some favorite people....

This has been a very quiet week in the fiber-arts world.  Artisan Knitworks LLC has been so quiet that I have wondered why I was coming in each day.   School is over this week; parents are re-grouping; and the weather has been, shall we say, uncongenial.  But today I was reminded all over again why I come in.   Here are photos of two nifty people -- Wanda (in the gorgeous golden dress, fresh from church) and Eileen, otherwise known as Miss Wiggins....with her shiny new two-at-a-time socks.    Thanks to both of them for being in our lives.    svb

meet......BUBBA

and here is our beautiful but stunningly stupid cat, Bubba.   A picture tells all...!       svb

Back from Columbus!

Every year, the National Needlarts Association (TNNA) has several expos around the country -- in summer, for fall and winter wares, and in winter for spring/summer goods (there are also a couple of cash-and-carry shows, mostly for needlepoint).  Usually, though not invariably, the summer show is in Columbus, Ohio.  This is a show for retailers and designers only, not the public.   It features all of North America's (and some of Europe's) best makers of yarns, needleart fibers, tools, and other, related goods.  There are dozens of classes, some of them related to craft, others to retail.  It's huge, and it is especially huge in summer.  When you think yarn, after all, what do you think?  WOOL.   Winter.   Fall.  So -- that's the biggest show.

It's impossible to capture the scale of things in photographs.  But here are some examples.  Multiply things visually by ten or twenty times at each side.  Click to enlarge.

 

 

 

   I confess that I go as much to see good friends and to see what's in designers' minds as I do to see yarn.   Here's one of those friends -- Heidi from Trendsetter:

.......here is an amazing coat on display at the Koigu booth -- just stunning, a modular knit.  (If you don't know Koigu, it's a Canadian firm -- they make fingering weight handpaint (the best known iteration is a shawl called Charlotte's Web) and some other yarns.   Look at this up close!  Say to yourself, "This was knitted in fine, fingering weight yarn."

And -- blare of trumpets -- here is the wonderful Nick Sielicki, group leader for our Wednesday night knit-crochet group.  Master of multiple languages (Russian, Polish, French, Spanish, on and on) and master of the hook and needle.   He helped me make choices this time -- I just LOVED having young eyes along for the purpose.  We hope that his group will continue to attract not only old farts like me, but young people of both sexes. 

 This year, there was a cash-and-carry component -- a new feature.   So I brought back some beautiful shawl pins, some stunning Alpaca and Merino Bumps (with Big Tools), and samples of things we have placed on order for August and September.    Come have a look.  There bill be a Bag Smith trunk show sometime soon (with more Bumps!).         svb

Columbus HO! (also Columbus OH!).

This weekend, Larry and I and the wonderful Nick (who leads our Wed. night knit-crochet group) take off for a long day in Columbus, OH, at the TNNA trade show.   This is the big-deal expo where we can see what the various yarn companies are offering for the upcoming fall-winter season, and where we also can study designs -- I confess that I go mostly to see what is going on in the design and color world.  But -- we get to hug friends.   I also want to introduce Nick to a couple of particularly good friends.   He's there to help me select new, exciting goods for the shop.  He's young; I am (shall we say) less young.   But he's also there to study the scene:   I think that Nick will be a sweater designer before long.   

I will make report when we return -- I hope with some photographs, if the camera works this time.  I am not permitted to photograph the individual vendor booths (the show is huge, and much is copyrighted), but I can sneak some general views of the terrifyingly large market floor with my cell phone, I think.       svb

Children and Work

Tonight, with two wonderful part-time employees in attendance at the Wed. night knit group, there was a fabulous, though troubling, conversation at Artisan Knitworks about minimum wage and children.   We all agreed that nobody on this Earth can survive on less than 16,000 a year.  But then one said -- she thought controversially -- that maybe kids ought to earn less than adults for their first job.  It seems wrong, she reasoned, for a kid with no experience to earn the same fifteen (proposed) dollars as an older, more experienced household head.  I wondered whether kids HAD to earn money most of the time, in the sense of financial necessity, or whether they just wanted 'stuff'; if the latter, I said, maybe they should read books instead.   No better chance to read books will ever appear in any of our lives than when young.  Later, time never appears.   Time has to be made.

So -- what do I really think about this?   The historian in me hears "child labor" in any mention of reduced wages for kids -- that's more or less what people said in, say, the 1890s when they hired kids to run looms or heavy machinery instead of adults ("Kids don't have the life experience, so why should they earn the same amount?") and then of course they'd hire nothing but kids and laugh all the way to the bank.  On the other hand: Kids don't have families to raise.  Moms and dads have greater responsibility ordinarily, unless children are working under extraordinary duress.   I think of the kids who had to get special work permits (all of which began at the turn of the 20th century) to get out of school when schooling became compulsory in order to earn money for the family.

I guess I think, finally, that flipping a hamburger, or running a loom, or washing a car, is the same for kids and adults.   If we pay people based on what they DO, then I think wages should be the same -- maybe a better minimum wage would help kids spend fewer hours working and more hours reading (or walking, or painting).   The real question is how to persuade employers and the citizenry to take THEIR responsibilities seriously:  Work deserves good pay, regular pay raises, and fair treatment.  If unions really bite the dust, then it will be up to policy makers (popularly elected, remember) to insist on it -- that's why we have unions, by the way.  If we want smart leaders, we need to support kids in every sense of the word.  They need to have time to become whatever they COULD become.

This was really the other person's point.  He had a lot of friends who worked in high school, as did he, and most of them did it because, otherwise, they would not have been able to pay for anything -- They had been made responsible for insurance, clothes, etc.   And he reminded us that, in Europe, kids are supported by community and family until they are DONE with their education; they also don't seem to need their own cars -- blare of trumpets -- because they have excellent mass transit and compact cities.

Much food for thought here.   I'm melancholy at the idea that kids are still having to work each and every day, not just as students, but as wage earners.   I did it at age 12 and every year thereafter; I have wondered more times than not what my life might have been like if I could have gone directly to university instead of taking 8 years off to earn money; if I had not had four jobs at age 14, two jobs at age 12.   How many more books could have been read?   How many more books would I have written later in life?   And so on.   What would have happened if I had been able to accept the offer at Yale-- which I turned down because (you guessed it) I needed to continue to help support the family.  And so I went to community college for a year.    What is youth for, if not to gather unto oneself the tools and habits of mind required for later years?   We have forgotten perhaps.  Or perhaps we have never really learned the value of a person's need for quiet, for contemplation, for doing nothing more frenetic than thinking.  If you guys are reading this:  I get it.  I do think the real problem, though, is that we don't support children (we really don't); to spoil kids, or to try to teach them the value of the dollar by making them work at an early age, without serious help from the community or schools, is not to support; nor do we take care of our workers.   It's a sorry condition all around.

svb

Sarah Peasley!!!

Only a few short weeks remain.   Go to our website, or visit your last issue of the Purl Daily (the Artisan Knitworks newsletter) for information about the two fabulous workshops to be held on Saturday, June 6.....Sarah Peasley will join us to teach a morning workshop on Entrelac, and then an afternoon workshop on Intarsia -- an updated, very exciting version of Intarsia (not Santa on a sweater, though you still can do that if you want!).   Free lunch if you sign up for both, plus a nice discount for the double-header.  

Be clear:   I offer courses as do some other very good people at the studio.  But, when we have visitors, it's because they do things that we do NOT do, or, in Sarah's case, do them better than we do.  Visit her website.       She will return in July and August, but with different workshops.    svb   

Give Thought To This.....You? Your friends?

A Special Note for our Friends

We have been saddened to learn that our wonderful shop manager, Ellen Taylor, has been forced by personal circumstance to accept a full-time managerial position in another industry.  For the moment, Sandra VanBurkleo will be stepping in to assume some of Ellen’s responsibilities and to take care of everyone most of the time.  Larry, of course, will be available as usual.   But we also need to hire one or two part-time people to work one or two days a week.  Yarn-shop jobs are never particularly lucrative.   But they are rewarding, and we do offer not only a better-than-usual hourly wage but also a generous in-store discount.  In exchange, the person needs to be at least an intermediate knitter with equivalent crochet skills.  We are looking for someone possessed of both ambition and modesty.  We expect our sales people to be non-smokers, eager to sell and learn, well informed about yarn and tools, cooperative rather than competitive, willing to help us maintain the store without complaint (who likes to vacuum?), and prepared to work evening hours if needed.   If interested, please call Larry, Ellen, or Sandra at 248-427-0804.  Please don't respond on this blog; it's better to discuss such important things in person.    svb