Kill the Lemmings

Best Quote I Heard All Day

Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?—James Thurber

I gotta laugh when I hear the word “edgy” used to describe a knitting design.

Another term that I can do without is “cutting edge.” It’s all the “edge” crap that I find irritating, I guess. Edge = sharp?

Knitting is what it is. People who use the word "hip" in conjunction with knitting are quite self-deluded. And when it’s “edgy,” generally the design is something even the Punk Princess wouldn’t wear.

Just make a fucking garment as opposed to a clown suit. But wait—has someone knitted a clown suit? No doubt. I imagine it can be found on Ravelry, the new KnitDweeb heaven. Yeah, yeah, I know. There are worthwhile groups there.

But I haven’t bothered signing onto Ravelry in more than a year. FaceBook keeps me connected with family and friends. I don't need another social network. I'm even considering dumping Twitter. I don't have the time to do all these things. Better to knit and write than to spend hours online. In fact, I'm doing less on FaceBook lately, other than playing Bejeweled Blitz.

[Note to self: I could knit a Bozo nose. Perhaps I shall do, and wear it to Rhinebeck.]

Crayon Madness
I’m having a love-hate relationship with Crystal Palace’s Mini Mochi. At this point, I’ve used four of the colorways, with Intense Rainbow the shade used in the Crayon Madness set for the book. All beautiful. Mochi Plus, the Aran weight, has 16 colorways, with the original Mini Mochi colors and eight new ones.

MM, due to its soft twist, can be troublesome at times, along with the sporadic lump of roving that appears when you least expect it. This isn’t an instance of thick ‘n’ thin yarn, it’s an instance of yarn blobbery. However, the results are well worth the occasional annoyance.

I've just finished the scarf to the set. First came the mitts, then the scarf, now the hat. Finally, the socks, if I'm not sick of it all.

It's damned tough to take a picture of yourself wearing a mitt, lemme tell ya.

I'm going to ask dear bro Richard, who has a degree in photography and knows what he's doing, to take some shots. This picture is the best of the lot--it's the scarf draped over my porch railing. At least you can see the lace rib pattern.

Ex Libris, Extrapolate
I just bought Marianne Isager’s Japanese Inspired Knits. A beautiful book, with excellent photography, worth every penny. Although I wasn’t that big on her African design book, I appreciate her artistry.

These days, I buy books that inspire me to do better with my own design work, rather than entice me to knit their patterns. I find that looking at designs pushes me to view my own work from different perspectives, rather than take the expected way out. When it came time to think about the hat construction for Crayon Madness, I began thinking about a basic cap. Well, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. There was no thrill there. Plus, decreasing the lace pattern didn’t make esthetic sense, so I cranked up the brain cells and came up with a possibility. A bonnet shape. I’ll be working out the details and troubleshooting this one—it should work.

Rowan magazines always inspire. The simplest garment often has surprising élan gained through unexpected detail—a frill here, an atypical hem there. Of course, the spectacular photography helps too, a message that hasn’t penetrated the American knitting magazines.

I picked up the latest issue of IK and once again, the photos did little justice to the designs. Same with Vague, although I’ll give it credit for the better photography. I grant you, photographing knitted garments can be a bitch. I’ve done it, as an editor, and it’s not the easiest task. Egregious namedropping: The first photographer I ever worked with was Ian O’Leary, who did Sasha Kagan’s first book and had done a lot of work for Dorling Kindersley. Great guy, and I learned a lot from about shooting garments and styling a shot. Photo shoots are not at all glamorous, trust me. They’re excruciatingly tedious.

Mac Attack on Knitting Apps
Working in IT means that I despise all things Microsoft. It’s ironic, since most of us in IT are forced to use their crap. I do hear that Windows 7 is very good, though. I’ve transferred most of my work to my MacBook, using Scrivener for the book, and the other iWork apps in place of Office junk. Once Windows 7 is available, I’ll partition the Mac to run my Windows knitting applications.

Fortunately, Knit Visualizer is available for the Mac. I’m looking into buying Garment Styler, although I don’t mind doing my own calculations. It’s a time factor, really. I own the Sweater Wizard but it’s limited.

Onceupona, when these applications didn’t exist, I used Excel as a charting tool. Once you set it up, it’s OK—and readily available. In my “spare” time, I’ve been doing a video on using Excel for charting. Watch this space. I’ll have it done in a week or so. You’ll need Flash 9 to view it. Yeah, I do this stuff for a living, so WTF. I’ve got Captivate 4 and RoboHelp 8 on my work laptop. Might as well use Captivate for my own purposes.

Special Beanie
In the spirit of nonconformity, I must say that I love kids who are born nonconformists, like both my grandchildren. And recently, I had the pleasure of meeting the son of one of Jerry’s friends, who is what Jerry calls “a lost soul”. In fact, J, as I shall call him here to protect his privacy, is not as lost as it would appear. He’s had his problems, overcame them, and is now looking to go to college to study forestry, getting his shit together finally at 23. His older brother, the “star” of the family, has seemingly overshadowed him. Not in my book. J is a smart, sweet, gentle soul, not a lost one. But he dances to his own beat.

We met up in Maine, when Jerry and I were staying at his parents’ house. I was sitting on the deck knitting when J sat down next to me and asked me to explain what I was doing. My usual explanation is: “You make interconnected loops using these sticks called needles.”

J then said, “I gotta show you something.” He bounced into the house and returned in a shot with a handful of commercially knit caps. “I wear these all the time and I love them.” I looked them over, told him they were very nice (they were), and then said the words I sensed he was waiting to hear. “Would you like me to knit you one?”

His face lit up. “Yes! Oh please, would you?”

So on the way home, I stopped at WEBS and bought some Louet GEMS merino, in steel gray and burgundy. Last week, I designed the Fair Isle motif for the hat. Now, I’m swatching. J will have his hat shortly. And he asked me to teach him to knit. I will, when we meet again.

Cutting edge? No. Edgy? No. Rare and handy? I hope so. Happy Labor Day. Jerry and I are off for a ride, meandering aimlessly. He drives, I knit. The way I like it.

Best Quote I Heard All Day
If somebody makes me laugh, I'm his slave for life.--Bette Midler

Ain't that the truth?

Give me a man who can make me laugh uncontrollably. Not that I'm generally in control, anyways.

A Slight Change in Schedule
Due to the fact that A) it's summer, B) work continues to pile up, and C) my social life seems to have suddenly lighted a fire under its sorry ass, I'm going to move Open Mic Tuesday to Thursdays, just so's the blog gets balanced out with entries. And then try to get an entry posted either Saturday or Sunday.

OK, so I spent a good part of today in the water, lake and pool. Fucking bite me. I could have started writing an entry earlier than 11 p.m. But it was hot and sunny outside here in NJ, and I was hot and sunny. So that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Campanula
Sounds like an Italian dessert, doesn't it? "Oh garcon, bring me a slice of that swell Campanula, heavy on the whipped cream." Well, despite my busy schedule, I've managed to complete a big chunk of the Campanula cardi. Back, one front, one sleeve--done. Here's the back:


Not a great picture, simply because it was almost 11 when I took it, plus I was out being rowdy tonight and had a couple of drinks. My bad. But this has been a terrific knit, pretty easy but kinda like a good book--you can't wait to get to the end, you're turning the pages and reading it at 2 a.m., and then when you've reached the last page, you feel bad because it's over.

Suffice it to say that it ain't over yet but I would expect I will have it done by next weekend or so.

Having seen the preview of the new Knitter's on their gawd-awful morass of a website, I have to say that this Spring issue was definitely Dragonboy on 'ludes. Or something. Because the Summer issues sucks, big time. With three of his absolutely revolting schmattehs (one on the cover, of course), plus more from that hapless crowd of Anonny Mouses known as the Knitter's Design Team (is burning at the stake too good a punishment for lousy designs?), I'd say that the X-Men are back to their usual low standards. If there were not a roll of toilet paper left on the planet, I'd wipe my ass with leaves rather than use the Summer issue of Knitter's.

OK, I feel better now.

The Bloggyversary
July 25 marks the 5th anniversary of this blog. Hard to believe that I started writing this as grief therapy and it ended up where it has (not quite sure where that is, but what the fuck).

I've decided to do a very special project to mark that occasion. It's going to be something completely different from anything I've ever done. I'll be working on it during my vacation, which blessedly starts on June 30 and runs until July 8. So stay tuned.

And a New Project
Not that I have much else to do but one of the things that's been on my mind is the transposition of Barbara Walker's stitch patterns to charts, using Knit Foundry's Knit Visualizer. (Read my review of this outstanding charting software in the sidebar.) I will, of course, give full credit to Knit Foundry and Nancy. (Incidentally, she's working on an upgrade that will include not only color capability but other enhancements and bug fixes.)

I forget which of my readers mentioned this possibility but it's been one that I've been mulling over and have decided to do. The beauty of Knit Visualizer is that it has been programmed to accept BW's abbreviations and will parse them into symbols.

So beginning this week, I will start transposing. Now, how I'm going to archive these charts is an IT issue that I have to work out. Clearly, a database is needed and being the techie that I am, I do have some solutions. That said, I will make these charts available to you guys from this blog, probably via a link.

So, you ask, what made you decide to do this? Well, for one thing, I feel the need to contribute more to the general knowledge base. And as I stated in the last entry's comments, I have abandoned the book idea simply because I am not willing to write a book about myself. I don't have any cute anecdotes about knitting. Sorry, but there's nothing cutesy about me or my knitting, other than the fact that I did knit in Carnegie Hall last night during the intermission of a piano recital.

I will start with the first volume, probably with the lace patterns and then on to the cables. As far as other textured stitches are concerned, I will save those for the last, since they are the ones that least need charting, in my opinion. Obviously, this is going to take me a hell of a long time but I think it will be more than worthwhile, for me and for the rest of you.

After all, when I think about editing written-out lace patterns back in the '80s, charts are more than rare and handy. They are now indispensable.