjo’s tree pattern. I thought these were a great idea & made a mental note “next year.”

The day after Thanksgiving I was wondering what to knit since my scarf was finished. So I pulled up the blog entries about the trees and went to Hobby Lobby with Artisan Dad and Artisan Sister. We had a fun time picking out yarn combinations – although I think Dad & Rebecca were still a little skeptical about how these would turn out. We came home with 2 different tree combinations and after lunch I got started knitting. Within an hour, the first tree was knit up so I just kept going. In no time the 2nd tree was done and so I started on a 3rd tree. After dinner I ran out of one of the yarns so Mom & I were back to Hobby Lobby – while there we picked up yarn for more trees. By Saturday evening 5 trees were off the needles & fully assembled.

Knit Christmas Trees 

Row 1: For Aunt Clara Pearl in Ohio; For Mom & Dad; Row 2: For Rebecca; For Miss Doodlebug & Miss Butterfly
My modifications: All of these were knit as triangles & then seamed together. Some of the trees started with 36-40 stitches instead of 30. The smaller trees were size 11 needles, the larger were size 13. Instead of stuffing trees 1/2/3 I put them on floral styrofoam cones that had been wrapped in batting. The bottom of the cone was covered in felt. For the girlie trees, Mom made a tree form out of Christmas fabric with felt as the bottom – she then stuffed the cone, then put the tree knit over the form & stitched it to the felt bottom. The ornaments & bows on tree 1 are from the “mini-tree” section at Hobby Lobby.

The yarn combos: 1 & 2 = LB Chenille Thick & Quick, LB Wool-Ease Chunky, Yarn Bee Playful; 3 = LB Jiffy (2 colors), Yarn Bee Playful; 4 & 5 = TLC Essentials, Patons Brilliant, Yarn Bee Feather Wisp

These are a fun project! I think that a couple more may end up being gifted this Christmas. I also want to make some for my own Christmas decorations – although I’m pretty sure that they won’t be completed before next Christmas.

The girlie trees have already been sent to Texas & are in full play use by the girls. Aunt Clara Pearls’ tree is bringing some Christmas cheer to her room while she is in a nursing home receiving some rehabilitation services based on recent health issues.

Aunt Clara Pearl's Tree in Ohio

Thanks Ruth for sharing a picture of the tree in Ohio!

What are some of your favorite Christmas tree and Christmas ornament memories and stories?

Click here to share yours!

Time to Sit & Knit…and more

November 21, 2006 / / 7 Comments

As I’ve written about before, Harbor Country in Michigan is a favorite quick escape from the city – both as a daytrip or a weekend. This past Saturday was no exception – my friend Kristy was game for an outing. 

The goals for the day were simple:

– Pick up some vino for holiday gifts at Round Barn Winery. check!

– Do a bit of shopping at some of our favorite shops. check! In addition to stopping at the fun Ben Franklin we found some fun things at Pomegranate Home.

– Lunch at someplace fun. check! we finally checked out The Stray Dog Bar & Grill and both agreed that it will be in the restaurant rotation on future trips.

– Sit and knit a bit at our favorite yarn shop, Sit & Knit. Check! When we walked into the shop we were greeted by Kim, the shop owner that we had met at Stitches Midwest in August and she remembered us from visiting the booth. No one else was in the shop at the time so we had great fun getting to know Kim. This last week was a big week for the shop – she just launched a blog and also filmed a pilot episode of their knitting talk show: Sit & Knit with Kim, Jack and Bird. It will air in South Bend in January it hopefully will become a national show. The shop as a great private label yarn line that is similar to the Cascade 128 line – lots of fun colors & so soft. I picked up several colors for assorted projects – including more felted bowls. Kristy cast on for her first felted bowl – Kim helped her get going “in the round.” The shop was supposed to close at 5 & it was about 5:45 when we were finally on our way with lattes to go. As I’ve said before, if this shop were closer I think I would be there every weekend. Thanks Kim for a lovely afternoon in your shop!

After a bit of outlet shopping in Michigan City we picked up Pumpkin Spice milkshakes from Culvers for “dinner” on the drive home. Kristy continued to knit round & round on her bowl while in the car – she felt the uptempo tunes (Play by Great Big Sea) had her knitting quickly and making great progress.

On the way home we detoured through downtown Chicago hoping to see the Christmas lights that had just been turned on – but Michigan Ave. still wasn’t open back up to traffic so we missed the lights but were in the midst of all the traffic. While in the traffic, Kristy did snap some fun shots of the city at night.

The evening ended with more knitting while watching a holiday favorite, Love Actually. Kristy finished up her first felted bowl & started her next one. I started and finished the square for Cathy’s Comforting Jenn blanket – a dusty sage & dusty rose superwash that I picked up at Sit & Knit earlier in the day. (picture to come later)

We did the same day trip last year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving – I think this is becoming our “routine” for kicking off the holiday season.

The Changing Leaves

October 24, 2006 / / 8 Comments

One of the things I love about fall is the changing of the leaves. Shades of bright green start to fade, then brillant shades of red, orange, and yellow appear and then the leaves are just a pile on the ground. The memories of the previous spring and summer fade and you await the new growth in the coming spring.

Flying into Chicago on Saturday morning the forest preserves were patchworks of yellow, orange and red. Here at home, many of the trees have lost most of their leaves – this morning the street sweeper came down the street to clear out the big piles of dry leaves.

Down in Chattanooga the leaves aren’t quite as far along in their season change. The first weekend of October when I did a lot of mountain driving the mountains were covered in green with just a few spots of autumnal colors. This week as I drove through the mountains for the last time this year the patchwork quilt was vastly changed – not nearly as much green and a lot more reds and oranges.

As the leaves are changing this season, it is also a season of change for me as well.

So long Scenic City…for Now

Last week was my final week on the project down in Chattanooga. The 8-10 week assignment in May ended up lasting 23 weeks. It had been 4 years since I had a travel assignment for work and it was a bit of a rough start. In August my role in the project changed from wearing one hat to wearing lots of hats. As I’ve mentioned (and the lack of blogging since August indicates) my world became pretty crazy and work was close to all that was happening with me. In September the system went live, I worked an insane number of hours and in the midst of it also marked 10 years in consulting. In addition to learning a new software with this project I also learned a lot about me and how I work. I can honestly say that this was one of my favorite projects.

I look back on the last several months and while the “who practices some trade” side of Artisan was definitely the driving factor in my activities there are also some fun memories. One plus of the travel assignment was that I got to see my family much more than I normally do – at least one weekend a month I was down in the ‘Ville instead of coming back to Chicago. Another plus was forming some new friendships that will continue beyond the duration of the project.

When I first learned that I would be traveling I had grand plans for all the knitting that would happen – well, not nearly everything was accomplished & most of the knits were simple in nature. (Click to see the set) As I mentioned in my previous post, I did make it to a local yarn store once. Now that I’m back home, here are the yarn souvenirs that I picked up. I don’t know what projects these will become – the colors definitely remind me of a lot of the scenery that I saw around the Scenic City.

Hello Home…

Now that the Chattanooga project has wrapped up it is good to be back home. My next project will keep me in Chicago so I’m looking forward to getting back into a routine that doesn’t involve living out of a suitcase. I will be working downtown so I will have “El” commute time – it may involve knitting or maybe catching up on the stack of books that I have been wanting to read.

In the coming weeks and months I think that the “handicraft” side of Artisan will be done more frequently. The “Knit List” seems never ending with all the projects I want to complete – many are on the needles already – a lot of the projects I showed earlier this summer are still “in progress.” Scrapbooking has been pretty nonexistent this year – but I’m already looking ahead to the winter retreat weekend in January & all that I can accomplish then. And cooking…well after eating out 3 meals a day for 23 weeks I’m definitely ready to spend time in the kitchen. In fact, a friend is coming for dinner tomorrow & I’m looking forward to making a big pot of soup.

I’m enjoying a bit of downtime before the next project begins. Stay tuned for more blogging. I’m also looking forward to heading to Dallas this weekend to spend some quality time with Miss Butterfly & Miss Doodlebug!

Never Lost*

October 10, 2006 / / 9 Comments

* That’s the name of the navigation system found in some rental cars. And indeed, it came to the rescue.

As my recent lack of blogging has shown, I’ve been pretty close to “lost in my work” here in Chattanooga since early August. I’ve been away from Chicago for almost a month – supporting the live application here has meant working crazy hours – including weekends. In the midst of all the work I’ve enjoyed a few ‘adventures’ that have helped to keep me from becoming too lost in the work.

Two weekends ago my rental car was equipped with “Never Lost” – when I picked up the car on Friday afternoon my initial reaction was to the effect of “hmm..don’t need that.” Fast forward to Saturday afternoon when I left the office at 3:00 – it was a beautiful day, I had a couple of hours free before meeting up with friends for dinner – what to do? After picking up an Italian soda at a cute little cafe, I got in the car and headed across the river. I remembered that there was a yarn shop “over there” but didn’t know where & didn’t want to go back to the hotel to get online and look for it. Enter “Never Lost.” I pulled into a parking lot, turned the system on & searched for nearby specialty shops. About the 5th shop listed was “Genuine Purl” – so the car talked me to the location. I walked into a charming store overflowing with all sorts of beautiful yarns. Given the near exhausted state that I was in, in a word I was overwhelmed! I circled through the rooms & picked up all sorts of beautiful things. Even though I had projects back in the hotel room I wanted to pick up a simple project to start on that afternoon – after quite a bit of back & forth I picked up a fun variegated yarn for a simple ribbed scarf. As yarn souvenirs I picked up a lovely green Malabrigo yarn and also some Claudia’s Hand Painted Yarns in a colorway that reminds of some Scenic City scenery – the river and the mountains. (No pictures yet)

I left the yarn store with a smile on my face and a bag full of pretty yarn. I still had some time left to my afternoon – so I parked at the river front park, found a park bench, turned on my iPod & cast on for the scarf. An hour of good tunes, being outside, watching the boats on the river & the back & forth of the ribbed scarf were just what I needed.

I still wasn’t ready to head back to the hotel so I got in the car and did some mountain driving – up and down Lookout Mountain. I had been along that route once before and the vintage signs for Rock City really did help ensure I was “Never Lost” while on the curvy mountain roads. The autumn sun through the tree leaves (some of which were just starting to change colors) made for beautiful scenery.

This serendipity Saturday was capped off with dinner with new friends. We went to a new Thai restaurant that is owned by a couple of people that work at my client site. Royal Thai is a great place – if it were closer to downtown I would be there a lot more frequently.

That Sunday my parents were in town while heading back to GA from a weekend getaway. We explored the town, had a great brunch at Lookout Mountain Cafe and did a lot of driving through the mountains – it was another beautiful day & we all enjoyed the sun, the trees, the start of fall leaves.

This past weekend I didn’t have to be in the office so I headed down to the ‘Ville to hang out with the family. No big plans – just lots of little things – sleeping in till 8AM, my kitty snuggling under the covers with me, Mom’s home cooking, a bit of shopping, watching a classic musical (Oklahoma) and all of us humming songs the rest of the weekend. On Sunday evening I had dinner with a college roommate on the northside of Atlanta before coming back up to Chattanooga – it was great to catch up with Kelly & reconnect with a dear friend. The simple pleasures of this weekend were a “homegrown” version of Never Lost that pulled me back from the depths of work overload.

Still very little to report on the knitting front. To my swaps pals, I haven’t been lost – just a bit off the “normal” path.

My time in Chattanooga is probably wrapping up soon – I look forward to being back home, back on the blog and back involved with the parts of my life that have recently been put on hold while being “lost in work.”

Grandma’s Favorite

August 24, 2006 / / 17 Comments

Happy Birthday Grandma!

 

Today my grandma celebrates 92 fabulous years! 

Growing up, our house was always stocked with “Grandma’s Favorite” dishcloths made by her. In 1997 I visited her in California for a long weekend so she could teach me to knit using that dishcloth pattern as my starter project. Even as I learn new knit skills, try new patterns and expand my knit horizons I always find comfort in the simple back & forth knit of “Grandma’s Favorite” either as a simple cloth to wash my dishes or on and on to a larger snuggly blanket to wrap a baby in love. In addition to the genes, traits and history I inherited from her I’m so thankful for the gift of knit as well!

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