How to Write Your Memoirs and Tips for Knitters

How to Write your Memoirs.

Have you ever thought about your life experiences and wish to write them down?  Maybe you have gotten older and the kids and grand children are asking you about your life.  Have you been thinking of getting it documented but either do not know how or don’t have the time?

Here’s your chance to start writing down your memories before it’s too late.  Because, your memories if unrecorded will end up going to the grave with you if you don’t write down important highlights of your life for your children and theirs.

You can begin by going shopping and getting the journals you would like to use for writing things down and you may want to use certain types of pens.  If you want to get really classy, you could use those fine tip black marker pens.  You can usually get a two pack at the grocery store and they are relatively cheap.  I use those ones when I’m  making my paper dolls and I’ve also used them to write with.

Pick a certain time out of each day when you want to sit down to write about things.  And have your writing space prepared for you.  Maybe you just want to get it handwritten first before actually typing it out.  Lots of writers do that.

Many people choose to self publish their memoirs and buy copies for their family and friends.  That’s one option.  Or maybe you would like to see it as an e-book and want to sell it to a larger audience.

But first, you need to begin.  What part of your life would you wish to write about first?  Maybe do a little outline of the parts of your memoirs.

Childhood

Teenage years

Adult phase

Married life

Middle age

Growing older

Roughly there’s a beginning.  Then maybe you want to have a whole bunch of highlights for each section.  Also, it may help you to have pictures to go by and then you can just start writing down all your thoughts.

Keep a journal as well just to record anything you are thinking.  Sometimes a journal helps to make it all really personal.

Also, you may want to pick up a few books on memoir writing as they will have a bunch of prompts to maybe kick start your writing.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted June 2, 2013

Tips for Knitters

Calling all knitters and beginning knitters.  You have decided this is probably going to be your hobby or your career and you from time to time may come up against problems in your knitting.  Here is a little bit of odds and ends to give you some basic tips.

Begin by looking at your pattern books and start figuring which ones you want to try.  Remember if you are a beginner, you will want to start with something easy.

Have a great yarn stash, and keep your little extras after you are done knitting a project.  They come in handy if you want to do a small project and it’s only going to call for a small amount of yarn for each color.

Or if you are an experienced knitter, the small scraps of yarn can come in handy for a Fair Isle pattern you want to try.

Keep a little notebook for knitting notes.  Iet comes in especially handy if you know how to write your own patterns or you are making your own pattern, you will need to write down the instructions before finishing in case you want to make it again or put it in a book you might want to publish.

Collect a good stash of knitting needles as you never know when you may need a certain size.  Or sometimes you can’t find the size in your same color set, and it really doesn’t matter if you are color coordinated with your needles.

Casting on is very easy. You may want to knit your first row or you can knit it in pattern, but sometimes it is easy just to knit the first row.  Your choice.

Learn the different techniques if you would like to try double stranded knitting.  It’s the same as using one strand only it is doubled.  Which means it will be a thicker knitted item.  Practice with your yarn stash as to how thick you want your knitting to be.  Sock weight double stranded would almost be like knitting with a worsted weight yarn.

Try different stitches as well to get used to how to do them.  That way, you have more of a variety.

If you are doing an elaborate pattern, you may want to invest in a stitch counter, or have a Bee Count app with your tablet or another stitch counter app with a Nook or a Kindle.  And then, there’s the plain old little row counter you can attach to a safety pin and keep putting down which row you left off on.  Or an index card to write it down would work well too.  You want to make sure you know where you left off to avoid mistakes.

Sometimes we can catch mistakes if we’re on a row and we don’t have to go too far back, but it’s a pain in the neck to see a mistake we did say ten or twelve rows back.  Not many of us want to unravel all that work.

If using different colors say for stripes or something, leave yourself a good tail so you can later weave in your ends.

Well, this is a good start.  I’ll think up another knitting post later on.

Jennifer Jo Fay

Copyrighted June 2, 2013

These are two of the fourteen posts I did yesterday and today I'm publishing them here and at Triond.  Makes me mad, I've got a not nice neighbor thinking he has a right to fiddle with either this site and Triond to get it so I can no longer do either one.  And Triond only makes me a few dollars so it's really nasty for some jerk guy to think he has the right so I can't make a measly few dollars to buy a few groceries.  Isn't that the nastiest!  Well, I'm publishing this now and changing passwords.  Makes me mad I have to keep changing the passwords all the time, but hey, I can't have someone hacking in and wrecking my writing career. 

One tip for knitters: Have lots of books with cool patterns, magazines and cool Ravelry downloads.  You never know when you are going to be inspired by one or you see an awesome pattern you just want to have for yourself or to give to a friend or sell them at a local Craft show.  There's no rule that says you can't sell them at a local craft show.  You took the time to make it, you can sell it if you want.