Moving Up
I have a confession to make: I haven’t touched a knitting needle in almost a month. Are those gasps of disbelief I hear? I don’t blame you.
However, I have all kinds of reasons—vacations, arm pains, houseguests—but now it’s a decorating project that’s eating into my needle time.
You see, my daughter’s moving up…to the attic. Painting her new room has become a family-and-friends project (except for my son who has four plus hours of soccer practice every day and therefore claims exhaustion). Many hands make light work and I’m learning the lyrics to all my Darling Daughter’s favorite songs because her iPod provides our working music. I discovered a deep dark secret today: she has a country western tune on her playlist! D.D. has always treated my West Virginia-bred taste for country music with scorn and loathing. Now I can blackmail her by threatening to reveal her lapse in taste to her friends.
Not surprisingly since I’m dealing with a teenager, the most stressful part of the project was choosing the colors for the room. D.D. wanted dark purple and electric blue. I exercised my veto power. Then she chose a deep teal and I persuaded her to complement it with a lighter shade in the same color family. You can see the complementary shade in the photo. D.D. says she feels like she’s inside a robin’s egg (not a bad place to be, all things considered).
So what do you do for fun and relaxation when you’re not knitting?
posted by Nancy Herkness at 12:54 PM
13 Comments:
My teenaged daughter who moved to the basement chose creamsickle orange and hot pink as her room colors. If her room had been anywhere on the "frequently visited by guests" roster, I would have vetoed that one. Since it's in the "walk past all the laundry on the laundry room floor" path through the house (which guests are forbidden under pain of death to visit- except my mom) she was allowed to be as creative as she wanted. Way to work a knitting reference into an "I haven't knitted in a month" post! You have this knitblog thing down pat already.
In my non-knitting and non-running around like a lunatic in the service of my 4 children time I read and comment on knitblogs- as you may have noticed. :-) I also write one occasionally.
Tam, what is it with teenagers and dreadful paint colors? My daughter's room is directly across from my "garret" where I write so I couldn't bear something truly repulsive. You were clever to bury your daughter's room in the basement.
So you caught my not-so-cleverly camouflaged reference to not knitting! In truth, it's been killing me not to knit: I have a bag of gorgeous multi-colored Manos yarn just waiting to be cast on. However, I wanted to give my arm a break (er, perhaps that's a bad choice of words) so I've been using all those other activities to drown out the voices calling me to the knitting needles.
I have to knit a baby bib as a christening gift so I'm going to the yarn store tomorrow to buy some fun yarn. (You can't see me but I'm dancing with joy at the thought!)
Great to have a fellow knitter/reader/parent of teenagers/blogger here at RTY! What's your blog called?
It's even more painful when pain interferes with knitting! However, I've concluded that the real culprit is the word processor, not a good thing for a writer, as you know.
I was probably the only teenager on earth whose MOTHER (!!) liked to turn my room upside down while I was at school. One day when I was about thirteen I came home to find she had nailgunned fabric to my walls and whipped up coordinating curtains and bedspread. (She was an artist always looking for an outlet for her creativity. Sewing, knitting, painting in oils and watercolors, embroidery, reupholstering furniture--you name it, she tried it.) The one thing I demanded was that whatever she did, it had to be pink. Pink. Pink. Pink.
Cut to a spring day when I was about fourteen. I went innocently off to school and returned to find she had turned my room into a watermelon! Hot hot pink walls, green, white, and black touches. (Rind and seeds!) I wailed and shrieked and threw the kind of fit only a fourteen year old drama queen can throw but you know what? Secretly I LOVED it!
My D.D. would kill me if I brought the color pink anywhere near her room or her person.
PS: Nancy, you =are= going to show us the room when it's finished, aren't you? It looks spectacular already. And I have to know about the short wall: is that an arrangement of art work or photos or the most spectacular window w/a view that I've ever seen??
I read. Read. Read. And Read some more. Plus work on the neverending yard projects.
Naps. Naps are fun. And definitely relaxing.
Barbara - I had to laugh at your post. My mom was the same way. Except I came home from school and found myself inside a robin's egg. My mom just didn't get my love affair with pink, pink and more pink.
My room was decorated when I was 4. In 1973. Pink shag carpet, pink and white checkerboard FLOWERS with orange center on top of the walls, pink and white checkerboard on the bottom. As a teenager, naturally, this no longer suited my '80's punk persona. My parents refused to let me re-do my room! (That carpet was the most expensive in the house!!) My response was to refuse to pick up ANYTHING from the floor (hide the pink carpet) and thumbtack posters and magazine pages over every square inch of the walls. So I say, bravo to the brave parents who let their kids paint their rooms dreadful colors! My room would have been clean if I would have been allowed to (BTW: I wanted to re-finish the hardwood floors, paint the walls pale blue and buy a cheap oriental-style rug for the floor with all my own $$, time and effort)....just my 2 cents.
For relaxation I read, hike, hang out with the menagerie, piddle around in the garden, lounge in the hammock and stare up through the leaves at the clouds...
BTW, the room that is now my office belonged to a teenager (not mine). It took 5 coats of Kilz to cover the day-glo green walls with hot pink sparkly stripes and graffiti. Ugh.
Barbara, the break in the short wall is a window which is covered with blue painter's tape so I'm surprised you can tell it's got any view whatsoever. I'll be happy to post a photo of the finished project (if it ever gets finished!)
Reading, napping, hiking, hanging out in hammocks...I like this crowd. You guys know the right ways to relax.
Annie, you're right--it takes a brave parent to handle teenaged color preferences. My D.D. plans to stick posters all over the walls and ceiling so the robin's egg blue will probably be mostly covered anyway.
I have filled in each little space with a kaleidoscope of leaves and branches and, in some cases, a river view. (??) I wasn't sure whether or not that was a real window or a totally brilliant trompe l'oeil (sp) creation. Then again a t l'o wouldn't explain away the painter's tape--oh wait! Maybe the painter's tape is a ploy to further the trompe l'oeil illusion! Mirrors within mirrors within mirrors...
I have a friend who creates t l'e illusions on millionaire's switchplates. Seriously.
Barbara, you have such a vivid imagination--you must be a writer!
I'm not a millionaire but I did once have a few switchplate covers custom painted. I had the backsplash in my kitchen tiled with this really funky, earthy tile and regular old switchplates just looked crappy on it so I got someone with artistic talent to stipple them to match the tile.
So don't laugh at the millionaires who hire your friend. They might be me. LOL
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