Of Motorcycles and Crochet

Back in mid to late 2000, I decided to learn to crochet.  I wanted to be able to make things for my future children.  A lefty friend of my mother gave me a few basic lessons and off I went.  I made wreaths, blankets, a sweater, doilies...anything that struck my fancy.  As will happen with enough practise, I got better.  My skills improved and I took on more challenging patterns.  Eventually I started modifying patterns slightly to suit myself. 

In late summer of 2002 my husband decided to teach me to ride a motorcycle.  We’d been doubling up on his Norton Commando for a few years at that point, but now he wanted to get me a bike of my own.  I wasn’t sure what I should ride, but my husband found a really neat 3-year-old Harley Davidson for me that had only 3000 km on it. I signed up for the motorcycle rider’s course but had months until it started.  So, I had a few lessons from my husband on how to ride and we were off.  We rode everywhere.  It didn’t take me long to find a motorcycle group that operates like a service club and join. 

Over the next ten years or so I spent a lot of time riding or hanging out with my club members.  We fundraised lots of money for local charities and had a lot of fun, meeting a lot of other bikers while doing it.  I also spent a lot of time crocheting various things for my son, friends and family. 

Early last year I had a brainwave.  Why didn’t I combine my two passions?  I proposed to the club that I would make an afghan throw with the Harley logo on it and donate it to the club.  They could sell raffle tickets on it and raise some funds for our favourite charity.  The club members were keen so now I really had my work cut out for me. 

First, I had to source out a pattern.  I was sure I’d be able to find one somewhere.  Somewhere?  Anywhere?  It didn’t exist.  No such thing had been created.  Then I discovered, by following various links, that someone had in fact created an afghan pattern.  I contacted the designer and she offered her pattern to me, which I gratefully accepted.  Unfortunately, when I looked at the pattern, I realized that several things just didn’t work for me in the design.  Now understand that I’m not criticizing the pattern, just saying that it didn’t work for me.  One big thing that pattern did do for me is it inspired me!  I decided to try my hand at making my own graph.  So, I studied the Harley logo and made my design.  I then decided to make flames like the style we’ve all seen on so many bikes.  These were tricky, but I figured it out.  The whole pattern design was a huge learning process for me.  I’m sure there are many easier ways to create a graph, but I stuck to the tried-and-true pencil and paper method. 

Now that I had a pattern, I had to get the yarn.  That part was fairly easy, but I also needed something to use as a backing fabric as I figured it would save me having to carefully hide the yarn ends on the reverse of the afghan.  What a stroke of luck to find an orange fleece that exactly matched the orange in the logo!  Next I had to figure out the mechanics of how to actually crochet the thing. 

First I tried making my row and then turning the chain to proceed back and forth.  While this worked well using only black, once I started into the colours of the pattern, I quickly realize this would not work at all for the effect I wanted.  Next I tried an afghan hook and doing the afghan (or Tunisian) stitch.  I didn’t have an afghan hook long enough.  With 200 stitches on the hook, it was jammed so tight I couldn’t really work it.  I looked for a hook with a long extension, but had no luck.  I decided to make one and while I did succeed, in a limited sort of way, once again I discovered that it worked great for black only, but once into the pattern I didn’t care for the effect.  By now I was used to cutting my yarn and starting over.  The fourth time turned out to be the charm.  I made my foundation chain.  I left long tails at start and finish and cut the yarn.  Back to the beginning, I made my first row.  I left long tails and cut the yarn.  Back to the start and repeat.  At last, I achieved the look I wanted! 

Working around my busy work schedule, I managed to get the throw done in time for the club’s annual summer party, which is usually attended by about 700 people.  One of my friends took custody of the blanket and showed it off as she sold books of raffle tickets....and in fact, she sold out all the tickets.  I was very excited that the club successfully sold all its tickets and made so much from the blanket.  When I made the draw, I was very pleased to see that a member from another chapter had won it.  His wife was thrilled and kept it around her shoulders much of the rest of the party as it was fairly chilly that summer. 

A few weeks later, she approached me about making another afghan for them.  They wanted this one to be personalized and to have the Yamaha V-Star logo on it.  While they loved the Harley afghan, they ride a V-Star.  After all the work I’d had to do on the Harley one, I told her I needed to think about it.  A month after that I said I was still thinking.  In the meantime, I’d been all over the Internet trying to find a V-Star pattern, or at least a V-Star logo in a usable size.  Once again it wasn’t meant to be.  I still hadn’t actually decided to do it, though, and in fact was disinclined to do so.  The next month she asked me again.  I told her I couldn’t even think about starting until late the following spring.  She didn’t mind that.  I told her it would be prohibitively expensive.  She asked how much and I quoted the price for materials, plus an extra amount to stitch it up.  I figured that would put her off.  Imagine my surprise when she agreed and I suddenly found myself creating my second graphgan. 

So now I have two motorcycle logo graphs that I’ve created.  I thought to upload them to Ravelry, but they rejected the upload because of the copyright matter.  I can’t say I blame them.  At any rate, here are my pictures.  The Harley blanket is finished, but the V-Star is still a work in progress.  I’ll update the post with final pictures as it’s done.   Enjoy!

 

Harley afghan completed summer 2014

V-Star afghan design - crocheting currently in progress

Back in Time and Off to Scotland

One of my favourite authors, Diana Gabaldon, has a new book called "Written in My Own Heart's Blood".  

I was introduced to Ms. Gabaldon's Outlander series several years ago by one of my friends, another avid reader like myself.  The series follows the life of a woman who, post World War I, steps through a break in time while visiting some standing stones (think "Stonehenge") in Scotland and steps back two hundred years.  She meets a man and marries but returns through the stones before the great Highland battles.  She returns to live with her present-day husband up until his death, raising her daughter by her Highland husband of the ancient past.  Through several books we follow the adventures of this couple and their family.  It's been a few years now since the last book, so the new one is sitting in my living room, singing its siren call as it waits for me to finish up some other projects so I can devote some time to reading it.  

Finally there is to be a television series based on the book series.  I can only guess that with the tv
show due to start, the decision was made to do a tour to coincide with the tv show and the release of the book.  When I saw a link recently on the Outlander facebook page that connected to Ms. Gabaldon's home page, I followed it.  Consequently I signed up for her blog and discovered that she would be signing autographs in three cities within a three-hour drive of where I live.  I decided to go to the closest one (a mere one and a half hours away) and asked one of my coworkers if she wanted to go, too.  I'd introduced her to the Outlander series a couple of years ago so she was also keen to go.  

We drove to Barrie and had no idea how long the line would actually be before we were able to meet Ms. Gabaldon and have her sign our new books.  It was touch and go for a while because my co-worker drove us there and she had to leave by a certain time, but we made it and we got our books signed. 

Me and Diana Gabaldon, June 22, 2014

The Shocking State of "Modern" Education

In the Fall my son’s school conducted some standardized testing.  A few weeks later the results of these tests were mailed to us and I read them, filing the document away afterwards.  In the early Spring we got a phone call asking us to come in for a meeting with the principal, the teacher, the school’s proctor (my son’s French teacher), and a rep from the Board of Education.

At this meeting we were informed that our son is gifted, according to his test results.  While this result was not really a surprise to me, what did surprise me was that the school had called us in for a meeting about it.  I was surprised because being a small rural school, they have no facility for effectively dealing with or managing gifted children.  I think the days of promoting kids beyond their age level have gone by the wayside.  It’s probably just as well because since it is a small school of only 130 kids, any kid that was either failed or promoted would have to endure endlessly being singled out as “different” by their peers.  This would doubtless continue right up until high school graduation as the friends made in kindergarten are the same kids he will eventually graduate with. 

The school’s proposition was to create an “Independent Education Plan” which would outline ways in which to challenge my son’s strengths while providing remedial attention on his struggling areas of learning.  At our request, further more in-depth testing was effected in order to determine what my son’s strengths and struggles might be.  A few weeks after that testing was completed, a further meeting was set up to discuss the results.  This was the “Identification, Placement and Review Committee” and included the same people as before. 

At this IRPC meeting the list of identified strengths and needs once again didn’t really present any surprises to me.  Never fear, though, as there were a number of things that not only surprised me, but some completely blew me out of the water. 

One of my questions to them was about spelling in the curriculum.  The answer was that beyond the primary grades (1 to 3), they no longer have spelling per se.  Rather, and this shocked me for several reasons, they have a computer program that allows a child to type in the first few letters of a word and the program makes a list of several suggested words.  The child scrolls through the list, clicking each one, and the computer says each word as it’s clicked.  Then the child simply selects the right word by its sound and it is inserted into their document.  WHAT?  I mean, WHAT??  How on earth will children learn to spell if they aren’t taught to? 

Then I asked about cursive writing.  I know that email and typed communication of one form or another has pretty much taken over writing, but I believe this skill is still necessary.  Imagine my surprise when I was informed that they no longer teach cursive writing!  I asked how my son would ever sign a marriage certificate or a mortgage application if he couldn’t write, but there was no answer.  I’m still gobsmacked over this one and have decided I will teach my son this summer. 

The list continues:  the teachers say my son is having a hard time with research.  I dropped that one right back in their laps.  I said that they should not assume that every child has free access to a computer or that they have developed the skills the school deems necessary.  I told them before they plunk a kid in front of a monitor with the Google page open and tell them to research something, the school should first make sure that those same kids actually know how to use Google!   

Now I realize why so many young people are heading off to college and university so ill-prepared for it.  In September when my son's teacher asks, "What did you do on your summer vacation?" my ten-year-old son will reply, "I learned how to write, how to spell, and how to multiply and divide."  What will your child say?  Take action now so they can say the same.  Our children's education is no longer provided by the educators, it's provided by us. 

Good Customer Service

I had an interesting conversation with my dad the other day.  We were discussing the completely lousy customer service we had each recently experienced in two different cities at stores belonging to the same national chain of crappy tire & hardware stores.  During the conversation, I told my father that one of my coworkers, who lives in yet another city, had told me on Friday about a very positive and helpful experience she’d had at the same chain in her local town.  My dad commented, “Wow, you don’t hear that too often.” 

This is what made the conversation so interesting:  We found it remarkable that the store provided good customer service!  It left me reflecting later on the fact that the service at this particular chain has degraded so much that we accept poor service and bad attitude as the norm and remark on it when we receive good service.  Has our world devolved to this? 

My late best friend kept a gratitude journal for years.  Each day she would jot down something for which she was grateful, even if sometimes it was only that the day was finally over.  She was visiting me in my new rural locale a few years after I moved out of the big city (where she lived) and I brought her to town to shop.  There is a Sears store in the mall in the small city of 27,000 or so that is a half hour from my home.  My friend was able, with some assistance from the clerk, to find what she was looking for and decided to buy it.  As she paid, the clerk offered her a smile and wished her a nice day.  I had shopped at this Sears several times and so I thought nothing of this until my friend grabbed my arm as we left the store and said, “She smiled at me and I think she meant it.”  She was completely thrown off because the clerk smiled, made eye contact, wished her a pleasant day…and meant it.  My friend actually decided to write about this in her gratitude journal that night.  Having lived in the big city, I completely understood why.  Interactions with strangers are so brief and impersonal, often without eye contact, and often not even all that polite or pleasant. 

I know that stores need to know when things are not going well for their customers, but stores also need to know when things are going well.  Pick up a pen (or your computer keyboard) and write a note to the store’s management.  Let them know that you’ve received exceptional (for these days) service, on which date you were at their establishment, and exactly who helped you in such a positive way.  It’s these outstanding staff that can turn your lousy experience into a positive one that leaves you smiling and these people deserve recognition.  Don’t forget to smile back at them, say thank you, and wish them a pleasant day too…and mean it. 

Gingerbread Happy Times

Time has cycled around to November again.  My husband is still off work and although long-term disability runs out in a few months, the honest truth is that I don’t believe he’s anywhere near ready to go back to work yet.  Still, he’s going to make the effort.  After all, we can’t live on nothing and my salary, while good for the area, is nowhere near enough to go it alone.  I do worry about making a nice Christmas for our young son, I can’t help but be thankful for what we do have.  We are all healthy (relatively speaking that is), we do have a roof over our heads, and we have extended family who love us. 

Since it’s going to be a carefully budgeted Christmas, I decided I would be making gifts for those we usually give to.  This list gets smaller every year out of necessity, unfortunately.  So instead of rushing out to the stores and trying to find just the right thing, I decided that gingerbread would be perfect.  My son agreed. 

On my last payday I bought the biggest bag of flour I could find, together with the other needed ingredients.  This weekend the little guy and I are going to make gingerbread.  I have told him that since Christmas is still a few weeks away we would only make the gingerbread at this point.  We will freeze it and then a week before Christmas we will spend a day making it all into gingerbread houses.  I think we can design a relatively little house that will go together fairly quickly.  It will be a lot of fun for the both of us and as he is approaching ten years of age, I know our days of spending quality time together are likely dwindling. 

If I get time before Christmas gets here, I will also make some hard candy.  Who knows, maybe we could fill the little gingerbread houses with candy.   

Granny Square tutorials

I found this blogger's site last year I think it was.  Her tutorials on joining granny squares of same sizes, as well as joining squares of different sizes, are thorough.  There are lots of pictures and coupled with the explanations, you'll be doing this in your sleep in no time.  Thanks for the great tutorials!

things to make and do: granny square tutorial part 3: joining squares of the same size