I knew once I turned 40 that things would probably begin to change. I began to realize a couple of years ago that I really needed reading glasses and now I can't read printed materials without them. Other physical symptoms of aging are more and more evident, like the increased time it takes me to recover from heavy physical activity. And in the last couple of years I've begun to see more gray hairs. I wear a pony tail to work pretty often, and one day a girl asked me if I'd ever thought of coloring my hair. Subtle, huh? (She's 23.) But today the brutal truth looked me straight in the eye and spoke through my hair stylist. She carefully mentioned that she saw a few gray hairs and that sometime in the future I might begin to consider a 'stain'. Honestly, I'd never heard of anything like that, but it sure sounded better to me than the dreaded, "look who just dyed her hair" thing. My stylist assured me that a stain wouldn't change the color of my hair, just cover the gray. AKA, Miss Clairol? Anyway, the cat's out of the bag, so to speak. Or at least the reality of turning 46 this year has come home to roost. (Now I'm really mixing metaphors!) I am not going to color my hair right now, but I shook hands with the idea today. Nice to meet you (not)!
I do love to dye wool, though and I think throwing in a little this and that color-wise makes spinning yarn a lot of fun. A long time ago I took several different colored skeins of home-dyed wool, knitted this bag and felted it. It's called a
Booga Bag and it's one of the first things I blogged about when I started back in the fall of 2004.
The knitting world has changed a lot in the last several years, and people are much more sophisticated in their blog posts and projects. People are really being innovative in their use of audio and video recording and posting. Social marketing is keeping us all updated on an hourly basis when someone buys a zipper, returns a zipper, and then gets another zipper. This may be more than I need to know, but at least it's up to me to decide what information I want to see/hear about. I love the way women (and men) are connecting and sharing their love of crafts and fibers. People are way too dependent on chemicals to cheer them up, and I honestly feel that this new world of communication is a real shot in the arm to our mental state. It's nice to know when people are interested in your project and glad to see the thing finished. I love to have people say, "Yes, I know, I saw it in your blog!" How cool.
