Things That Bring Me Joy – Yards of Happiness

The Need for Color

The thing that is most commented on here and in my personal life is my use of color. I have said to people before that I just don’t feel right if I don’t surround myself with color or wear color. My home is colorful and there is art all around me. So I found this super short documentary on Jim Carrey and his artwork and need for color absolutely fascinating.

I knew he was an artist after seeing him on an episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians Riding in Cars Getting Coffee but I didn’t get to see the full body of his work. It’s lovely. And to me, knitting is art. We use our hands to create objects with color that can transform how you look or how you feel. It’s amazing. I wanted to be an artist when I was a little girl and never felt like I was until I started knitting. Crazy, right? But this just seems to be the medium that connects with me the most. Definitely check out this video, it’s only 6 minutes long and will pleasantly surprise you. Have a great weekend!

August 11, 2017August 15, 2017 by IamDWJ Categories: Color, rainbows, Things That Bring Me JoyTags: #yardsofhappiness, art, Color, I Needed Color, Jim Carrey 8 Comments

FO: Dolls and Diversity

While I was in Chicago I got the chance to finally meet up with an online friend in person. I’ve known my girlfriend Pem since back in my old blogging days. She worked for a brand I loved and we just clicked so we’ve always emailed and kept in touch via social media. She has two children and one day I saw a picture of her daughter holding a doll that looked nothing like her and I said to myself that I needed to make Leia a doll that mirrored what she saw in herself.

I made what is now affectionately known as Little Leia. This is the same doll pattern from the Susan B. Anderson Mary, Millie and Morgan doll I made previously for Maddie. I ordered the Knit Picks Brava Sport in the color almond to get a skin color close to Leia’s and when I did her hair I decided to cut it in a choppy little bob to mimick her own haircut.
Little Leia
For the record, growing up all the dolls in our home were black. These are my sister’s Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls (my sister’s name is Anne so clearly she had to have an Ann doll).
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I didn’t even know Raggedy Ann and Andy were white until I saw a cartoon version of them and I thought, well that’s odd because our Ann and Andy are brown at home. That’s also how I felt about non-black Santa Clauses LOL. My mother believed that the dolls you play with should look like you and they should. I’ve taken that to heart and love making dolls when I can for friends. Seeing yourself in everyday things makes you feel more like you belong, like you’re the norm. And sadly in 2017 we still don’t have as much diversity in our products and mainstream culture as we should.
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So here’s Leia with the death grip on her doll. She was so excited. And here’s the great thing about when I gave her the doll, she looked at it and said, ‘that’s me!’ with such excitement and joy it made my heart want to explode. She pointed everything out to me and said, ‘that’s my hair, those are my eyes, that’s my button nose…’ She knew that doll was meant for her and Pem told me that when we left and they went to a museum later she told everyone that was her little Leia and fell asleep clutching her doll.

I can’t make a doll for everyone but I’m happy that I can make some of the little girls in my life dolls that show them how beautiful and special they really are in this world. Diversity matters. Representation in the world matters. And sometimes all it takes is seeing the joy in giving a little girl a doll to realize it.

August 9, 2017August 9, 2017 by IamDWJ Categories: Caron, Cascade, Color, FO: Finished Object, Knit Picks, Knitting, Things That Bring Me Joy, Toys, YarnTags: #yardsofhappiness, diversity matters, knit dolls, knit toys, knitting, Yarn 16 Comments

We Barked at the Park

I asked you guys for your prayers last week and I think they worked! To start of the week for my husband’s birthday I got us tickets to the Washington Nationals game for Bark at the Park, where you can bring your dogs with you to the game. And the girls were really good!
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We’ve wanted to try this for a while but where nervous because Cher isn’t always the friendliest (see her staring at the dog in this pic LOL) but once we got her acclimated and she knew she was with us and was okay she was great. Jellybean we’ve learned that as long as you’re willing to hold her she’ll be quiet as a mouse. And if you’re wondering how this was set-up, at the Nats stadium (despite not being a baseball fan I can appreciate how nice this stadium is) they have a dog only section that was covered with shade and had family picnic tables in the back. In the same area they brought in grass so the dogs could have potty breaks. Since you couldn’t take them with you to the concession stands if you needed help they had sitters who would keep your dog while you grabbed food. And when you bought tickets each dog got their own seat so we had 4 seats between us so we had a bit of a buffer between the other dogs in our row.
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We kept cracking up because Cher kept sitting in Kendell’s lap looking out at the game like she was really watching it. She seemed really into baseball. Jellybean…she was into taking a nap on my lap.

It was a gorgeous day and I even caught a bit of a rainbow in the sky. We were seated under cover and there was a great breeze flowing through. Cher would just sway in Kendell’s lap and soak up the cool breeze, it was so great. In the beginning the dogs seemed a little warm so I decided a good treat to cool them down would be some vanilla custard from Shake Shack.
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As you can see it was a hit. LOL I’ve never seen Jellybean eat so fast and furiously in the 10 months we’ve had her. She bypassed the spoon and just dove in head first and Cher copied.

You can also tell Kendell had a great time as he started to goof off with Cher and had her wearing his baseball cap. He was so happy that she did so well we’re thinking about going again in September! And since I find baseball pretty boring it was nice to have them along to distract and entertain me. Otherwise I just knit at games.
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Unfortunately the Nationals were getting beaten pretty badly so by the time we made it to the 7th inning stretch Kendell was ready to go but I think the girls would’ve done fine making it to the end. I think a lot of the baseball teams do a Bark in the Park or Pups in the Park so just google it or check out the special events section of your team’s page to find tickets to go too. It was a lot of fun and we met some really awesome dog people too.