Tall Yarns Stories

Contents
How Tall Yarns Came to Be
The Baby Doll
The Duck Pillow
The Buffalo Vests, the Trellis Toque & Bag & the Half-Circle Shawl
Beaded Neckties, Irish Rose Purse, & The Tooth Fairy Pouch
A la Lizzie Maguire Headband
The Oblioes

How Tall Yarns Came to Be
In 1995, I was ready to start the embroidery on an heirloom afghan. I had finished the squares of Tunesian crochet and would do the cross stitch in tapestry wool. I needed a wide range of colors for the flowers on my blanket. I knew some company must manufacture it, but few shops carried any at all. Then I thought about another project I’d been wanting to do for decades. In 1969, I sent away to McCall’s for a charted needlepoint pattern of a Victorian parrot. (I have the envelope it came in. It cost me 25¢ and postage was 3¢.) The parrot needed 49 colors. I knew what I had to do. I opened a yarn shop. But what to call it? I threw the problem out to my friends. Knowing I like to write, one suggested Tall Yarns, "a combination of tall tales and spinning yarns". I liked how the name plied the concepts like a sturdy strand plies merino. So Tall Yarns became a knit shop carrying a full line of tapestry wool and other natural fiber yarns. Though it is no longer a retail store, Tall Yarns still stands for quality in materials and workmanship. And yes, we have no acrylic.

The Baby Doll
As I said on my home page, I was given a baby doll for my dollhouse family when I was 5 years old. The Ben Franklin 5-and-10-cent Store had little bins in the toy department full of identically painted plastic mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and babies. The father was the tallest, standing up at 4”; the baby is 2”. All had hinged arms and legs. The father had short brown hair and wore a brown suit and tie. The mother had yellow, shoulder-length hair and wore a blue housedress. The brother had short brown hair like the father and wore brown pants with a white tee shirt. The sister had yellow hair, but in pigtails and wore a shorter blue dress. The baby was naked, not even a diaper. But when Sylvia gave me my baby doll, it wore in a hand-crocheted dress, bloomers and bonnet. I was amazed. I had never – and to this day, have never – seen anything so clever, so unique, or so well done. The pieces were stitched onto the doll so tightly they’ve never come off. I wanted to see how it was done, even at 5 years old. I managed to get the bloomers off, but I couldn’t get them back on again, so they were lost many years ago. When I taught myself how to crochet at 22, I started an educated study of the doll’s clothes. It took me decades to figure it out, but I finally wrote a pattern for it last summer. I wonder if the 5-&-dime still sells the dolls? Sylvia’s little gift inspired my curiosity about how to make things. It encouraged me to learn how to do it myself. It lifted me beyond consumerism to self-sufficiency. I have never received a more valuable gift, and I am awesomely grateful. I love my little doll.

The Duck Pillow
My youngest son was in 1st grade and the annual fundraiser was coming up. Money was tight, so I thought I couldn’t contribute much more than volunteered time. Back then, I was into quilting and machine applique. I quilted on a rudimentary frame that I devised following directions in The Foxfire Books. It was collapsible and portable, and could expand to a 7’ square. Aha! I got the bright idea of making a quilt with my son’s class. The theme was the alphabet (26 blocks) and numbers 1-4 for the corners. Each child got a letter and drew something that started with his letter. I took the pictures home and cut fabric versions. Then, back to the classroom with a muslin square and an envelope of “picture pieces” for each. The kids glued their pieces to the fabric. Back to the house, where I stitched the squares and assembled the quilt top. I then bundled up my frame with the pre-layered quilt on it and hauled it off to school. The kids took turns scrolling the quilt to the next row of blocks. Then, some of the children got under the frame and some stood above so they could tie their own squares. The one above pushed the yarn needle straight down and the one below caught it and pushed it straight back up where it was tied. They made some pretty big stitches! But they learned how a quilt was made. After “a few” adjustments and finishing of the binding, the quilt was donated to the Silent Auction. The kids’ parents were embarrassingly aggressive in their bidding, and the quilt went for much more than I had expected. The next year, on request, I did the project with both 1st-grade classes – 60 squares. If you’re fond of quilting and children, I highly recommend this project; teachers love it! The only drawback was that my son’s artwork went to the highest bidder. Of course, I could make more of his. The duck picture emerged when I asked him to draw something that reminded him of his gramma. She lives in Minnesota, land of a thousand lakes. I think his drawing was very appropriate, don’t you?

The Buffalo Vests, the Trellis Toque andBag, & the Half-Circle Shawl
All of these patterns emerged from my need to demonstrate yarns I carried in my shop. The Vests are done in Tahki’s Donegal Tweed, a rugged and easy-to –work worsted that comes in a wide color range. Every time I hung one in the window, it sold. I finally put a Not for Sale sign on it so I wouldn’t have to make another one! The Trellises are in Crystal Palace’s Cotton Chenille, the only chenille out there that doesn’t lose fiber as you work. It also washes beautifully – the nap springs right back, nice and fluffy. It’s great for washcloths. The stitch pattern used on the Trellises is from a Fiber Trends pattern by Lily Chin. I had so much fun doing it that I worked it into designs of my own. The Shawl model was made in another Tahki yarn, but it was discontinued so there’s no need to tell what it was. The pattern works well with fingering or lace-weight yarns, rayon or cotton.

Beaded Neckties, Irish Rose Purse, & The Tooth Fairy Pouch
By 1996, I had never worked on a needle smaller than size 0. Then Jeff Williams from Bag Lady Press brought around the Bead Knitted Pendant Bag books and I had to try the technique. The first row took some patience, but after that, it went like butter. I was hooked. Who would think such teensy-tinesy stitches on such teensy-tinesy needles with such teensy-tinesy thread could be so soothing? But it is because it slows us down and that lowers our blood pressure. A few years later, Jeff started distributing Finca Perle Cotton by Presencia. I won’t use anything other brand! Of all its wonderful attributes, to me the best is that it doesn’t split or fray during reworkings. I’m experimenting with it in many different techniques, and so far, it’s working well in all. Expect to see more Finca designs on my pages. Now I serve as a consultant to Presencia USA. I made the Neckties for our trip to TNNA in June, 2004.

Ala Lizzie Maguire Headband
My 6-year-old granddaughter stayed with me for a week this summer. She introduced me to TV for kids. We saw this headband on Lizzie Maquire, and I worked it up in a fingering yarn. I’m looking forward to trying it in mercerized cotton. It’s a quick project and Lili liked it so much. She thinks I’m a very clever Gramma and pretty cool, too!

The Oblioes
Remember the story about the little boy who had no point in a pointed world? So they made him wear a pointed hat? It came out on TV in the ‘70s and became one of my all-time favorites. The Rock Man said, “Be cool. Be steady as a rock. We’re impervious to heat and a rock in the rain is just cool.” I had to send away to get a VHS copy of it in the late ‘80s, but it’s been newly released on DVD. My sons, and now my grandchildren, love it, too. So I designed a pointy hat in many variations. We need never go out the door feeling pointless again!