Pinteresting...

NB23 have asked that we look into Pinterest, create an account, and follow other people in Pinterest.  I was a very early subscriber to Pinterest when you had to wait until you were invited.  I love Pinterest and I firmly believe it is very helpful for library work.  I personally have 48 boards, 2,431 pins and 77 followers.  Most of them have to do with library service within my workplan as well as service to all patrons in the library setting, as well as my own personal development.  I have public boards, private boards as well as secret boards.  I also have group boards with other members of my team within the library and also within the department. 

For the group boards within our library setting we have boards set up for renovation ideas we began a few years ago when we began the process of renovating our library.  Staff who had Pinterest accounts joined and we divided it up into Teen Public Spaces, Staff Only Library Space, Children's public Space, among other boards.  It really helped and allowed staff to brainstorm while on the site.  This worked really well.  We were able to find concepts, other library spaces, furniture, signs and general ideas that really helped the creative process.  Another set of group boards we have in the library as a whole is Children's Programming ideas, Crafts and Reading. 

The smaller groups of boards we use together in the library are, specifically to my position, Library Display Ideas, Reading, Celebrations, Reading, Infographics, Blogs, Social Committee, Teen programs, ansd even YA Summer Reading Club.  We had never actually had a YA Teen SRC before, but I have have been building a board that has 150 pins in it that I can now use this summer as we are having our first regional YA SRC in 2014! 

I also have a secret board that I have with a colleague.  We jointly create displays and whenever we have a secret idea or surprise for staff or library displays we house it in that board.  Only we can see it so it is fun to have a few ideas that maybe no one else has viewed before!

I have even used some of my personal boards to create great passive programs in the library.  As my blog states, I do love knitting, so last year during Work Wide Knitting Week I printed off some great simple copyright free patterns from my Knitting Pinterest board, brought wool and various needles in and for a week we had a knitting book display and a guest sign in while patrons dropped by (and a few employees) and knit a large piece of artwork that we will someday display to the public (as soon as our renovations are complete in the library!)

Pinterest is an extremely helpful tool for libraries today!  I am also supposed to get fancy and post pictures and pins etc.  I tried, and failed.  I am having a great deal of difficulty posting things to my blog.  I want NB23 to know, though, that I have attempted everything I was supposed to this week, I just wan't able to complete some of them.

Knitting and Images

It seems I am a bit behind in our 23 Things NB.  I did, however find an image I liked on Creative Commons and I also made 2 awesome Wordle clouds with knitting terms.  The issue, however, was attempting to post them to my blog.  I worked on Wordle for a whole lunch hour a few weeks ago and ended up not being able to post it.  They were awesome and unfortunately I lost both in my shuffle to attempt to get them into my blog post.  Ugh! 

It was worse than me trying to figure out how to follow a pattern.  I am in the middle of knitting an afghan right now that is almost as frustrating.  I have redone at least 10 rows (each row has 234 stitches - UGH), and now it seems it will be a little short, but it is pretty!  I am making it for someone who is getting married in the fall and the green is really beautiful, but I might have to make another one as I wanted it larger than I think it will turn out to be, and I will run out of the yarn. 

This way of thinking is just like how I am feeling I may need to handle the situation with 23 Things NB.  I was seriously thinking about using the Snip tool to put my Wordle and Creative Commons image in my blog.  I am going to attempt later on this evening to post the image and make another Wordle with the help of a colleague who has a bunch of people following him and even has comments - Oh Bloggyman, my hero!  I only JUST got my first follower and it is the admin of 23 Things NB and sadly no comments on any of my pursuits and exploits into the world of blogs and knitting are to be found.  I really haven't commented on anyone elses so who am I to judge!  If I can only remember all of the cool knitting words I had thought of to make my Worldle again I may just prove popular soon (hee) - I found out too late when I rewatched the how to video for Wordle that I really should just have kept it in a Word document - the value of reading instructions and patterns...... 


Here is my go at an image:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ribbed_knitting_multicolour.jpg

Social Reading - and - Knitting!

Keeping track of what I read is something I have been doing for a number of years.  It is the ONLY New Year's Resolution I have ever kept!  At the beginning of each year I start a journal with each book I have read along with a description.  I am brutally honest as I am the only one reading it.  Sometimes I get all fancy and use brightly coloured pens and write neatly and succinctly, other times I have the name and author quickly jotted down with one sentence and "meh" noted at the end.  At the end of each year I know exactly how many books I have read and a note about them and how I felt at the time when I read it.  This helps me to remember the book, give accurate recommendations to friends and patrons, and realize that I can actually stick to something for a whole year.  I have successfully kept track of my reading history for four years now. 

I have an account with Good Reads and have had it for a number of years.  I hadn't been on it for a long time, but when I just checked for this week's exercise (NB23), I was quickly directed to the site and they even remembered my password for me!  Thank goodness!  I have 380 books listed in  Good Reads and I know I am very behind on adding what I have read and grading them, but I really like the way I keep track of the books I read.  I do fully embrace technology, but I think there is still something to be said about writing something down, recording your thoughts, and keeping journals that you can view many years later.  You can choose to share, or dream that someone a long time from now might read the journal and be able to see what books I liked and why.  This reminds me of the way I feel about yarn and the projects I knit. 

Patterns in my writing as well as in my knitting are skills that I have to keep regimented and strive to continually perfect.  I am not only just left handed, but I am also dyslexic.  Facing dyslexia, and left handedness head on is something I have always done.  Writing was difficult to learn and so was knitting.  Reading books was difficult for me and so were knitting patterns.  So, I know that these qualities need to be sharp, especially in a library environment where order, reading and writing are keys to success.

I should be embracing technology that makes things easier for me - Good Reads can help me keep track of the books I have read and easily permit me to rate them without having to lift a pen!  Automatic knitting machines, or even purchasing knitted projects would make it far easier for me to be a successful knitter, especially where patterns are concerned.  Guess what though?  I don't.  It may take me hours and hours to understand how to develop a way for me to read a pattern, learn what they mean and change the wording so it makes sense to me and shows me how to make a dishcloth, a pair of mittens, a pair of slippers or an afghan, but once I do you can guarantee I will do it well and make at least ten of them in a row!  I can look back over the years and see people I care about with their mittens (oh, that was my 2008 phase), their felted purses (so 2011), their slippers (2013), or their afghans (2009) and of course the dishcloths (2012) that I made especially for them and know that once I was able to get a pattern, I wouldn't stop until either I ran out of people to give them to or I genuinely got bored with what I was making.

I think that is what is also great about Social Reading.  I can look back and see what types of books I was interested in at any given time, see how my taste has changed, and share with people my love of reading!  This is also true about knitting! 

Knitting goes to Hollywood..er..Fredericton Exhibition

So this week in our blog we are supposed to mention Twitter!  I have a Twitter account, used it a lot in the beginning, and quickly became baffled at how other people didn't keep up, replay or hashtag as much as I thought they would.  Well, I must admit, I fell off that bandwagon pretty quickly.  I was intrigued, in the know, and at a moment's notice I could find out if there was a change in temperature, traffic jam, a fire, or a special at the Victory Meat Market.  Then, life happened.  I would periodically forget to check up on the minute to minute updates and lose out on whole conversations, I would zip back and forth through the previous tweets in the conversations so I could get the joke or at least the gist of what was going on. 

Frankly, I don't need to know what everyone is thinking or doing all the time.  I am happy being oblivious, or at least not in the know until the news is a little old, like an hour or even a day old!  Let's face it, we are in the information business in the library - I should be jumping on these alerts, but yet, I enjoy the surprise of hearing about a new snow storm coming from a senior patron who is absolutely thrilled that along with his stale joke he gives me new and valuable information.  I love letting other people ask me if I knew that this celebrity did something and the joy they feel at knowing they are the first to tell me.  I get it.  I love it when I am able to help a patron find that obscure piece of information, that special book with the red cover, the newspaper article they searched all over for.  I love it.  Being in the information business doesn't mean I have to know it all immediately, sometimes I like to share the joy of informing people!

Which brings me to my blog's main subject, my love of knitting.  After I learned how to knit and purl left handed no one could stop me!  I learned how to make scarfs, mittens and even knitted toys.  In Brownies when I was 9 we all worked on a knitted gift for a craft badge.  I made a rabbit (why, who knows?!), he was white and pink and had green yarn frayed and stuck at the bottom that was supposed to look like grass.  A sitting bunny with green under him.  Little did I know that my little bunny was put in the Fredericton Exhibition by my guide leader.  If I had Twitter back in those days someone would have told me and I would have already known, but I was blissfully unaware.  Imagine my surprise when all of our Brownie pack got to see the exhibition together.  We got to go to the arts, crafts, vegetable and fruit exhibits.  There were pumpkins larger than we were, beautiful quilts, lovely jams, cooked things and more.  We started looking around the knitted areas and what did we see?  A few familiar projects.  My little bunny rabbit got first place in the novelty children knit section!!!  I was ecstatic!  What a surprise!  Everyone was so happy for me and I felt so proud.  I imagine if I had Twitter it would not have been a surprise and I may not have been so floored at this moment I shared with my fellow Brownies. I still have my ribbon in my childhood photo album along with my Brownie badges.

Although I think Twitter is a great tool and valuable in today's society and I love getting information from other people who follow Twitter,  I just don't want that to be the only way I get information!  I never really did get famous by winning at the Exhibition, but it sure was a moment I will never forget.  Although I think Twitter is amazing in giving up to the minute valuable information about, well, everything,  I do value those dark days without Twitter when a little girl could find out first hand that she was entered and got a ribbon at the Fredericton Exhibition for her love of knitting..

Humble Knitted Beginnings

I really should not love a past time that combines numerical patterns that must be adhered to coupled with an inability to follow how-to videos and illustrations, but I do! I love knitting! I can hardly follow a pattern, but...when I was 6 my very talented and crafty grandmother who could knit and crochet circles around anyone and everyone had an amazing next door neighbour whom I loved dearly named Grace. She had 3 daughters who were a bit older and seemed much more glamorous than I could ever hope to be.  Their hand-me-downs were nothing short of Christmas Morning for me, especially the knitted ones!

One day my Nana's neighbour was visiting and two out of three of us were knitting. Nana knew I was always up for a challenge, so she asked me if I could tell the difference between her and Grace's knitting. I first looked at the colour of the yarn, "Well, Nana", I said with confidence, "Grace's yarn is yellow and your yarn is green. Green is my favourite colour and it is also your favourite colour". She continued to encourage me to look for differences. It was much like the back of magazines that ask you to find the subtle differences in the same picture, and since I had a subscription to Ranger Rick and the library had Highlights, I felt I was especially qualified and up to this task! After the yarn, I established that their needles were of different sizes, their patterns were different, and Nana was on a couch but Grace was on a chair. I noticed they were both wearing dresses, but not the same type. My Nana also had short hair, but Grace and her daughters had long flowing locks, way past their bottoms! My wonderful grandmother then had me sit between them - I on the edge of Nana's chair, looking back and forth between these two patient beautiful ladies working away. I thought I had finally had it - their knitting baskets were different, but then I paused. Such an insignificant day to others and probably one that could be quickly forgotten, but to me it was amazing!  With a lightning bolt of realization I happily reported that Grace was using the yarn and needles differently from Nana!

That is right, Grace was a left-handed, or Continental knitter. For twenty amazing minutes which to me felt like twenty hours, I was taught how to knit left handed by Grace. I had never seen anyone else using their left hand more than their right, it was incredible! My maternal grandfather was left-handed, but back when he was growing up they tied his left hand behind his back so he couldn't use it. I was an enigma, a left handed child in a sea of right handed people. I had to have special left handed scissors, it took me longer to butter my toast (The angle was ALL wrong), everything seemed to be made for right handed people. As I got older I found many others who were left handed, even having the prestige of having a left hand fry scoop provided for my stint at McDonald's as a teen. But, this was way before the glamour days of inclusionary fry utensils, and I was amazed at how I loved to be able to do something that to me seemed so foreign and exotic.

As we got down to business and I was shown how to cast on, knit and purl I realized that these two amazing women had this fabulous experience for me preplanned.  I was given yellow plastic knitting needles with brown ends and soft, light green yarn.  I still have those yellow knitting needles in my knitting bag.


That glorious day will always stay close to my heart. I felt I belonged, I felt I could do a craft, I felt normal and included, and successful! Tune in for more of my knitting memories in days to come....