The Amazing Adventures of Tom and Bel

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Back at Last!

Good grief. Make an 1800-mile move and somehow, your whole world gets turned around.
Who'da thunkit?


So: I've come crawling back to Blogger because the server on which tomandbel.com resided is no more, and my beloved Boy-O has yet to put that back together. I will not argue neglect, etc., as he insists we'll get it done.
However, we've been in Oregon for almost six months. I'm not holding my breath.

Besides, it's not as if we've been sitting on our collective duff while I was away from the blog.
We have:
  • Moved to a nice apartment in the lovely suburbs
  • Discovered we hated it
  • Been invaded by fleas (well, the dogs, not us)
  • Moved (again) to a house in the city
  • Re-discovered the joys of walking (and having places to walk to that are worthy of the effort!)
  • Bought new laptops (Oh! The freedom! Whoo-hoo!)
  • Found work to do that we both enjoy
When last I posted on tomandbel, I mentioned that I had a big thing to post about.
Then the blog died. Maybe it was the rush of readers wanting to see what that was about? (Hah!) I don't know.

Anyway, here it is: I accepted the position of design coordinator at Knit Picks.
I am now a Yarn Professional.
(Heh. How weird does that sound?)

It's been almost six months. So far, so good. It is definitely work, but it is satisfying in a way that continues to surprise me.
(Every time I receive my paycheck, I think "Wow. They're seriously giving me money to do this? Cool.")

If you get the catalog or the KP emails, you've already seen some of my work.
There's certainly more where that came from - I'm really thrilled about the projects that are coming out in the next couple of weeks (next week's email will be a special treat, I promise you!).

As you might imagine, the change from hobbyist and sometime instructor to full-time yarn worker has been a bit of a roller coaster. I've been so used to knitting as a separate category in my life that I am sometimes at a bit of a loss. Taking a craft/hobby/passion that means so much to me and putting dollar values and deadlines to it still feels odd. I don't believe that I've cheapened it (I wouldn't categorize my knitting as rarefied art), but it is a new perspective for me.

As a complete control freak, I still get wound up in knots about it. I can't possibly do all of the knitting that needs doing, yet my instinct is to do exactly that. When I knit for myself, I perfect and adjust as I go. But when I'm creating instructions for a test knitter to follow, I need to have thought everything out beforehand. It's a serious frustration for me, because I do enjoy the process of working it through.

But those are smaller quibbles, in the scheme of things. I love what I do and feel incredibly lucky to be able to do it.

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