All In.....

My first post - ever!!!!
Not so recently, I've indulged my passion for knitting. I've indulged it to the point where my stash now consumes 7 big plastic bins. Hey, when I do something I do it big. Ever watch those poker matches on TV and the player goes "all in"? That's me, I'm all in.
Let's take a trip back to the early 70's.....the candie girl is in 5th grade. Her teacher, Mrs. Caster, is rarely seen without her needles in her hands. In fact, more often than not, one could hear Mrs. Caster's click, click, clicking, long before you could actually see her. In that 5th grade classroom, it was time for an art lesson - about colors. The events that immediately proceeded this art lesson remain vague and blurry (give me a break, it's been 35 years) but the result was a terribly adorable purple and pink stuffed alligator with a red felt tongue. The candie girl was hooked. It was almost magical that this teacher who could strike fear into the heart of any 10 year old with a mere glance, was able to create ANYTHING with those two needles and a skein of yarn that was always hidden away in her little straw tote bag.
Over the years, the candie girl would knit and crochet a variety of items. Being an impatient girl, she spend a lot of time making baby items and the occasional afghan. At many a baby shower, tears were shed by the receipt of one of her baby blankets or cover-ups. But, being the impatient girl she was, most of these items were crocheted.
Fast forward to 2004 when the big, ugly, evil, greedy Comcast purchased the company Candie Girl worked for and fired all 285 employees. The girl was pissed and decided to take an extended amount of time off. To fulfill some of the generous amounts of free time she now had, Candie Girl broke out the knitting paraphalia and began to create again.
One afternoon, while browsing knitting blogs, she ran across a post discussing a pattern for a hat seen on a character on a non-cancelled sci-fi series. This was the series her son had been talking about non-stop. She printed out all the posts hoping to discern a pattern from them. The posts suggested using circular needles, Candie Girl had never, ever used circs in all her 30 plus years of knitting but never one to back down from a challenge, she purchased yarn and needles and set to work. The hat, which is one ugly hat, was a success. Her son posted a picture of himself wearing said hat (which now had cult like status amoung knitter and sci-fi fans) and the requests came in. So, Candie Girl did what any smart tech-savvy girl would do, she went to eBay and put a hat up for auction. The hat sold in a few hours. Candie Girl wrote out a pattern for her hat (lest she forget how she made the damn thing) and set to work. She make big hats, small hats, mini hats. She even made hats that worked as key chains and iPod socks.
Fueled by the success of her ugly hats Candie Girl decided a new career was born. Well, maybe a mini-career as she now had a full time job back in television. Candie Girl now spends her free evenings designing and knitting various accessories. Her most recent obsession was ponchos and her current obsession is purses. And, if she is ever satisfied with her creations and finds the time to make her new website look prettyful, those items will be available to the world at large - for now - just friends and family.
ETA - the pic above is one of the Mobile Monsters from Stitch N Bitch Nation - cute finale but the pattern isn't very well written.