It’s really hard for me to imagine that a whole season has sped by since I was here with you last.  I have had my head in a million other places, learning a million other things.  When I hibernate for the winter, it seems I really do it up, dreaming away in my cave, mulling plans for the active time to come.  Now the active time has come and, like a bunch of dropped stitches, there are strands of things left undone which have to be picked up and put in their proper places.  Yesterday, I saw robins in my yard, and this week the summer yarns have started to arrive.  These are the signs of a season changing once again.

As with any season change, it is also a time to assess our direction and see if the old plans are still the right ones.  It’s time to take a look around and see what’s actually here, not what I dreamed would be here when I awoke from the winter.  And you know what I see?  Yarn!  Glorious yarn!  Such wonderful summer yarns that I am having all I can do to stick with my design plans and not go haring off into a serious case of startitis.

Um…actually…I have a confession to make.  I have not been able to resist the startitis temptation.  I have a darling skirt back from the test knitter, and a lovely shawl out to the test knitter, and two more concepts with swatches in various states that need to be written up into followable patterns.  But they are old news.  All I want to do is cavort with the Berroco Lago and Universal Bamboo Pop.  I have visions of beach wear and flirty summer laces.  To heck with heavy sweaters; give me mesh tunics that can be thrown over a short skirt and cami for a night of dancing.  My crochet hook is smoking, my knitting needles are steaming, and I’m getting into the summer groove with two different versions of a sleeveless summer duster type vest thingy that can be worn over a bathing suit or can elevate a pair of capris and a tank top to an ensemble.  One will be crochet in Bamboo Pop, one will be knit in Lago.

And I can’t wait to show you the finished products.  The Game of Thrones folks have it backwards…the truth is, winter is over.  Summer is coming!

So the last time we were here together was the day before Christmas eve, and now it’s New Years Eve.  And a wonderful week it has been.  On Christmas Eve I did something I very rarely get to do.  I left at closing time, waving to my beloved Minions as we all made our way across the parking lot to our respective cars and headed into our holiday plans away from each other.  I went to the grocery store to get a couple of last minute things for breakfast on Christmas morning.  Then I remembered I had left something important at the shop.  I came back and saw our shop as I never get to see it.  It was dark and quiet.  I was all alone and everything was…peaceful.

Now, around here, we are many things, but peaceful is not really part of our repertoire.  We bustle and we dance.  We sing and we rearrange.  We knit and crochet and chat.  And there are a lot of us.  Ten people share our small office space.  There is always someone coming or going through all of our doors.  And then there are the customers and friends who come in to shop or just hang around.  It is a humming hive of activity in here.  But not on Christmas Eve.  This is how it was on Christmas Eve.

I got the thing I came for, then I just sat in one of the chairs up front.  And I drank in the quiet.  At this time of year, I tend toward the retrospective, and I did a bit of that.  In my retrospection it seemed strange to me that last year at this time, I didn’t know any of these people who now fill my store, my office, my days and my life.  A year ago.  It seems like forever.  Really, haven’t I known these people for, like, ever?  Last year at this time, I had an entirely different vision of what our shop would look like.  Now it looks and feels so just right it seems impossible that I could ever have had a different notion.  Strange how things come to pass.

But retrospection was only part of my reverie, the jumping off place.  What really hit home was the future stretching before me.  Looking toward future Christmases, I realized how very like a family we have already become and how we knit ourselves closer together all the time.  And we are already creating the memories we will carry with us.  We have our rhythms and we have our inside jokes.  We know each other’s preferences and make room for each others’s moods.  Each hand made ornament on this year’s tree has a story.

Jennifer’s Needle Felted Thumb Warming Kitty of Affirmation

The traditional Christmas Squid

Ruffle scarf garland…finally the perfect application for that stuff!   And Kristin’s beautiful bell that she got done just under the wire.

Justine’s radioactively genetically modified  Mothra Dove of Peace.  Man, that thing is huge!

Corwin’s statement against consumerism and the corporate agenda and…something…umm…about…yeah.  But it’s hand made, so it counts.

Allison’s cute little mitten.  For such a humbug, she sure went traditional.

As I sit here on the edge of the new year and dangle my feet into the flow of time that hasn’t happened yet, I want to archive these moments.  These will be the things I remember next year.  And before I make the dive into the future, I want to pack up a few things to take with me.  A backpack full of future memories to anchor me to this pivoting, swinging, revolving moment between times.  These will all hang on our future trees, and we’ll remember.  For now, looking forward and looking back, taking stock and making plans, I wish you all the happiest, fullest, most prosperous new year.  I wish you peace.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and, though we’ll be closed on Christmas day, we want to give you something fun and special.  It has been six months since we opened and you have all made this first half year a wonderful ride.  So…  all day tomorrow, we’ll be offering a Mystery Discount.  When you’re all done shopping and bring you yarn to the register, you can pick a chocolate.  On the chocolate there will be a sticker.  Under the sticker there will be a number.  That number will be your Mystery Discount.  Maybe it will be 10%.  Maybe you’ll get 20% or 30%.  Some lucky few will get 40% off their last minute purchases.

Come in for a cup of hot mulled cider and a cookie.  Sing a carol with us if the inspiration strikes you.  We’ll be here, and we’ll be filled with good cheer and gratitude for a holiday season that has you all it it.  The Mystery Discount is our way of saying, “Thank you” for your support.  You have no idea how you inspire us, or what we have in store for you next year.  Stick with us, kids, and together we’ll make the new year happy and bright.

A week ago my desk was clean.  I can’t take credit for it.  On a day when I didn’t come in until afternoon, one of The Minions (Thank you, Corwin) couldn’t stand it anymore and cleaned it for me.  See, I am one of those creative types that enjoys the process of taking things out and getting started, but the process of putting things away…not so much.  Plus, when The Minions can’t find any other place to put something, they put it on my desk, usually with my collusion.  So my own creative whirlwind and the collective confusion of the whole store come together in a fantastic explosion on my desk.  So, Corwin cleaned my desk.  A week ago.

Today my desk looks like this…

Now, maybe I seem just a little bit obsessed with desks this week, but they seem so illustrative of my philosophy of organization.  See, I also believe in the beauty and satisfaction of accidental inspiration.  I know they say that art is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.  But I would argue that that is true for people with clean desks and organized minds.  If you set yourself in a direction, sure, you’ll find what you are looking for along the way.  But haven’t you ever had a moment when you weren’t looking for it and inspiration just whaps you in the head and you become enchanted with a new idea you didn’t even have on your radar?  Those are the sublime moments that come when you haul all your old knitting magazines out to look for that zip up the back baby sweater pattern and find instead an exquisite shawl that you don’t remember ever seeing before…though you must have since it’s your magazine and you always read them cover to cover.  Still, there it is and it reminds you of that beautiful lace weight silk blend you have in stash.  And before you can even explain what happened, you’re casting on with a song in your heart, grateful that inspiration has taken you in again.  You’re in love and everything is rosey.

Oh, I know about spreadsheets and plans and schedules and knitting hats in March and putting them away in the Christmas box and production outweighing whimsy.  And I do that, too.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about inspiration, and surrendering to the moment when the moment reaches out for you.

Today, another of The Minions asked if she could reorganize the books.  See, they had been organized alphabetically by authors last name and Zofia was having trouble finding what she was looking for when she didn’t know who wrote a book.  She wanted to put hat books with hat books, and sock books with sock books, etc.  Now, I have no objection to organizing books.  Once upon a time I thought I might grow up to be a librarian.  I have always loved libraries and book stores, those temples to inspiration.  But my favorite part was the card catalog…remember the card catalog?  I can’t tell you how many time I went flipping through the card catalog at random and found something surprising and wonderful.  I also loved just wandering through the stacks, offering myself up for inspiration to jump off the shelf at me.  I don’t mind organizing books by title, or by author’s last name, or by theme, or by color of the binding.  And in the collaborative environment here at OTR, anyone can pretty much do anything they want in the way of organization and be pretty sure half the folks will like it okay, and the other half of the folks will find it a little annoying.  Until someone else decides to re-organize according to some new principle.  And our book section, while being a decent size and growing, is no match for an actual library or book store.  It’s not hard or time consuming to re-organize, change it up a bit.

But I have one small, niggling, little difficulty.  Some books have hats and socks…not to mention baby sweaters and tea cozies…in them so it would be hard to figure out how to classify them, but that doesn’t bother me.  Some books are predominantly pattern books and some are predominantly technique or design reference books and it would be hard to figure out how to place books that have both, but that doesn’t bother me either.  My difficulty is, if someone comes in looking for a worsted weight hat pattern and goes to the worsted weight hat pattern book section…then goes to get the suggested worsted weight yarn and needles…how in the world will they be inspired by the lace weight vintage bed jacket that would be the perfect holiday gift for someone?

I encourage everyone to “misfile” things occasionally.  You know, instead of putting all the lace weight yarn in one place, put a beautiful bunch of Artyarns hand beaded silk lace weight in with the DK yarns.  You never know where the next inspiration could come from.  No one has card catalogs anymore, and there are libraries where they don’t even let you browse the stacks.  I love my messy desk for what it reveals every time I turn something over and my only partially organized stuff that gives me enough structure that I always know where things are but not so much that I always know where things are.  I know.  That doesn’t make much sense.  But striking a balance between eclectic mess and organization, that’s what leaves me open to serendipity and discovery.