- suewaldeck
Build the barn
I once read a story about how much work it is to make a sweater truly from scratch. The story's focus was the cost, but it applies for time as well. First you need several acres of land. Then you build the barn and put up the fences. Then you need to get sheep, food, bedding etc. By the time you have raised the sheep, sheered them for fleeces, spun the yarn to knit the sweater with you had years invested.
The 'barn' for Log Cabin Fiber Co was built years ago. I didn't know it at the time but the Christmas I was about 10 my mother gave me 2 plastic knitting needles and a ball of bright yellow yarn was the beginning of a lifelong love of knitting. I needed her to cast on, then I did garter stitch over and over until the yarn was gone, then it was torn out and reknit. In, around, through, out. In, around, through, out. And that was all she taught me despite being a lifelong knitter herself.
In reality I suppose the love didn't really start there. I didn't like the yellow, the yarn became
increasingly fuzzy as it was knit over and over and the plastic needles flexed while being pushed through my too-tight stitches. I threw them out and didn't knit again until after college, when my friend Renee and I lived together for a few years, and we would to knit to stay warm in the house we rented but struggled to pay the heat for. We didn't have the internet and Ravelry back then. We'd get acrylic yarn and Paton's patterns on sale from Woolco and Towers and knit like crazy.
Those days bundled under blankets at midnight watching St Elsewhere, planning our futures, dreaming and knitting were the foundation for my life now. And as I sit here, 359 days away from retirement after 34 years of being an RN, the excitement at starting a new chapter, using the 'barn' built all those years ago, is energizing.
Log Cabin Fiber Co is owned and operated by my husband Geoff and myself. He doesn't knit, sew, dye or craft in anyway at all. But he can build a car from the ground up, program a computer, fix anything and is generally known as The Professor [remember Gilligan's Island?] by his friends. He's going to come in really handy!
Sue