Jananas

Sometimes we forget how much we’ve accomplished or what we’ve done or how much we’ve changed. For posterity’s sake, here’s my 2009 recap.

• I graduated with my Masters of Bad Assery
• I was editor of our yearbook and turned things around so that we made a profit
• I went on a month long road trip around North America, seeing 22 states, both coasts, and all three countries
• I celebrated Emily & Zach’s and Chris & Kerri’s weddings with them
• I spent time at the cottage and loved it, even if it did nothing but rain
• I taught myself how to can and preserve food – making pickles and jam and salsas
• I knit one afghan, three sweaters, four pairs of socks, one stuffed bunny rabbit, and more hats/mitts/scarves/cowls that I can count. And that’s forgetting a tonne and doesn’t include the list of crocheted items.
• I started going to my local stitch ‘n bitch group and am stoked to have new friends who love yarn as much as I do
• I wrote two knitting patterns, one of which has gotten over 10,000 hits a month since it went up
• I celebrated eight years of being in my house
• I started painting and became more comfortable embracing my creative side and skills
• I visited Montreal, Niagara Falls, and Casa Loma here in Toronto
• I took a chance and was brave and traveled around south east Asia for 9 weeks, seeing Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, and Vietnam. I’m proud that I went, because there were times when it seemed like it wouldn’t happen and because I’m notoriously fond of being at home.
• I lost someone very important to me and whom I’ll miss
• I adopted a dog from Thailand, who arrived the same day as Gerry’s celebration of life was held
• I got better at doing & being, rather than just thinking. I learned how to get up and just do something when the thought crossed my mind, rather than letting it sit on my to do list for weeks.

Most importantly, I loved Jason and spent as much time with him as humanly possible for two people who live in different countries. His student visa was approved this morning and he should be here this evening! After 2.5 years of dating and dealing with borders, being able to be together is an amazing way to end 2009.

And I’m excited for 2010. I’m excited to see where my job search ends up. I’m excited to keep moving and to keep moving forward. I’m excited to grow. I’m excited to keep spending time with Jason, with my mini zoo, with my friends.

I’ve had a post rattling around in my head for a few months. I’m going to attempt to get it down in writing, although I’d ask that you bear with me as I’m sure that the sentiment behind it will get refined over time.

There’s a simple question. Why do I knit? The supplies cost money and it takes a lot of my time to finish projects. There are moments when I walk into stores and pick up something (a hat or a sweater) and there’s no way that I’d be able to make it as cheaply as they can sell it for. And yet, that doesn’t stop me from knitting things for myself and for friends.

So why do I bother?

Because of the story.

Because behind every finished project there’s a story. The yarn I buy has a story – where the yarn is from (renn faire or thailand or a farmer’s market or the handspun I traded for a pair of knit mittens or that was a gift from a friend). Each knitted item has a story – how I felt when I was working on the project, what was going on in my life when I picked up the needles, how to yarn felt going through my fingers, or even where I was when working on a project (a roadtrip, airport, other city, stitch ‘n bitch session). Even the reason a project exists has a story – was it an order for a friend or a relaxing knit or for a particular event (like my graduation sweater). Every single step in a knitting project has a story.

Because of the memory.

I have afghans that both my grandmother and my nana knit. Even though they’ve both passed on, I have a memory of something that they made with their own hands for me. Everytime I use them, it reminds me of them and the good times we had.

I can only hope that my own knitting projects will impact other people’s lives in the same way. That it creates a bond between me and them. Something that I created and loved is out there in the world, hopefully making things better for someone else and cheering them up.

Because it connects me to the world.

When my friend Tim moved to Australia for work, he donated all of his winter gear. He kept one hat and it was one that I made him. Not only is something I made traveling the world, its special. Its a memory and a bond.

And so I knit and give things away. Because it connects me to the world. Because it lets me tell stories. Because its a way to pass on memories. Because I love doing it.

This fall, Kerri (Jason’s sister) sent me an awesome Kerr-package full of yarn-y goodness. It wasn’t completely selfless as there was a ball of yarn and a pattern for a baby sweater in the box as well (I got the hint!), but there was more than enough yarn porn to make up for some baby sweater knitting labour. Part of what was included was two balls of Brown Sheep Lanaloft Sports Weight in their Autumn Run colourway. I pulled it out of my stash last week and started trying to think of something to make. I spent some time searching through Ravelry to see what other people had made in the same yarn, but almost everything was made in non-variegated yarns. Eventually I came across this project for felted coasters, which I incidentally already have a copy of in my personal knitting book library.

So I cast on and knit away. This pattern was fun. Partly because the coasters are a simple garter stitch and each one is so small that they knit up fast, which made me feel like I was accomplishing a lot (one done, check. two done, check). Even better, it was my first time trying to felt something on purpose [aside, I accidentally felted a cowl I knit last year when it went through the wash with my laundry. oops!]. I have a front loader, which apparently isn’t as good for felting (my guess would be due to lower water volumes and less soap = less agitation). Regardless, these didn’t have to be perfect so I threw them into the washer and did my laundry. Finishing a knitting project and doing my laundry at the same time is great. And efficient.

This is the coasters pre-felting. I had cast on with 26 stitches and attempted to knit double stranded until approximately square. Turns out that these felted down to be a little too big to be coasters (not by much though). Oh well, these are the sort of things that you learn on your first attempt! I ran them through the wash once and they came out felted. However, I could still see the garter stitch pattern. I ran them through again, but they didn’t change much. Oh well!

Still, they felted and I think that they look nice. The colours make these a good antidote to cold autumn winds. I wanted to add something a little more, so I pulled out my needle felting supplies and went to work. Needle felting the detail on these was easy and quick (probably because I didn’t try anything super fancy or finicky).

And this is the end result of my first attempt at felting and my first attempt at combining knitting and needle felting. Overall, I’m really impressed with how modern these look. Even better, because they are already felted I can just toss them into the washer when they get dirty and I don’t have to worry that they’ll shrink any more.

Plus, now that I know how easy (and fun) this project is I’ll definitely add it to my repetoire of last minute & housewarming gifts.

Before we left for Asia we hit up art in the park at Trinity Bellwoods. We saw some art that we quite liked, including Jamie MacLean‘s painting entitled Hidden Barn. My parents have a tradition of giving us artwork so I sent my dad a message letting him know how much I liked this particular painting. On Christmas morning one of the last presents I opened was an envelope that contained a note card that simply read ‘go check your mom’s closet’. Needless to say, it was Jamie’s painting and it looked just as amazing and awe inspiring as I remembered.

Its large at 36″h X 48″w, but thankfully I have lots of wall space so hanging it is no problem. I am going to move some other pieces around, but I know where I want to hang it. Its still at my parents as we didn’t have enough room to fit it into the car last night because of the dog.

I’m stoked! And Jamie’s story is pretty neat too and seems awfully fitting with much of what I’ve written about in the last few weeks. Here’s an excerpt from his cv on the Canadian Artist’s website linked above.

“While I have painted intermittently since adolescence, only since late 2003 have I become passionate about my art. Surprisingly, this zeal was kick-started during a seminar on how to operate a consulting business. During the self evaluation sessions, the course leader often asked when we were going to embrace the challenge of our individual dreams – If not now, when?”

So when are you going to start living your dream?

While I was in Thailand I adopted a dog. I had to pay for his crate and flight home and Paypal was the only timely option to pay for it. So I made an abnormally large payment, especially when compared to my normal eBay or etsy purchases, and my account was essentially blocked due to suspected fraud. Not unexpected on my part. They even sent me an email to notify me, which I was thankful for.

So I login in an attempt to rectify the situation. They ask me to change me password and security question, check and check. Get that finished and they need me to confirm that I’m me. There are several ways that I can do this…

1. I can confirm my location… Except that I’m in another country without access to most of my bills (which have my address) and access to a fax machine/ability to mail info in. I do have some electronic bills, but their system doesn’t accept pdfs and instead only accepts jpgs or gifs. Only my bills are sent as pdfs, so I would have had to take a screen capture or convert the file or something – all things that are a little difficult to do when I’m not at my own computer. And all things that require me, as the customer to go through another step to get them the information. So I’m already a little annoyed. [As an aside, I asked the CSR when I called in tonight why they didn't accept pdfs and their answer was that its because pdfs can contain viruses. Yup, totally possible. But (and to me this is a big But), you are an internet company. You should be able to handle some level of attack by viruses if only because its going to happen at some point. What you shouldn't do is make it difficult for your customers to get you the information that you're asking for. Don't make them wait longer than necessary. Don't make them convert files (many of them may not have the skill set necessary to even do that). Its simple - make it easy for your customers to deal with you.]
2. I can confirm my bank account or credit card number… On the Paypal website my bank account or credit card numbers appear as XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-1234 (credit card example used because its easier for me to remember the number of digits). So I would have assumed that ‘confirming’ this would mean entering the entire number, e.g. 1234-1234-1234-1234. If they match, then voila, I’m me. Nope. What this meant was that I could add another bank account or credit card and undergo the process where Paypal sends a couple of pennies, I confirm the exact amount and then the account has been added to my list. But this takes a few days and I may not want Paypal to have access to even more of my account information. Or I may just not have any other accounts. Regardless, this isn’t “confirming” my information its adding new information, which is not the same thing.
3. I can confirm my telephone number. Now I couldn’t do this while traveling because I didn’t have my phone with me while I was in Asia (for obvious expensive Canadian roaming reasons). However, when I looked into this some more this evening Paypal doesn’t even confirm mobile phone numbers. Really? Lets take a step back and think about who uses your service. I’m going to make some wild assumptions here and guess that it tends to be younger, internet savvy people. Who probably use their mobile exclusively and have ditched their landlines in the last few years (if not way before that). In fact, the only people I know who still have landlines are my parents. And they certainly aren’t buying things on eBay. Again, its simple – make sure that your policies make sense for your customers.

I’d forgotten that I hadn’t dealt with this and then went and bought something on eBay tonight. Something that had to be paid for right away. So I called in and had the block removed from my limited account. And the kicker, their 800 number was US only so I got to pay long distance charges to talk to a person because their system was so badly set up that I couldn’t do something simple on my own.

Its things like this that make me wonder. What use is policy if it makes it difficult for your customers to do what you want? Where does common sense belong in the decision making process? Why isn’t there more of a focus on usability?

These aren’t mistakes that are unique to Paypal. Rather, this experience highlights some of the things that frustrate me so much about most businesses.