I've mentioned before, I'm sorely lacking in all some of the girly genes. All my male readers should thank God they aren't involved with an inadequate female. Decorating, shopping as a form of entertainment, sewing, fabric in any form whatsoever, it all makes me hyperventilate.
I'm a pretty good cook. My brother, however, is a better cook (and he's a better cook than the vast majority of women I know too). I can tell you when I see a house decorated in a way I love, but putting a house together myself is a completely different matter. Clearly, I spent way too much of my childhood playing baseball with my brother and his friends when I should have been learning girly shit.
I just never liked all the girly shit.
One year when I was in school, I was required to take a class titled, "Creative Stitchery." I don't believe the teacher had ever seen stitchery quite as creative as mine. Over the course of the class, we had to embroider, crochet, knit, and sew. I want to go on record saying I did okay with the crocheting part. Meaning, that was the only part I didn't fail. At the end of the course, the teacher agreed to pass me if I agreed not to sign up for any type of stitching or sewing class the following year.
It was a win-win.
One of the wonderful things about writing Twenty Four At Heart, is I've met a ton of fantastic people all over the world. One of them, is my friend Linda and she excels in areas of stitchery which stymie me. I've seen pictures of Linda's creations and I'm astounded at her talent. I have no talent. None, whatsoever, in any area. Linda is an artist with a crochet hook in her hands.
Awhile back, Linda offered to make me whatever I want, a hat, a scarf, or whatever. She did this because she's an amazing person and a loyal reader and friend. She recommended I pick out a yarn I love and said she would do all the work. I decided on a scarf, but I didn't get around to going to the yarn shop until last weekend. Linda lives in South Carolina and she knew where my nearest yarn shop is here in Orange County. The woman is talented!
On Saturday I found myself parked outside the yarn store, trying not to hyperventilate prior to entering. Once I walked in, my heart nearly stopped. There were fifteen women seated around a huge table taking a knitting class. Young women, and old women, all holding knitting needles and skeins of yarn. They were girly women, not impostor women like myself.
A sales lady approached me to see if I needed help. Panicked, I looked around the store at the hundreds and hundreds of skeins of yarn. I pulled a paper out of my purse and read to her the quantity and type of yarn Linda had recommended. The class was amused.
The sales lady asked me a few questions, none of which I knew the answer to. This seemed to amuse everyone even more. Then she escorted me on a tour of the shop.
As we walked aisles, she said things like, "That's a very nice Alpaca, but we don't have enough for what you need." Or, "These are wools, but you can't ever clean them." Or, "What did you say your requirements are again?"
My requirements were 1) I wanted something soft and 2) I was leaning toward brown for the color.
"Soft ... and ... brown?" she asked.
I glanced at the knitting class and noticed the ear splitting grins.
Maybe they were just impressed with my in depth knowledge of yarn?
I ended up with a soft, and sort of lime-ish green yarn.
Won't that look pretty once it's made into a scarf? (It's real-life color isn't as bright as it looks in this photo.)
I was only at the store about 30 minutes. Something happened during that time, however. All those women taking the knitting class? They were all laughing their asses off by the time I left.
I'd like to say they were laughing with me. Unfortunately, they were most definitely laughing at me.
One by one they started turning their attention away from the class they were taking to the inadequate blonde woman trying to pick out a SOFT yarn. A few of them offered suggestions. One woman tried to talk me into taking a knitting class.
I gulped. I explained I'm recovering from a car accident and I only have one working arm, but thank you anyway. I did not tell them about my experience in my Creative Stitchery class.
Unfortunately, hearing I only have one working arm got more people interested in me. I was becoming the pied piper of the yarn store as more and more women followed me in my quest. Everyone wanted to help, but mainly they wanted to laugh at my running commentary as I wandered the store.
"I met an alpaca last week in Oregon," I said as I fingered some, soft, lovely, yarn.
(Laughter.)
"Oooh, this is soooooo soft," I moaned as I groped a skein of something blue. "I'd like to go home and sleep with this one."
(Laughter.)
"I thought about making a sweater once, but I knew it would come out with only one arm."
(Guffaws.)
Looking wounded, I added, "I'm not joking!"
(More laughter.)
Eventually I filled my arms with skeins of the yarn pictured above.
"Will this work?" I asked.
The ladies laughed again, and then they assured me it will work just fine. I think they were ready to adopt me at that point.
So tell me, are you talented? Can you knit, crochet, or sew things? (I'm asking you too Mr. Goodfather, and Mr. Allan!)
Or are you like me?
Inadequate.
Uh...
no. I am completely inadequate. And in sooo many ways that I would prefer not getting into it until AFTER I've had some coffee...
Pretty green yarn, ya got there though! And you're jokes were making ME giggle. What are you...trying out for the next American Comic?? "Come out with only one arm"! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
That's just wrong on soooo many levels...
Posted by: Alan | January 26, 2009 at 04:14 AM
Cannot knit, cannot sew, no crocheting can I doe, oops I mean do. But given money can decorate like a mo-fo. lmao
Di
The Blue Ridge Gal
Posted by: Di | January 26, 2009 at 04:19 AM
If I couldn't paint, I would be lost. I used to be able to sew, but found it too tedious. I can't do anything with yarn.
And I loved your trip to the yarn store. I'd be dazed and confused too : )
Posted by: Lynn K. | January 26, 2009 at 04:19 AM
I wrote a LONG comment and it didn't post...there wasn't anywhere to type in the encrypted word. I've run out of time so will just thank you for commenting.
Posted by: MissKris | January 26, 2009 at 04:42 AM
I am not talented in the least...can't sew, knit or any of those kinds of things and really have no interest to....I'm not crafty and can't draw or paint. Can't sing, don't play an instrument. I am not a girly-girl...never have been. Instead of playing girly-girl things I was outside playing football, playing in the woods, running in the pastures with the cows and sheep, riding bike...ect.
I do like the color of yarn you picked out...sounds like you were quite entertaining to the other people in the store...maybe stand up comedy is in your future?
Posted by: Lori | January 26, 2009 at 04:52 AM
i am DYING to learn how to knit or crochet (whichever on is easier!) this little story of yours has inspired me to get to it :)
Posted by: Gina | January 26, 2009 at 05:47 AM
Nice post. I start salivating when I go into a yarn shop. A fabric or art supplies store is nearly as bad. And I have a thing for paint chips - anything from Benjamin Moore can get me going. How sad it that?
I do like to knit, sew, paint, and cook. A regular Suzy Homemaker... :)
Posted by: sometimessophia | January 26, 2009 at 05:59 AM
I love to sew, knit, crochet, decorate (given the funds to do it up right)! I'm definitely a girly-girl - just without all the lace and pearls!
I love this yarn story - cracked up so much I had to run away to pee before I could comment! :)
Posted by: Karin | January 26, 2009 at 06:05 AM
We could totally hang out. Not a girly girl here. If I was rich, I'd have a paid shopper buy my clothes. I have no patience for shopping, hate dressing rooms. I cannot sew and pay my best friend (who sews beautifully) to hem and mend my family's clothes.
But I can cook pretty decently.
Posted by: phhhst | January 26, 2009 at 06:31 AM
I am sub par. At life.
I like the greenish color, though.
Posted by: Georgette | January 26, 2009 at 06:47 AM
Card carrying member of the INADEQUATE TRIBE and proud of it!!
Hallie
Posted by: Hallie | January 26, 2009 at 06:51 AM
Like you, I am missing those "girly genes". My mother is a professional quilter - I can barely sew on a button. An knitting - forget about it. I WANT so badly to learn...just no patience for actually figuring it out.
Posted by: EricaB | January 26, 2009 at 06:53 AM
*blushing* "excels in areas of stitchery" Oh my! *blushing*
Gosh, I'm speechless. Thank you so much for the glowing compliments! Now I just hope I can live up to your expectations.
Can't wait to get my hands on your yarn, it looks beautiful!
Posted by: Linda | January 26, 2009 at 07:43 AM
I find that I do too many things and seldom finish any of them. It seems that I want to know how to do everything. Right now I make soap and lotion and I am loving it. The last phase I was in was stained glass. I would still love to do stained but I don't have a room to do it where my doggies won't be running around in getting slivers of glass in their feet. I used to do cross stitch but now it drives me crazy.
I can not decorate my home. I even took a class in interior design and flunked it. I find lots of things I love to put in my house but they never go together. Right now I have a western/fantasy theme going on right now. Cowboys and faeries! I am grateful that I don't get many visitors. lol
Posted by: Jan | January 26, 2009 at 07:52 AM
I can sew anything but I've retired....uhm except for the occasional baby blanket. I can crochet and knit but it makes me tense up and I can honestly say there is nothing relaxing about it for me. I make jewelry, as well and I don't decorate.....but I know what I like and I just stick it someplace and somehow it all comes together. Other than that.....I can't do a damn thing.
Posted by: Midlife Slices | January 26, 2009 at 08:04 AM
My dear grandmother tried to teach me to crochet ... she said I was a lost cause. I can sew, I think it has something to do with it being a mechanical machine!! LOL All my cousins and neighbors while I was growing up were boys. The boy "stuff" was so much more fun to do than the "girly" stuff was. I hated to clean my room and still do.
Posted by: Lisa | January 26, 2009 at 08:19 AM
Oh man, I LOVED the one-armed sweater joke. Truly awesome.
I am hopelessly inadequate, both as a girl (can't stitch, sew, crochet, cook, or unhook a bra), AND as a guy (can't fix engines, spit, tie a knot, belch on command, or unhook a bra).
Posted by: goodfather | January 26, 2009 at 08:22 AM
I make jewelry. That's about it. And miniature Barbie cakes.
Posted by: Mama Dawg | January 26, 2009 at 08:39 AM
I knit, but mostly kids clothes because I like to think happy thoughts of healthy babies for all my friends. Sewing is just one of those things I've never learned, I imagine I could do it if I had the time and a good class. Decorating is for people with way more money than me - I've been looking for a rug for my living room for 3 years!
Posted by: Jen | January 26, 2009 at 08:44 AM
Can't decorate, can't sew/knit/crochet. I'm a fair cook and a better baker (I'm much more interested in dessert than the meal). My hubby and I bonded over baseball.
Your visit to the yarn store reminds me of a trip to Starbucks a few years back. I don't like coffee and don't speak the language. For Christmas, my sis-in-law asked for "coffee to make cappucino." I walked into Starbucks and asked for that. They launched into a whole bunch of questions (what kind of filters does she use? how do you want it roasted? how do you want it ground?). I finally said "I have no idea what you're talking about and I'm about to pass out from the fumes in here. Please take my money and give me a bag of something and let me go!" The whole place was laughing at me.
I think that yarn will make a really pretty scarf.
Posted by: Judi | January 26, 2009 at 08:56 AM
The only thing I can do with threads/strings is tie them. But I have a "sister" who knits me things. Including awesome "Apple products":
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristan/3170363563/in/set-72157611979731199/
;P
Posted by: Kristan | January 26, 2009 at 09:04 AM
I'm just impressed you know the word "skein" since you aren't familiar with the stitching world! I used to needlepoint, cross-stitch and even knit (a little) and crochet, but I stopped years ago. I did needlepoint our piano bench cushion about 15 years ago, but that was my last project. And yes I'm a girly-girl.
Posted by: Missy | January 26, 2009 at 09:31 AM
I can frame pictures, but when it
comes to decorating I am not very
good at it. So I can frame it, but
I can't hang it.
Posted by: Renee Couturier | January 26, 2009 at 09:47 AM
Hmm. I don't know. I think stitchery and crocheting is dumb accept as a hobby or something to do while you watch TV. Actual sewing is useful, but all I can do is sloppily mend holes, sew on buttons or pointe shoe ribbons.
I'm creative and OCD and yet I HATE things like scrapbooking because everything has to be in its place. I much prefer when I get glitter the shit out of some paper and end up with marker all over my fingers.
Posted by: emmysuh | January 26, 2009 at 10:05 AM
I can sew buttons and holes in clothes but that's the extent of it. I've tried to crochet but I failed. I envy creative people.
Posted by: Sandra | January 26, 2009 at 12:15 PM
I've never thought of myself as very girly, but I did used to paint and I can crochet a little if I have to, and a million years ago, I did a lot of cross-stitch. I just never like hanging out with "the ladies" for the little group activities. I taught myself when I was bored to tears while living in Japan with only a baby to talk to and no American TV. Can't say as I've done much since. No time anymore.
Oh! and I thought of you this weekend because I was The Housewives of Orange County for the first time. All I can say is "Good Lord! Are they for real?"
Posted by: Donna in VA | January 26, 2009 at 12:33 PM
Yep, I can do all that stuff and I am pretty good.
I never got any school credit though. I WAS required to play baseball, year after year. The only time I ever connected with the ball was when I bribed someone to stand behind me and shout "SWING!" at the appropriate moment.
Posted by: Duchess | January 26, 2009 at 12:42 PM
I can repair things like socks, but I'm no good at sewing from scratch.
I just learnt to knit last Saturday. I can do one version of casting on and I can do a knit. Nothing else. I don't know how to cast off, so I'm just knitting until I can meet with my M-I-L again so she can show me how.
Posted by: Amy | January 26, 2009 at 12:49 PM
Dear, my inadequacies have NOTHING to do with my ability (or inability) to sew (which I can't), crochet (which I do poorly) or cross stitch (which I do even more poorly).
But I'm sure if you were to ask my ever-so-darling pregnant and $%@&ing HORMONAL step daughter what my inadequacies are, she'd be glad to read you chapter and verse.
*sigh* It was a LONG. FIVE. DAYS.
Posted by: Jan | January 26, 2009 at 01:26 PM
You had to take a creative stitchery class?!? Oh my. The only thing like that I ever had to take was home ec. class in 6th grade. We cooked something. Sewed a laundry bag together (which was basically two rectangles put together with a sewing machine.) I took a "food science" -- aka let's just waste time and maybe cook something every now and then class -- in high school simply because I needed one more elective that semester. But creative stitchery? You're school must have been much bigger than mine. (What was that, middle, high, college?)
I have a grandma who is all about the sewing/knitting/crafting. She taught me how to do almost everything while I was growing up. I could cross stitch before I was 8...maybe younger. Sewing even younger.
I can cook.
I can cross stitch.
I can sew, albeit I'd have to practice to be able to do a straight line again since it's been so long.
I one a state art competition in high school. (I need to start drawing again)
And I taught myself how to knit.
One problem: I never seem to finish what I start. Proof would be the unfinished scarf in the back bedroom that I started over 3 years ago. If I knew I could finish things, I would probably teach myself how to crochet.
Posted by: Christine | January 26, 2009 at 02:56 PM
I have trouble walking and chewing gum, but I can string some beads and stuff together and make it look pretty good. Got a necklace and earrings on my blog give-away for my 100th post if you want to go check it out. Not nearly as interesting as sex toy/panini give-away, but who could ever compete with hot dinner and a hot date?
Great, funny blog today.
Helen G.
Posted by: Helen G. | January 26, 2009 at 04:51 PM
wow...some talented people on here...i have tried almost all of the above and mastered most of them to some degree altho crocheting was my least successful, so i am impressed...you must have a few girly genes to have done well in that...
Posted by: thistle | January 26, 2009 at 07:43 PM
I can crochet and do cross stitch. I crochet baby pants that you use to cover cloth diapers. ANd I am actually going to get of the computer and start an octopus. Not sure where the talent came from because I don't think I am girly at all.
Posted by: Kate | January 27, 2009 at 09:56 AM
I did a long post but it 's not here so I guess it didn't post or it got deleted! but I can do all those things love to sew, make my living making things, I need to be creative or I go crazy!!
Posted by: jill prettyman | January 28, 2009 at 05:15 PM