Best Quote I Heard All Day
No man who is in a hurry is quite civilized--Will Durant

I guess that would make me somewhat Neanderthal because I'm writing this entry in a hot NY minute.

No time. No peace. No vacation. Yet. If at all. Jesus.

So welcome to the Quik 'n' EZ KC because it's after midnight and I am into New York City tomorrow early for a workshop that my company is holding. I'm there to audit and to talk to clients. A thrill a minute.

Magenta Diamonds
Despite the insanity of the past two weeks, I've managed to get a huge amount done on this project.
Sorry for the crapola picture but it's still on the needles and I took this around 7 p.m. last night, after jumping into the pool. We're having a heat wave here in NJ this week.

One more pattern repeat and then comes the top edging. And it's done. I should have it finished and hopefully blocked by this weekend.

Amazing how much you can knit during endless conference calls with your new boss, whom I have named Pepe LePew. For reasons I won't explain. He's a fucktard.

Afternoon Deelite
At least yesterday, I had a few hours with Kristin Nicholas, who was down in my (and formerly her) neck of the woods. K brought me a lovely bouquet of flowers from her mother's garden, we sat and drank coffee, and I interviewed her. Well, lots of stuff off the record but we had a great time. The interview will be in the Winter issue of Interweave Knits.

I'm very glad Kristin is back designing. Her influence has been sorely missed. So those of you going to Stitches East this fall can see her because she'll be doing a talk, I believe. And hopefully her new book, Kristin Knits, will be available there.

Open Mic Thursday
Haven't had much time to think about this but I did come up with one topic. The people at the knitting mags do read this blog. I know that to be true. So here's your chance to spout off.

What do the knitting magazines need to do to keep you buying them?

Say what you will. Having been an editor myself, I know that it's important to keep in touch with your readers. However, not always easy to get an honest opinion from them if you meet them face-to-face.

Blog Anniversary
Thank you all for your Happy Anny wishes. I would like to say that only one reader, Victoria, got the question about "rare and handy" correct. It does indeed come from Weebl and Bob, a wonderfully weird animated series done by a British artist, Jonti. Google it because I'm too tired to do the link. However, there are now about 200 episodes, so I would suggest you begin with the first one.

Weebl and Bob are very rare and handy. And so is sleep, so I'm off to bed. More this weekend, I promise.

Best Quote I Heard All Day
I mistrust total competence. I've always felt life is a series of small disasters we try to get through.--Michael Palin

This week meant two days without hot water due to a retarded furnace.

A small disaster is taking a cold shower, not to alleviate any yearnings but because you are beginning to stink.

Diamonds
This will be a post of short spurts, mostly because I’ve been writing nonstop and I’m a bit weary and out of words. Nonetheless, I’ve been working on the Magenta Diamonds shawl at a steady pace (often during conference calls, of which there has been four too many since Monday). I’ve had some thoughts on lace but I’ll save them for the weekend when I’m more lucid.

It grows like Topsy. I’ll put up a picture this weekend.

The Cotton Glace for Jenn’s Campanula showed up Monday but I’m going to finish this shawl first. I’m about halfway through and don’t want to drop it now.

I’m also behind in my spinning but that will be remedied this weekend, possibly. If I’m not busy with social stuff. The weekends keep filling up, which is a good thing. Won't talk about the loom or my spindles, all of which are growing plant life or hair. Or something.

The reason I did not insert the link to Royal Yarn, Joe, is because I don't want to be directly responsible for leading someone there. Google is everyone's friend.

Open Mic Thursday
OK, so we’ve had socks, shawls, mitts, ponchos, lingerie, fugly dog sweaters, and other stuff making the rounds for a while now. Along with lace, which seems to have taken off, as intarsia did back when. The bulky knits seem to have run their course, although they’ll be back in about 10 years, along with the excess of glitz. Shaped garments seem to be overtaking shapeless schmattehs. Here’s your chance to be a knitting prognosticator.

What do you see as the next trend in knitting?

I have no particular thoughts on this. However, your thoughts are welcome, if written wisely and intelligently.

The BW Charting Project
It occurred to me that there may be some copyright issues at play here. I have some of the charting finished but I am hesitant about publishing them because I am not sure of where I would stand. I would not charge for access to the charts but that may not matter. So I’ll leave that to the legal minds who read this blog. You all can comment and let me know what you think.

Faux Borat
I did enjoy the guy in the yellow thong running along with the Tour de France participants. Nice touch.

Potted
Not a fan of Harry Potter, particularly. I read the first book, saw the first movie on DVD, and promptly forgot about the whole thing. My sister, Harry Potter fiend, is attending Friday’s Border event to pick up her copy. Not me.

However, this past Sunday, alone and on the loose, I decided to go to the movies by myself to see either "Ratatouille" or "Sicko". Until she called me on my cell while I was out shopping and offered to buy me a ticket to the new HP movie so that I could go with her, my nephew Alex, and my brother-in-law Jim. Hell, why not?

I actually enjoyed the movie, although it does behoove you to have read the books, I think. But there’s a plethora of knitwear in the movie, which I’m afraid will prompt yet more HP knitting.

I read extensively but I prefer to leave those reviews to others. There's always a book at hand, generally history or a good mystery. One of these days I'll set up a separate LibraryThing for my other books.

IK Felt and Piecework
I'm looking forward to seeing this new special by Interweave. Felting or fulling, depending upon how you do it, can look either very interesting or like something you made in Girl Scouts. There's a preview of the magazine on Interweave's site; however, the pictures really didn't tell me much. So I'll check it out in Borders.

I've said this before and I'll repeat it: Piecework is a fine, interesting magazine, one that I've read faithfully since its launch back in the '90s. Yes, there's Nancy Bush as the contributing knitting editor, if all you care about is knitting. But for those of us who are interested in the history of needlework, be it quilts made from flour sacks, Russian shawls, tatting, or Renaissance costuming, there is always something worthwhile reading.

Boom Boom

Watching the coverage tonight of the explosion in NYC, one thing came to me immediately. It happened right where I worked as a consultant at CIBC two years ago. Yet another reason why I will not work in New York again, the hideous commute nothwithstanding. I enjoy visiting the city for fun and yarn, buttons, and other ephemera, but about six hours is my max tolerance. Noise, people, bullshit. Not rare and handy.

Best Quote I Heard All Day
The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity--John Adams

Even in the godless, sin-ridden house wherein I live, Jesus can appear to a child eating Hawaiian Feast pizza from Domino's.

Yes, Liz has found Jesus. He appeared to her on her Chinet plate the other day.


You can clearly distinguish the beard, the long hair, and the beatific gaze. Liz immediately wept great tears of joy, smudging her mascara.


"Oh, Gram!" she cried. "I so want to put this up on eBay so I can make a million dollars and thus pay for my tuition to art school. Do you think Jesus would be OK with that?"

As I ate the crust she left behind, as she always does, I patted her on the head and said, "My child, you are blessed with artistic talent. So yeah, flog it and see what you can get."

But somehow, Jesus On The Chinet ended up tossed away, like some trash. However, it was suggested that perhaps the Virgin Mary might appear on Mommy's pepperoni slice.

Dominus vobiscum. Et tu, eBay.

In Lieu Of
Any other knitted item, since I have not yet received my Cotton Glace for Jenn's Camp Anula (story to follow), I managed to get a significant amount of work done on the Magenta Diamonds shawl.

Serious peanut-eating time. I can't put the damned thing down. Once blocked, I think it will be quite nice against my black uniform.

Interesting that I seem to drift towards diamond motifs. Note the chair fabric. So what does this mean, in the scheme of life? Not fucking much. Except that I like symmetry, I suppose.

I would imagine this will be done in the next week or so. Even Mammy admired it today, while we were knitting at the lake.

I was looking at a couple of other Sharon Miller patterns that I own, the Edwardian Lace Wrap, the Wisteria shawl, and the Lavender Garden shawl. While I knit Jenn's jacket, I'll finish up the Magenta Diamonds and perhaps start one of these. I really like working with Kidsilk Haze, which is used for the Edwardian and Lavender Garden designs. I realized too, that in the last entry, I didn't give the link for the Blue Diamonds shawl. So now you have it.

Crap Online Yarn Sites
OK, so I ordered Jenn's Cotton Glace two weeks ago. Received an e-mail confirmation of my order and then...nothing. No shipping confirmation as of last Tuesday. So I e-mailed the customer service department, requesting the shipping status. No response.

Fine. By Friday morning, I was pissed. So I called the 866 Customer Service number. Got voice mail. Left a rather stringent yet polite message that they should contact me immediately regarding my order and its status.

No response by noon. I searched and found the parent company, with a non-tollfree number for customer service and called that. Voice mail again. This time, I left a very strident message.

No response. At 4 p.m., I canceled the order via my credit card company and re-ordered from another place. I got a shipping confirmation within an hour, that my order would be shipped that afternoon via USPS. I should have the yarn by Tuesday at the latest.

So, shall I out the lousy company? Yes, I shall. Because they fucking deserve it.

It's Royal Yarns. I gave them more than a decent shot. Clearly they don't understand good customer service. As they say, if one person has a bad customer service experience, they will tell at least 9 other people.

Unless that person has a blog with a good readership. In that case, you're fucked.

Caveat emptor.

Fibrefest North
You all had better hurry up because rooms are getting snatched up fast. Ted has done a magnificent job organizing this event, I must say. He has just added a trip to the Lindenhof Wool Mill.

[Ed. note: The link to Fibrefest North does not seem to work. So go to Ted's blog and try it from there. You'll find it in his sidebar.]

I have a feeling that this weekend is going go damned fast. Check out the list of who's attending. Carol will be there with lots of BBF yarn and I'm sure other vendors will show up as well.

On the Loose
The kids left yesterday for the Outer Banks of North Carolina, so I'm alone, with my sole company Cleo, Buddy, Buster, Boo, and Blueberry the Bunny, who belongs to Jenn and is residing happily down in the basement, away from the Fabulous Four.

Lord knows what kind of egregiously wanton behavior I could display. The animals won't snitch. And the prospects are quite rare and handy. But I ain't talkin'. Yet.