Knitting - The New Denial

How many folks would listen to a raving lunatic on the street screaming about UFO's and give him credence?
How many folks would listen to an editorial writer who claimed that knitting was putting women back in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant and give her credence?

Worrying About Ignorant Folk
As some of you know, my partner is a recovering alcoholic. I've accompanied my co-alcoholic to some Alcoholics Anonymous meetings so I could get a sense about what he was going through. At one of those meetings, a man had just finished sharing, and a woman in the group stood up in a huff and starting raving about what a lousy meeting this was, and that they shouldn't even consider it a valid AA meeting. She seemed enraged that some rule, that was unknown to me, was broken by the man who had just finished sharing. She then proceeded to storm out of the meeting cursing and yelling.

I was aghast. I turned to my partner and asked what sin the man had committed that made the woman so enraged. He replied that the man had done nothing and that the woman did this every month or so on a regular basis.

The AA meeting continued as if nothing had happened, and no validity or even acknowledgement seemed necessary that they were sane, and the woman clearly was not.

It was an important lesson for me. Ever since, I'm more willing to look to my own experience about an issue, even when others might be poking sticks at it.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. I am unapologetically passionate about knitting. It was obvious to me that the woman who wrote the editorial had no idea what she was talking about, or if she did, the article clearly did not reflect my experience of knitting.

My only question is what would cause a herd of knitsheep to get so upset by her invalid theory. I can only think that there is some insecurity on their part that would allow them to question their own experience.

I guess I've wasted enough blog space on this issue, but this is about the third time since December that this kind of issue has made me realize that some folks have the confidence of their convictions, and others will take every opportunity to question those convictions.

Knit Progress
I finished the back of the block cardigan last night. Overall, I like how it looks.



Here's a graphical representation that Matt from ThreadBear Fibers put together. It shows the colors more realistically than my digital camera can.



Here's also a picture that shows the original colors of the sweater in Brooks Brothers, where I stole this design idea. The original sweater with color blocks is no longer in the window, but you can get a sense of what it would look like based on the colors in this sweater.



Finally, I've designed (on paper only) a new sweater with smaller blocks and lots of pattern designs and LOTS more colors. I'm hoping Matt will collaborate on this one and provide the color selection. I think with our combined talents we could come up with something truly stunning.

Meeting a Curmudgeon

Who would have thought meeting a curmudgeon could be so much fun.

Sunday Visiting
My Tomato Factory/Simply Knit friend Kathy and I got the opportunity to meet Marilyn of Knitting Curmudgeon fame.

I'm not sure if you're like me or not, but I always over-idealize folks who I've never met, and I'm almost always disappointed when they don't match the image of perfection I've concocted in my mind about them. They never seem to turn out quite as smart, or quite as funny, or quite as fascinating as I expect them to.

Marilyn had some pretty extraordinary shoes to fill, since I had never met her in person, and only knew her through her blog and via e-mail correspondence.

I have to say, Marilyn is as clever, witty and sharp-tongued as I had imagined her to be. The prize was how normal she is. And I don't mean "normal" as in "pedestrian", or "boring", or as she might construe it, the opposite of "rare". I mean she really is a real person. She's extremely down-to-earth, and straighforward. and easy to be with.

Overall, it was nice being with two of my people...knitters.

Marilyn and Kathy also have very discriminating eyes for knit design. I took advantage of that to ask about my new sweater design.

Marilyn and I agreed that I need to change the ribbing color, but that the sweater will look fine when it's all done.



Marilyn also took a picture of Kathy during the meeting, at which point my camera battery promptly died (the two occurrences had NOTHING to do with each other), so I have no other picture to post of our illustrious first meeting.



It's not a great picture of the sweater, but Kathy (the Koigu Queen) is wearing a magnificent jacket in crocheted Koigu. Amazingly beautiful. Also, for those who don't know Kathy at all, she was one of the designers at Tomato Factory, and she was also formerly an owner/designer at Simply Knit.

Chock-a-Block Cardigan
I am so grateful for all the praise, suggestions and ideas for the colorway on the new cardigan design.

One thing I should have mentioned in my preferences for colorwork. I won't use black as the background for a multi-color garment. I personally think it makes a sweater look too commercial. I've seen it used very successfully, but I just don't find it to be a viable solution.

Matt of ThreadBear Fiber helped me out enormously by doing graphics to show my color combinations with and without certain colors. He and I think very similarly in terms of traditional color mixing, so I was very grateful for his help. Look at what he put together for me...amazing.



This picture shows three of the five graphics Matt used to show me how darkening the teal color (and the lavender) would make this an overall richer, more coordinated color combination.

He also sells some fine yarns (including Jamieson DK and Koigu) at internet discounted prices. You have to check out his blog and site if you're in the market for yarn (a shameless promotion of his site was the LEAST I could do for his help and advice).

New Project Progress

Still not sure I'm liking the new cardigan design.

Color Moron
Some folks have an innate sense of color. They can balance colors, put together interesting combinations and pull off amazingly beautiful knitwear designs. My friend/local yarn store owner, Carol Lapin is one of those folks. I, unfortunately, am not. Carol is quite talented at choosing color combinations that work the first time around. She's working on a new design, for which you will get a sneak preview.



I, on the other hand, have started the new cardigan color block design, and I'm concerned the colors just don't work as well as I had hoped. Here's what I've done so far.



I like the design concept of different blocks with different pattern stitches. I'm just not sure if I like the color combinations. I've decided I'll wait till I'm done with the back, and then decide. While it would suck to have to rip out the entire back, it would be worth it if I could find a stunning color combination. I'll be meeting up with two folks who I trust tomorrow, I'll show them the garment and ask for their opinion.

Contest Prizes
Sarah, Antonio and Tara, your prizes were mailed out today. Antonio and Tara, you should get yours on Tuesday or Wednesday. Sarah, yours should hopefully arrive by Christmas...lol (hers went to the UK).

Booby Prize - Again
While I've decided not to punish any of the QSAT respondents with a booby prize, I did want to show that I do have an incredibly ugly pink yarn (I realized it's not really boucle, but it is VERY ugly). I could also supplement it with some lovely Lion Brand Jiffy. It amazes even me that I still have this shit in my stash.



Lanaknits
As Hilary mentioned in the comments, Lanaknits folks were away for a couple of weeks. I called them on the day of their return, and they are processing my order. I always love talking with Canadian yarn store owners...they're usually so much more pleasant to deal with than American yarn store owners.

Mercury In Retrograde

Despite the fact that it's not, it should be.

Communications Issues
Based on Antonio's vast understanding of the astrological world, Mercury is NOT in retrograde. But my communications issues continue. The most grievous example is the Haloscan comments on my page.

Folks were telling me that my page was taking a long time to load, so I went and reduced the size of every one of the pictures on it, so it would use a little less bandwidth. Unfortunately, accessing the Haloscan comments server has continued adding delays to the page loading time. Fortunately, I think Haloscan has fixed the problem, and the page should load more quickly. It's hard to complain since the comments service is free.

I've also posted a change to the way that comments load which should avoid this problem the next time Haloscan goes down. Phil Ringnalda has posted a more complex script that will help to bypass javascripts when they aren't available. I don't understand a word of what I added, but it seems to still work.

Knitting Content
With technical issues hopefully behind me, I've been able to focus some on my kid alpaca knitting.

The bedspread has 412 stitches across and has about 8 or 10 rows per inch. So each inch of knitting requires...I'll let Marilyn and Kathy figure it out since they love math so much.

But suffice it to say, every inch takes for-freakin'-ever.

Hemp Sweater
Well, the verdict is in. I hate the Renaissance Hotel housekeeping staff in Baltimore (on the Inner Harbor).

They couldn't find the pattern I left in my nightstand last week, so I had to order a new one. While I was at it, I also ordered another cone of hemp yarn in a color that I will like better than the brown I'm working on now. But the sucky thing is, I won't be able to proceed until it comes in.

Ordering on-line with Lanaknits is kind of odd. I haven't received any e-mail confirmation of the order, so I'm hopeful it went through correctly. Maybe I'll try giving them a call later today to confirm. Their web site doesn't give a phone number for them, so I may have to do some investigation to find them.

Willie Warmer Pattern

Sorry about the 3/17/03 post where I forgot to link to the actual pattern. Here's the link for those looking for the pattern:

Click Here

Booby Prize

I have always had an incredibly bad memory for certain things. Thank goodness for folks who remind me.

Contest - Again
Antonio, the second prize winner of the contest reminded me that I was supposed to award a booby prize.

But now, I'm perplexed and befuddled.

Should I award it to the person with the lowest score? That would be Antonio's first lame attempt with a score of 10, and I can't give him two prizes.

Should I award it to the person who tried too hard? That would have to be Stephanie with some of the worst attempts to rhyme that you would ever imagine. The follow up to this line, "Is he waxed, is he permed, is he plucked?" I will leave to your own dirty little imagination.

Should I award it to the person who knows me personally who got a 14 on the quiz? That would be Kathy. Ask Kathy what her confirmation name is. No angry inch there (I don't think).

And even if I could decide on who was most unworthy, there would be the issue of trying to decide on the so-called prize. Would it be pink acrylic boucle? Would it be a bag of leftover scraps and a coffee-stained printout of the Wonderful Wallaby pattern? Would it be a Willie Warmer made of Lopi Light? Should the gift be matched to the recipient?

I give up...I've decided none of the responses was pathetic enough to merit a booby prize. Unless I hear some valid rationale for changing my mind, I'm reneging on the booby prize.



Gage doesn't seem to care.

Current Project Progress
I've made some headway on the alpaca bedspread. It's looking quite good if I do say so myself. I had forgotten how much I enjoy this baby alpaca. Despite the VERY ugly color of the yarn (which I plan on dyeing after the fact), this yarn is luxuriously soft and nice to work with. I know a lot of folks that use it double or treble it so that it works up faster. At $1 per hank, it's easy to do that.

New Blog Ring
Yes, just what the internet blogging world needed, a new blog ring. You'll notice I have a new link in my blog ring section. Jerry Gaiser has been thoughtful enough to start a blog ring for men who knit. It's just a high testosterone version of the other fiber blog rings.

Actually, I think there's only two of us on the ring right now, but hopefully all you male knit bloggers will sign up and we'll show the world that there truly is a huge network of men out there knitting. You can blame me for the lame graphic. If any budding graphic artists would care to submit entries, I'd be more than happy to replace it.

Bloggers Meeting
I get to meet Marilyn of Knitting Curmudgeon fame this weekend. She, Kathy and I are going for a walk-through of Simply Knit and then for a nice lunch on Sunday. I know I'm no Annie Modesit (who Marilyn met up with a couple of weeks ago), but it should be fun nonetheless.