Changes Underway Again

In the next few days this website and blog will change over to WordPress and have a much different feel and function. It is part of an overall change in my business model, which has the goal of enabling me to have an income and paint, too. Not an easy feat these days. No guarantee it will work, either, but there's nothing to be done except to try.

The cookery has been successful to a back-breaking extent. Demand was such that I either had to expand the business and take on employees, more equipment, debt, and headaches, or to keep working for bupkes because of an inability to meet a greater demand. The doc said I basically had to get out of the kitchen because the heat is gonna do me in, literally. So I have stopped the catering side of things and am focusing on marketing my cinnamon buns, recipes, and even some art. The main site will be at cinnamonbunny.com and two associated blogs, this one and megsrecipes.com, the latter specifically for developing and marketing a recipe book.

Steve and I will be working on how to save most of the content on this site and blog during the transition to the new format. I look forward to being able to have a list of everyone's links and blogs and maybe even a means of purchasing my stuff right from this site. It takes time and persistence to get this done, but hopefully things will be in place by the next time you check in.

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, Day 4

A New Skill
Is there a skill related to your hobby that you hope to learn one day? maybe you’re a crocheter who’d also like to knit? Maybe you’d like to learn to knit continental, knit backwards, try cables or attempt stranded colourwork. TAGGING CODE: knitcroblo4

I know how to do a little bit of stranded colorwork, but would like to get better at it and create my own patterns reminiscent of needlepoint. Maybe next winter.

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, Day 3

One Great Knitter
Write about a knitter whose work (whether because of project choice, photography, styling, scale of projects, stash, etc) you enjoy. If they have an enjoyable blog, you might find it a good opportunity to send a smile their way. TAGGING CODE: knitcroblo3

Once again it would be my daughter in law Amy Maxwell. She comes up with the neatest ideas and patterns, and that in turn gets my own creativity flowing: Strand Over Fist

Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, Day 2

An Inspirational Pattern

Blog about a pattern or project which you aspire to. Whether it happens to be because the skills needed are ones which you have not yet acquired, or just because it seems like a huge undertaking of time and dedication, most people feel they still have something to aspire to in their craft. If you don’t feel like you have any left of the mountain of learning yet to climb, say so! TAGGING CODE: knitcroblo2

I would love to do traditional Aran knitting, and create the kinds of sweaters and afghans in natural fibers that I find endlessly appealing. I also would like to learn to knit with cotton in such a way as to keep it from getting stretched out of shape.

The Knitting and Crochet Blog Week: 4/26-2/5 2010

Thought this would be a fun thing to participate in. Here's the mother post, at eskimimi knits.


Day One Topic:

Starting Out

How and when did you begin knitting/crocheting? was it a skill passed down through generations of your family, or something you learned from Knitting For Dummies? What or who made you pick up the needles/hook for the first time? Was it the celebrity knitting ‘trend’ or your great aunt Hilda? TAGGING CODE: knitcroblo1

I sort of stumbled into the world of knitting and crocheting when I was about seven or eight years old. I came across a skinny pair of knitting needles and a ball of string in a box of my mother's old things and asked her if I could give it a go. She never did learn how to knit or crochet, even though she came from a family of fabulous needlewomen. One day not long after that my grandmother's sister came to visit and brought her knitting along. I was fascinated by the whole process of turning balls of yarn into things that were usable or wearable. My great-aunt gave me some instruction on the spot, and a ratty old how-to book. Every once in a while I'd get a skein of yarn from the dimestore and attempt to learn a new pattern or make something for my dolls. The book also had crocheting instructions. I had no crochet hook, so bent a bobby pin into one and taught myself how to crochet from the book's pictures. Got good enough to make potholders and such for selling at the school PTA bazaar. Stopped both knitting and crocheting for many years because I was inundated with crocheted fishnet vests and shawls from various aunts and ripple and granny square afghans from my grandmother. Picked it up again in college as a meditative hobby, and that's when I started making my first sweaters, big simple garter stitch sweaters without much shaping and in stripes of bright colors. Have pretty much never stopped knitting ever since. Crocheting fell by the wayside until this past winter, when I used it along with knitting in a great big free-form afghan. Most recently I crocheted a Market Bag designed by my daughter-in-law Amy Maxwell, a very talented professional crocheter and pattern designer. Her site is at Strand Over Fist. I used medium weight cotton twine from Ace hardware and the result is a bag sturdy enough for my laptop!

So It's Dawned on Me...

...that I haven't painted for a bit, nor have I gardened, in spite of the unquestionably springlike weather of the past two weeks. These are passions I haven't been able to act upon because of the demands of the cookery. Yet I am not making enough money with the cookery to just coast a little. It is quite physically demanding, on my feet a lot, and stooped over counters and sinks and my hands and arms get tired from the chopping and stirring and lifting. I like the work, it's not bad as jobs go, but something's gotta give pretty soon. Consequently, I am in the process of thinking and planning, figuring out a way to restore some balance in my life and quite possibly improve all the elements, including health and income. More later....

A Tricky Commission

Last spring a close friend wanted me to do a painting of her grandson in a manner similar to one I'd done of his big sister several years ago. A simple enough request, but it did present some challenges. The little girl's portrait came about after seeing her nearly on a daily basis for a long time. I had a sense of her and would also see her during the course of working on the painting.

Flash forward six years--a lot has changed. We moved away, my painting style has evolved, and I last saw the little boy when he was still an infant. My friend sent a cute picture of him, Steve took a photo of the original painting for me to work from, and I finally worked up the focus to give it a go. Then I forgot to take a photo of the finished painting before giving it to my friend. But it's done, and I am glad.

Free-Form Knittting--Meg Style

I periodically go through times of retreat, when forces in the world around me cause mental, emotional, and/or physical turmoil, enough to render me very quiet. It was like that for the past couple of months. I won't go into it here, no point, really, but the sum total of everything made me not know what to say about anything at all. Or even to paint. Times like that do call for some sort of comfort, and knitting is mine.

Last winter I knitted like a madwoman, making sweaters for family and myself. This year, nobody needed another sweater, honestly. Plus buying more yarn is not part of the current budget. I did, however, have a big plastic storage box full of leftover yarn from the past 40 years. Nuts, I know. I toyed with the idea of a crazy quilt made of knitted and crocheted patches of leftover yarn, but knitting off from each section rather than sewing or joining pieces together. My daughter-in-law Amy, an avid crocheter, sent me links to free-form crochet sites, so then I knew there was a name for what I wanted to do. I started in November, and I'm still working on it. It's large enough now, though, to keep me warm while I work on it. Steve took some pics of what I've got so far:

Whimsical Paintings

The nice thing about Twitter is the ease of following links put up by the people you follow, a kind of free-and-easy process that doesn't have any strings attached or demand more time than you have to give. The artist Justin Vining is one of those young, high-energy Twitterers who posts links to art-related things with a frequency I find amazing. I seldom have enough time to investigate them.

This morning, however, I got up at 5 a.m. in anticipation of an early morning meeting with customers in the cookery. Had time for my usual coffee and browsing the news on the laptop, but very little news was posted that early. So I went to Twitter and looked at all the recent links posted by the people I follow, and came across Justin's link to Whimsical Paintings . This site is very new, and so far consists of a partial page of thumbnail images which link to the artists' websites. Yet I recognized some kindred spirits there, and immediately made arrangements to list with it, the first time I have ever felt compelled to do this sort of thing. The organizer only asks for reciprocal linking or mention in a blog, which is what I am doing in this post.

But it is not the only purpose of this post. Something is happening in my artist-head over the past few weeks, which is the realization that my art is gaining its own identity. This is quite different than having one's own identity as an artist. I am experiencing a sort of wonderment at how different and yet natural it is. Looking forward to exploring more genre sites and seeing where it all leads....