Best Quote I Heard All Day

I was a peripheral visionary. I could see the future, but only way off to the side. --Steven Wright

That's how I view whatever is to come--way off to the side, as I stump my way through life, working, knitting, and trying to find some fun where I can.

Whenever I feel a little down, I read some of Steven Wright's quotes. Puts it all into perspective.

Falling UP

I must say, after a good Spring issue, and then a fugly Summer one, the new Fall Knitter's is pretty pleasing. Designs by Deborah Newton, Norah Gaughan, Kathy Zimmermann, Penny Ollman, Celeste Pinheiro, all attractive. Carol Wessinger's dress done in Lavold's Silky Wool is a design that could be worn by almost any body shape. Not that I'd knit a dress. In fact, most of the designs are very doable, classic numbers.

With the exception of some bizarre knitted runners created by the "Knitter's Design Team."

The Design Team doesn't qualify for a wildcard spot in the playoffs, that's for sure. Give it up, team. Go do something else.

Does this connote an upward trend in Knitter's quality? Let's hope so because there really is nowhere for them to go but up. And frankly, they need to ditch the awful, endlessly boring articles and replace them with what they once had: tech articles of value. Honestly, I wasn't particularly interested in reading page after page about the new kids on the block in the knitting industry, mostly because it just went on and on and on.

And I've never been a Perry Klass fan, either. On and on and on.

Hot Legs

Well, not as hot as Joe's. But I managed to spend some time on these socks over the long weekend.

You know how fucking hard it is to take a picture of your own foot? Where the hell was Liz when I needed her?

Summer Reading
I usually leave it to Carol to do book reviews of all types but I read constantly, when I'm not knitting or working or doing something illicit.

My picks for this summer: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky, and Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Slave by Jennifer Fleischner. All highly recommended. (No, I did not read Harry Potter and the Cylindrical Golden Orgasm or whatever the fuck it's called.)

The latter book is of especial interest to me, since I have always found Mary Lincoln to be a fascinating person. A harridan? Perhaps. More likely manic-depressive, which has some interest for me. This is a completely absorbing book. I'm about 50 pages into it and hooked. Totally.

On the Road
Thursday and Friday, as I mentioned in a previous post, I will be on the road for work, training in Roanoke and possibly York, PA, if I can get the manager to schedule some time for me on Thursday afternoon.

This trip doesn't mean I won't be posting. Got the laptop, wi-fi at the place I'm staying, so there will be an Open Mic Thursday. And I'm looking forward to lying on the comfy bed, knitting, watching TV, and the thoughts of the fabulous, rare and handy, free Continental breakfast that awaits me in the morning. Mmmm boy, nothing like plastic-wrapped muffins.

Best Quote I Heard All Day

Maybe you've taken some...drugs...which gave you many pretty colors. That freak you out and make you want to die!--Georg Festrunk

Yes, that's me yesterday. Awash in the green of our office. Lime green walls. Lime green carpeting. And a puce kitchen.

Here's Randy, our VP of Sales. I promised him I wouldn't put his face out in public, although he's really cute and a fine Southern gentleman. But the green is a bit much. We all look quite ill during the day.

Ganze Familie
Having left my camera cable at work, maroon that I am, I'm relegated to some pictures that I took on Sunday, when we had Ma's birthday barbecue.

Liz could have a future as the last clown out of the VW bug. I'm not quite sure what the point of these motorized bikes are, other than to cause severe injury, but it belongs to the kid next door. So he can smash his brains out, not her.

Mammy working on her latest Lavold and opening a present simultaneously (I told ya she's good for 84), daughter Jenn looking drugged, and Ian shoving his gut out. What a family.

Coffee Socks
I have to agree with Joe--I'm liking these Kaffe Fassett socks just fine, although he finished his and I'm working mine cuff-down. I would have a picture but it's not happening tonight. Thursday. I must say, I am pleased with the striping, which I thought I would not be. Just shows to go ya that sometimes you just have to knit shit up.

Knitting as Hula Hoop
I thought the comments about knitting popularity were quite interesting. I've seen trends in needlework come and go throughout the years but never such a spike as we've seen recently with knitting.

I do not see crochet having the same impact as knitting has had, for several reasons. First of all, there are few good crochet designers out there. Second, crochet is not as versatile as knitting, in my opinion. Yeah, you can make nice crocheted garments, to a point. But I find crochet to be limiting, simply because of the nature of the different stitch constructions. Unless you work in very fine yarns/threads, crochet inevitably ends up looking clunky.

Felting/fulling? No. I see it as the flavor of the week but as far as any sustained public interest, I'd give it a year, tops. I think that it's a worthwhile adjunctive skill and one that has a lot of potential but I don't see it elevated to the same level as knitting.

Spinning has certainly become more popular, no doubt about it. There seem to be far more spinners out there than there were when I started eight years ago. This may be an illusion, since back then, there were no blogs and nobody was writing regularly about spinning on the internet. I don't think so, though. In fact, blogs may have contributed to its increased popularity.

The core needlearts, knitting, quilting, and sewing, will always have a large group of devotees, particularly quilting. These three crafts have remained constant for a long time. The others have waxed and will wane. Those of us who remember the macrame and crewel crazes of the '70s know this.

As someone who also embroiders, I would love to see a renaissance in that discipline. No matter where the trends go, just give me them sticks and some wool. That's all I need to feel rare and handy.

Best Quote I Heard All Day
The fundamentalists have taken the fun out of the mental--Ken Kesey

Will the road trip to FibreNorth be akin to the Merry Pranksters, without the drugs?

Here's to the memory of Ken, and Hunter S. as well. Two writers who, along with Mrs. Parker, taught me that writing needs an edge, if it's going to fly.

Blah, Blah, Blah
No edgy writing this week. Every so often, when I don't have time to write for public consumption, which was the case this week, Ted emails me and asks, "Are you OK?"

Yep. Never better. In fact, I will be going back to work next Monday, back to Slovenia World, which is rapidly turning into a much better place than when I left it last year. And I'll be working for my dear friend Susan, icing on the cake.

As for my little vacation and state of public incommunicado, I was finishing up the writing of my interview with Kristin Nicholas, which culminated in a one-day blitzkrieg trip up to Massachusetts this past Saturday to photograph her, the farmhouse, and some of her new designs from her upcoming book, Kristin Knits. The interview will appear in the Winter issue of IK. I'm pleased with it.

You know that after leaving Kristin to dash on home down I91, I had to stop at WEBS. It was 5 p.m. and I had a half hour. So I bought two skeins of the new Regia Kaffe Fassett sock yarn, Landscape Storm. (Never yarn-shop when you're on your cellphone talking business. It ruins the experience.)



Let me say this about that--I was somewhat underwhelmed by the yarn. WEBS seemed to have them all, both the Landscape and the Mirage types, and I picked through them. I think that what makes this yarn so much less worthy of Kaffe's talents is the gawd-awful striping, not the colors. Somehow, the big ole stripes on the Landscape don't seem to do his colorways justice. Check out the line here and see what you think. In fairness, you must see these yarns in person to get the true colors.

Rove-ing
Thank God he's gone. However, it's too late. The damage is done. More time with his family? How nice. How unbelievable.

Watch for a major stock market crash in October. I believe my dear Neal when he says that the time is here. Already, the subprime market is in huge trouble. However, as we all know, the Maroon-in-Chief wouldn't recognize a financial disaster from a natural one. Given the fine display of his leadership abilities during Katrina--you know, the same ones that made him such a success during his tenure with the Rangers--I would expect that on the day of the crash, he'll be clearing brush in Crawford. Or perhaps reading Camus.

Open Mic Thursday
I actually opened up one of my Knit List digests today, after a very long hiatus, and happened to see responses from a few people I recognized. When I do bother to skim the digests, I often just look at the subject. When I see something like "What to do with Fun Fur?", my first inclination is to write "Burn it." Ah, the toxicity of burning Fun Fur. What a concept. Better than asbestos, I would think. Far more damaging, probably.

Here's my topic for this week:

Did the advent of knitting blogs cause the intellectual disintegration of the major knitting lists?

Of course, even back in the halcyon days of the Knit List, there were mindless idiots posting stuff of little consequence, no question. But as a rule, the discussions then were smart, interesting, and often thought-provoking. The smaller, specialized lists still have some value, I believe. Some, but not much.

Campanula Redux
When I was up visiting Kristin this weekend, I told her that I'd had enough of lace for the time being. This is true. When I look back over the past year and a half, other than the Knit Picks Fair Isle vest (a present from Mammy), the Zizzer Zazzer hat, and the Guernsey socks, everything has been lace, starting with the Melanie shawl for Corinne's wedding.

And now, I'm on my last lace project for a while, Jenn's Campanula. I do like Rowan's Cotton Glace very much, though. It's become the cotton of choice for me. The colors are sublime.


Because I posted pictures of my Campanula, I won't be posting progress pictures of this one. The only difference between the two is that I'm shortening this for Jenn--she's 5'3" to my almost 5'7", so one less pattern repeat will be a perfect length for her. When it's done, then there will be a picture.

Cape May Antics
Carol invited me down to Cape May, the tip of NJ, where she and Tom and the kidz are spending a week. So Liz and I will travel down there today for a fun-filled day at the beach, something I haven't done in years. And it will be good to see my Sissyboo Deux--haven't seen her for a while.

No pictures of us in swimsuits. I swear.

The Book
I stopped writing my book some time ago, simply because I refused to put out something that was basically a reinvention of the knitting wheel. Shit, there are too many of those books out there. And although it was suggested by a person high up in the knitting publishing world that I write a book about myself and my life in the knitting world, I nixed that idea completely.

Isn't that what this blog is about, more or less?

However, readers have pestered and I did some pondering. And yes, there is a book up in this cramped cranium but perhaps not the book that everyone might expect. I'm working on the proposal now, so we'll see who bites. I'm not going to self-publish, as I originally intended to do. More trouble than it's worth.

An author doesn't make shit from books, you know. Nor do they from articles. This I know for a fact. So when and if the book proposal is accepted, I will have more to say about it. But not much.

Surprises are rare and handy, dontcha know?