green noise

I can honestly say I’ve never been much of the crafty type. I’ve had my moments of artistic glory, but that’s been more along the lines of writing and visual arts. Things like scrapbooking and sewing, while I’ve always found really intriguing, have eluded me, though. I’ve never known how to get started, and my initial results were always poor enough so as to be thoroughly discouraging. It was the same story when I decided, many months ago, when I decided to learn how to knit.

In New York City, it’s not unusual to see people knitting on the subway. I’m commute via subway at least 3 hours a day during the week, so I see them all the time. And most of them are geek girls in their 20′s and 30′s – my peeps! I have to admit, knowing that knitting has become so popular with a younger set and is no longer relegated to mothball smelling grannies on their plastic covered armchairs, really spurred my desire to learn. So I bought a “teach yourself knitting” kit with two skeins of yarn, some needles, and a book. I studied the book for a while, then tried to replicate what I saw. I think I tried for about an hour before I decided that it was shit and I’d never learn. I put my knitting away and left it for a few months. I’m a poor sport when it comes to a learning curve.

Well, fast forward to about 2 weeks ago. I can’t recall exactly what it was that made me decide to try again, but I did, and with a bit more patience this time. I sat down with my needles, yarn, and book, and tried again, without success in even casting on. Instead of tossing it aside again, I decided that the problem was not that I’d never learn, but that I’d never learn from looking at pictures. It dawned on me how difficult it can be to learn a three dimensional, movement skill (such as knitting, dancing, Formula 1 racing) by looking at two dimensional illustrations and photographs. And this is when my digital obsession steps in.

YouTube, in this scenario, has been my salvation. A simple search for “how to knit” yielded a treasure trove of video tutorials. I could watch different methods from different people, and pause, rewind, and rewatch to my heart’s content. And within about 10 minutes, I had my first row cast on. A little more watching, trying, rewatching, and retrying, and I was actually knitting! Ain’t life grand?

So it’s been a couple of weeks now, and I’m nearing completion on a scarf I’m making for my niece. Is it beautiful and perfect? Not by a long shot. But 1. She’s only 15 months old, so I can pretty much guarantee that she won’t give a shit and 2. It’s a result. I’m learning the skill, and having a hell of a blast doing it. I’ve bought multiple needles in different sizes, and different yarns to work with, and I can actually see myself doing this as a long standing hobby. It’s relaxing, and the result of actually making something (Crafty? me? Whoda thunk it??) really makes me proud. I’m really looking forward to getting better at my new-found skill (and obsession, I think!) so I can make all kinds of lovely things. Grand things are ahead, from humble beginnings.

I will make no bones about these three facts:

1. I am (and always have been) a geek.
2. For most of my life I was (and, to some extent, still am) a tomboy.
3. I am what the clothing industry likes to call “full-figured” (a polite way of saying that I could benefit from a brisk walk around the block after dinner.)

Whatever.

Basically, this combination equals all too many frustrating and fruitless trips to the mall when I was younger. Even if I did want to wear what all the other girls were wearing (something I think my mom might have preferred) they didn’t carry “cute” clothes for chubby chicks. So needless to say, I never really developed my mom’s or my sister’s skills for shopping, fashion, or bargain hunting (unless we’re talking getting great deals on tech gadgets…but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post.)

Well, I’m 30 now (yikes!) and apparently, that’s changed. I work in a professional office with a dress code that forbids my usual wardrobe of jeans and t-shirt bearing slogans like “No, I Will Not Fix Your Computer”. So I’ve had to work on my “girl” skills and I think it’s starting to pay off. I really took noticed of it last week. I had ordered some clothes online (I’m a geek grl – did you expect me to buy clothes in person? That’s so last century!) and they were waiting for my when I got home from work on Friday. I have to say that the fattening up of our nation has had the positive effect of meaning a lot more shopping options now for me and my shapely sisters. I usually shop at the lovely (but often pricey!) Lane Bryant. This time, I decided to try being (somewhat) thrifty, and went with Avenue.

So what did I get, and how did my efforts fare? Well, here’s the list:
3 pairs of work trousers
3 work appropriate tops
2 solid color cami’s (perfect for layering under all manner of tops, for work and casual wear!)
2 pairs of jeans (one medium rinse, one dark…can’t remember my last pair of dark jeans. I’ve missed them!)
1 pseudo fancy-pants t-shirt

The total for all of this would have been $290.95 (it’s not cheap being chubby) , plus $15.95 for shipping for a grand total of $306.90. Yikes! However, I tried to pick items that were on sale – after all, clothes always look and feel better when you’ve gotten them for less than the normal price – it’s a proven scientific fact. I purchased 11 items, only 4 of which were not marked down in some way. That got me down to $220.53, plus shipping. Not bad. I’d have been happy with that, but decided on a whim to look for any kind of coupon code I could find online. A brief Googling later, I had a 25% off code, which Avenue happily accepted. I brought my pre-shipping total down to a lovely $181.35. Not bad for a tomboy.

I’ll never be a fashionista – I don’t have the patience and, until the runway meets runtime, I’ll likely never have the desire. But being able to snag some sweet deals on clothes that I can feel good and look good in, without ever having to face the humiliation of fluorescent lights, fitting room mirrors, and the dreaded salespeople with their condescending “Did you want that in a larger size?” makes this geekgrl feel pretty damn good.