{"id":727,"date":"2010-09-03T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-03T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/?p=727"},"modified":"2010-09-03T10:45:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-03T10:45:00","slug":"am-i-a-wierdo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/?p=727","title":{"rendered":"Am I a wierdo?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are several things in my life, that I have learnt by experience not to talk about in general conversation. Things which, although important to me, other people find well, strange… I started thinking about this because of a comment from Lizzie<\/a> on the subject of pyjamas this week. She, like me, loves her flannel PJs above all else and was explaining this in detail to someone at work, when she suddenly realized that it made her appear to be, well, \u00a0rather odd. Oh I heard you Lizzie – I have so been there!<\/p>\n

It’s a shame really because they are some of the things that I love the most and really deep down which make me who I am. But there you go, that’s just how it is. If only for my childrens’ sake, I don’t really want to be known as the village wierdo.<\/p>\n

I bet I’ve whet your appetites now and you’re all waiting for something juicy to follow. Sorry, I’m going to disappoint you – you are the people who know all my secrets. In fact I think that maybe this need for secrecy with the locals was one of the things that pushed me towards blogging. I needed to find some kindred spirits, some friends who might even be interested in the same strange things. And you know, I have – and for that I thank you all.<\/p>\n

I seldom tell people that I’m a quilter. There are lots of quilters here in Switzerland, but, and I hope I’m not treading on any toes here when I say this, they tend to be Swiss ladies of \u00a0a certain age. They are most certainly not Swiss ladies of my age. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever taken any quilting course anywhere where I wasn’t a good few decades younger than everyone else. Which means that my non-quilting friends and acquaintances find what I do to be, frankly, odd. I did tell someone yesterday that I had been piecing stars to reduce stress. BIG MISTAKE. I won’t do that again….<\/p>\n

Quilting is a piece of cake though compared to sock knitting:<\/p>\n

‘you do what?’<\/p>\n

‘I knit socks, you know fancy, thick, wooly, cosy winter socks. I like them better than anything I can buy’.<\/p>\n

‘Why? Why would you knit socks when you can buy nice socks?<\/p>\n

How long does it take to knit a pair of socks?’<\/p>\n

‘ YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING’.<\/p>\n

At that point I could as well have ‘very strange person’ tattooed on my forehead. The person who I am talking to starts to edge away from me, having already lost her eyebrows somewhere up onto the top of her head. Nobody knits socks. Well, that’s not true exactly, I do and many of you do and my friend Suzanne in Aptos, California does, but nobody else does. Apart from the old ladies in the Old People’s Home who do it because there is nothing on earth else they can do anymore.<\/p>\n

When I was visiting Suzanne and found her knitting basket with a pair of half-knitted socks in it I was almost \u00a0delirious. I would not have raised the subject myself, you understand. I’ve been down that road, I’ve had those fingers burned. And I like Suzanne and I really don’t want her to think I’m a strange person. I had always known she was a kindred spirit and this was truly the ultimate proof. We even went on sock wool hunting forays and exchanged patterns. Heaven, I can tell you!<\/p>\n

I’m also very wary about telling my friends that I have a blog. Eric and Lindsay know – Eric set the blog up for me – and have never been anything other than supportive – and I don’t think they laugh into their hankies behind my back. In fact I’m always rather thrilled when Eric emails me to say he likes a particular post. How cool is that? I blog about quilting and knitting and a MAN reads my blog. Meg reads too in Germany – but she knows what I’m like, warts and all, so to speak.Kendall knows, but she’s a writer and my favourite running buddy – and knows all my secrets disclosed piecemeal during long runs in the woods. Otherwise, no. I did mention it to an acquaintance in the early days who asked me what I had been up to. Never again. I was subjected to a tirade along the lines of ‘how could you possibly imagine that anyone would want to read what you have to write about. It’s totally self-indulgent’. As I slunk back to go under my rock I vowed, never again to open up like that.<\/p>\n

It’s sad really. But maybe I am just a little strange.<\/p>\n

But then again, at least I am a happy strange person.<\/p>\n

Helen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are several things in my life, that I have learnt by experience not to talk about in general conversation. Things which, although important to me, other people find well, strange… I started thinking about this because of a comment from Lizzie on the subject of pyjamas this week. She, like me, loves her flannel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQtrc-bJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=727"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727\/revisions\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}