I had a wonderful surprise this morning. I called my Mom around 10:45, only to discover that she was less than 5 minutes from my house!

Now, this did present a bit of a problem, since I was neither showered nor dressed, the sink was full of dishes, the guest room was full of Marcus’s computer boxes, and the dust bunnies were staging a hostile takeover. (I’m sure none of you can tell that I find playing down in my studio much more enjoyable than housework.)

If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s the positively amazing amount of things that can be done when one is given an impossible deadline. By the time Mom entered the house, Marcus had done a quick vacuuming job and I had dressed, washed my face, my hair was more or less presentable (And by “presentable,” I mean “not likely to frighten small children”), and I had done a quick stash and dash of the house.

*”Confounded Relatives” is part of a quote from Mom’s and my favorite movies, The Lord of the Rings. The quote, spoken in its entirety, is, “Confounded relatives! Hanging on the bell all day, never giving me a moment’s peace!” I always say that to Mom when she comes to visit. We are actually watching The Fellowship of the Ring right now. When Mom and I are together, we usually watch either The Lord of the Rings or Gilmore Girls.

Here she is, knitting away on her Einstein coat from The Knit Stitch by Sally Melville. Tiffanie, Mom’s youngest lil Maltese, is unhappily sitting on her lap. Poor Tiff would much rather be at her house or at least upstairs here barking at the flag across the street. (Tiffanie has “issues” with things that move, things that don’t move, and things that may move at some point in the future.)

Mom will be staying until Tuesday and we will sit and knit and knit and watch movies and of course, go shopping. It was a very sad day for Marcus when Mom and I discovered the Pat Catans (craft store) that is 5 minutes from my house. Such beads! Such yarn! So little space left in my fabric room!

Speaking of my fabric room, not to be confused with my studio, I thought I would post some pictures of it. My fabric room is a 10′ x 10′ room off my studio (which is about 12′ x 25′) and is where I keep most of my fabric and now my yarn as well. It is three walls of wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling cubes shelves. Now, before anyone turns too green with envy, we did buy this house because of the studio and did have to sacrifice a bit to get it. Like the fact that the kitchen only has 1 drawer (yes, that’s one. Uno. ) and being so small that we have to keep our pantry in the guest room closet. So don’t be too envious of me.

This is my yarn wall: (Yes, I know that it is very cruel to say “Don’t envy me” and then flash about pictures of my stash. But what can I say? I never said I was nice.)

About half the yarn was acquired in the last few months due to the the closing of my local yarn shop. It is mostly novelty yarn and non-itchy stuff but there is some wool, mostly stuff I have spindle-spun. Quite a bit of yarn for someone who claims to be a non-knitter, as my Mom would say.

Avert thy eyes, O Fabric-aholics! For the following pictures have been known to cause intense fiber lust and an overwhelming desire to knock off the owner and claim her stash for themselves. Look, but beware:

This is a very sloppy Photoshop job of splicing together the two pictures of my main fabric wall. (I can’t stand back far enough to get the whole thing in one shot.) On the left are my batiks, and on the right are my regular cottons. To the far right, which you can’t really see, is a stack of plastic drawers with sorted leftover strips of fabric ranging in 1/4″ increments from 1″ to 2 3/4″.

This is my second fabric wall. This holds my large pieces of fabric for the backs of bed-sized quilts, my flannel fabrics, WIPs (Works In Progress), Christmas fabric, quilt tops to be pinned up and quilted, and pinned up quilts that still need to be quilted. On the top of this wall is my spindle stand that holds my beautiful drop spindles. The bottom cubes are full of my wool to be spun into yarn. (My as yet unspun silk fiber is in the large red hamper on the top row of the yarn wall.)

So there it is. My fabric room. Three walls of fabric, yarn, and spinning fiber. And beads. There is also another shelf next the yarn wall that holds my beads and some other odds and ends. And that doesn’t even include my silk fabric and angelina fiber.

Don’t hate me because I’ve got tons of yummy fabric. Hate me because I’ve got tons of yummy fabric and am willing flaunt it.

I am a fiber artist. I make art quilts. I have been quilting for 11 years now. But something has happened recently.

I have “gotten into yarn.” Notice I do not say “become a knitter.” I have merely “gotten into yarn.” Like a passing phase or fad and certainly NOT an obsession like quilting.

I don’t think that I can say that anymore.

Like most of my problems, it’s my mother’s fault. She was the one who got me into quilting and the two of us happily quilted away, going to quilting retreats together, going on mother-daughter bonding trips of fabric-buying - we even worked at the same quilt shop. Then, I did something, innocently, I might add, that I supposed sparked this whole thing off.

I got married.

Now, I know that was so horrible of me, but in my defense, Mom did pick out such a wonderful guy for me (more on that in a later post ), so it was only natural that I want to marry him. So, really, this whole thing is still her fault. Anyway, while she was accompanying me to the florist(s), caterer(s), bridal shop(s), hair stylist(s) - you get the picture - Mom decided that if she wanted to have any hair left to style by the wedding, that she had better bring along some hand-work.

Mom didn’t currently have any quilting projects both small enough and simple enough to bring along, so she figured she would make some knitted dishcloths. You know, the “K2, YO, Knit to the end of the row” ones. Very easy, very innocent.

Well, they weren’t innocent. No, those were evil dishcloths. Devious dishcloths. Dishcloths so deceptively fun to make that they lured my quilt-y mother away from being a Quilter and down the dark, wool-lined road toward becoming a KNITTER!!!!

The next thing I knew, Mom had thrown out all her fabric and quilting supplies to make room for her yarn. There was yarn everywhere: In her closet, in her sewing room, in the cupboards, in bags, in boxes, even under the bed. (Dad, if your reading this, I’m just making all this up for effect. Mom has no yarn. Absolutely none at all. Just a few balls for her current project. Oh, that? That stuff that looks like yarn over there? It isn’t. I don’t know what it is, but it certainly isn’t yarn.)

Then, Mom got into spinning and my parents had to put on an addition to the house to make room for all the new wool that was appearing. (Dad, really, it’s not wool. It’s just insulation. Really.) And then Marcus, my husband, started spinning, too.

So Marcus was spinning and Mom had acquired yarn and wool. Lots and lots and lots and lots of wool. (Dad - just go. Don’t read anymore, just go.) Now, how many of you are familiar with the theory of osmosis? According to Wikipedia.com, osmosis is defined as “the net movement of a solvent across a semi permeable membrane from a region of high solvent potential to an area of low solvent potential.” In other words, I started spinning.

I had no choice. I was forced to! The laws of science took control of my body and forced me to take up that first Bosworth spindle and spin. (In a futile act of defiance, I chose to spin silk, not wool.)

So now I was spinning. But not knitting. Oh, no. When people would ask me what I did with my hand-spun yarn, I would say, “Oh, I just hang it on my design wall. I’m not really a spinner, you see. I’m a fiber artist. I make art quilts.” I can see them now, as they walk away, shaking their heads and saying, “Yeah, honey. You just keep telling yourself that.”

Then, I decided to knit my Mom a surprise scarf for her birthday. She had knit me so many beautiful scarves and mittens and hats that she had neglected to knit a scarf for herself. So I bought some yarn and some knitting needles and had a friend show me how to knit a basic garter-stitch scarf. The resulting scarf was bit wider at one end than the other, but actually turned out quite nice and Mom loved it and was properly appreciative that I had knit it myself.

Perhaps now is a good time to mention that when Mom and I do “mother-daughter bonding,” we generally prefer to do it while shopping. This presents a bit of a problem since we prefer to have “mother-daughter bonding times” at least two or three times a week. Perhaps THAT is why Marcus moved me to Cleveland, OH, two hours away from Mom - to limit the damage to the credit cards! But, a new town means new yarn shops for Mom, so every time she would come to visit, we’d go yarn shop-hopping.

Now, who has heard of yarn fumes? (Check out the Yarn Harlot for more information on yarn fumes) For the uninformed, when yarn is placed in large groups in attractive colors/patterns, it releases a certain aroma that causes certain weak-willed individuals to fall in love with it and take it home with them. That is the only explanation I have for the yarn that kept appearing at my house. Because I was not a knitter. Oh, no. I’m not a knitter, I’m a fiber artist. I make art quilts.

So I started to knit dishcloths, mostly in the car while Marcus and I went to art festivals or going back and forth to visit our families. (Yes, I am now aware of the dangers of knitting dishcloths. I know, I should have learned from my mother’s mistakes, but what can I say? Knitting needles hurt a lot less than sewing needles when they poke you while you are riding in the car.) When people would say, “Oh, you are a knitter!” I would reply firmly, “I am not a knitter. I am a quilter who knits.” I would repeat this to myself while knitting in the car. And at the DMV. And while watching tv. And in the middle of the day when I would pick up my knitting “for just a minute.” But I wasn’t a knitter. Oh, no. I was a quilter who would occasionally knit. At this point, my husband (who is wonderful, absolutely wonderful) starting saying, “You know what you call a quilter who knits? A knitter in denial.”

Things continued like this until a few months ago when my local yarn shop - where I went only to meet people, NOT because I was a knitter - announced that it was closing. So I did the only thing that an intelligent, reasonable, logical non-knitter would do.

I spent $400 on yarn.

In one month of escalating discounts, I, a non-knitter, managed to spend approximately $400 on yarn, knitting needles, and one tape measurer. How could I not? When $16 a skein novelty yarn (which is what I liked working with) is marked 70% off, how could I not buy and in large quantities?

Suddenly, I was knitting tons of stuff. Fingerless mittens and felted slippers and dish towels (a big difference from dish cloths), and scarves and stoles and lions and tigers and bears, OH MY I’M BECOMING A KNITTER!

It was at this point that I had to acknowledge the fact that there was just a tiny, little, itty-bitty chance that I was becoming a knitter.

This morning, I knew for sure. I was talking on the phone to my Mom and she mentioned that she was considering returning to the yarn shop, where she works, 8 skeins of wool that she wasn’t going to need after all for her sweater. “I don’t know,” she says, “Should I keep it? There was a special going on so they were only $1 a skein.”

“One dollar a skein?” says I. “I’ll buy it from you for $1 a skein!”

“But you hate that brand of yarn,” she replied.

And that was when I found myself answering, “Oh, for $1 a skein, I’ll find some use for it!”

And that was when it hit me. I’m a knitter.

Hello, world. I am introducing myself to the gods of blogging. (You programmers out there will know what I mean. ) My wonderful husband, (who is, incidentally, a programmer) has finally set up a blog on my website for me.

My name is Meagan Weidner and I am a fiber artist, married, and have a cute little yorkie named Alyssa. Isn’t she adorable?

My husband, Marcus, and I moved to Willowick, OH, (near Cleveland) about a year and a half ago from Jamestown, NY, where I grew up. We bought a house here with a very nice studio space in the finished basement. Such a nice studio, in fact, that I never seem to leave the house.

I just attended a 3-day workshop taught by Janet Edmonds. The workshop was from her book Embroidered Caskets (In England “Caskets” means boxes) I would highly recommend this book to anyone is interested in making boxes. The book’s directions are very clear and easy to understand. In the class, we all started out with the same box pattern, but look how different they turned out:

Mine, of course, is the lime green one. It isn’t quite finished; I still have to attach the bottom and make a fabric bead for the top. This picture is right about life-sized:

I will try to post another picture when I finish it, which should be today.

I had such a fun time in this workshop. I really felt I learned a lot. My box was created using pellon (Timtex), nettings, sheers, metallics, angelina fiber and other fun things. I have used all those materials in the past, but now I feel a lot more comfortable using them. The boxes were created mostly by machine, but all had a great deal of handwork, too. Because the class was only 3 days, and involved a lot of design and detail work, I was forced to make quicker decisions and not spend a lot of time agonizing over the piece. I am definitely wanting to make more boxes now.

Right now, though, I need to busy working on my entries for an art show I am entering next month. Out of the three pieces I want to enter, only 1 is finished, and 1 is still just the top! (Not pinned up or quilted) So I will be signing off now and getting back to work!