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Recycled Links

I was over at Ellen's yesterday catching up with her blog and she has a link to The Daily Knitter, a new online zine that I didn't know about. I've only skimmed the site, but it certainly provides further evidence of knitting's current popularityas an art/craft/hobby/status symbol :-)

Ellen also has a link to the persistently-funny Kevin F. Sherry's 80s Sweater Project, which seems comical every time I see it. I guess I'm easily entertained. So I went to see it again! Looking at those sweaters reminded me of my all-time favorite "sweet smelling sweater salad" by artist/musician Leslie Hall. No matter how many times I see "Gem Sweater," it makes me laugh. I'm sure you've seen it. But it's always a happy trip to take another look at the gold pants and those deathless disco-era sweaters and Leslie Hall herself.

I have new patterns from Fiddlesticks, and so I have new projects to compulsively cast on! We wish you a peaceful weekend.

Cheers!

It's only knitting (or crocheting)

There is a lot of gorgeous spinning and dyeing and knitting and crocheting going on here and there, with Leigh's watercolored mittens and these completely on fire gloves being my current must-see items. Beautiful! And on the mathematical front, Sarah recently sent me a link to the mathematical knitting page that is updated to include knitted braids, and Swatchy has found directions for crocheting the Lorenz Manifold. And finally, from the Great Spinner in the Sky, supernova remnants that resemble drafted fibers. Coincidence?

Thursday! We wish you a happy one.

Cheers!

Quiet Celebrations

Your comments on yesterday's entry were much appreciated; I'm very glad to be associated with such a group of strong, intelligent, beautiful women. Thank you all for taking the time to leave such thoughtful and revealing comments. In correspondence from another country, one knitter questioned whether bad blog behavior was an American phenomenon; an outgrowth of the right-wing times we are living through. This is a fascinating idea to which I want to devote some thinking-time that I don't possess this week, but it's definitely on my agenda. Thanks, dearies.

In a renewed spirit of embracing the local while engaging the global, the pups and I spent the late afternoon in our tiny garden. I am not a gardener. I wish I were! I adore seed catalogs and such, but when it comes to actualizing full-grown plants, time has shown that I have the opposite of a green thumb. So to move into a place with an established garden that fits perfectly within my own aesthetic of what a garden should be has been a wonderful thing. I have a tiny rake with a telescoping handle and on which the fanned tines adjust from about 7 inches to about 30 inches, and I gain a lot of quiet joy standing in the garden with my good dogs, raking pebbles as if they were zen koans. The wisteria has not only suddenly leafed out, but has buds ready to pop, and the crepe myrtle secretly put on leaves sometime earlier this week. I mention these things because so many of you mentioned perspective in your comments yesterday. Right-perspective is a wonderful thing, and deserves quiet celebration; yesterday, I wanted a quiet celebration of my thoughtful readers. At the pebble level, or at the level of Kerstin's blog, perspective calms the mind and directs toward right-action. Sometimes the best and most celebratory action for me is raking the pebbles.

We have a couple of links for you today; the first is a few images of artist Mary-Clare Buckle's digital-and-felted piece "It's Raining Men." Look in the far right column. Awesome idea! Photos plus felt. The second link is one that Sister found and that I have enjoyably wasted a lot of time on lately: The Montage-a-Google. Whatever you google comes back in tiled images; I only wish there was a way to save the individual creations besides PrtScrn. When I google the pups' names, it comes back wall-to-wall Mike, Jack, and Della. When I checked it using "Wendy's cat Lucy," it's wall-to-wall intensely blue crossed-eyes and ragdoll fluffiness. I like it! Google your name! Your pets! Your friends! Your favorite dish! It all comes back like art :-)

Wednesday! We wish you a happy outlook. Rake those pebbles.

Aside to Beadslut: Snap! Woof! Goes to 11!

Sock Jockey

Being able to knit two socks on two needles has made me pleased with myself to a ridiculous extent. I love handknit socks and sock yarn, but my big weakness is that by the time I finish one sock, I am bored with the yarn and the process. Yep. The old Second Sock Syndrome. Being able to finish a pair at a time has reignited my delight in socknitting. These are nearly finished, as they only need a bit more knitting and some ribbing:

Yes! That is an eye-of-the-partridge heel; my first. I like it as a change from a standard heel flap. The Mighty Kim has been doing some wonderful exegesis on heel flaps and gusset heels. Go. Read. You'll enjoy and learn something too.

Humorless, Overly Earnest, and Irony-free Content
(Feel free to skip down to today's pup photo.)

I did something this weekend I'd not done before--I left a deliberately negative comment in the comments section of a knitting blog. While it was a spur-of-the-moment, knee-jerk reaction to the content of the blog author's entry, once you hit POST, you know, it's too late to take it back. Since I couldn't revoke my comment and didn't want to apologize, I started thinking about negative comments in general and veiled criticisms of other knitblogs in particular. Discourse is always a healthy, positive thing. Constructive criticism, helpful suggestions and hints are usually welcome. Criticizing other knitters in our knit blogs seems simply provocative and malicious. At least it seems so to me. Do you have a different perception on knitblog critiques? Is knitblog-on-knitblog violence legitimate blog-entertainment?

With over 600 knitting blogs in the knitting-blog ring and countless other knitting-related rings, we essentially have a microcosm of a world. We have teachers and thinkers and clerks and crusaders and physicians and designers and blind followers and philosophers and humorists and tragedians and do-gooders and the transpersonal and the deeply personal, all connected through skeins and needles and hooks. Is it simply a fact of the size of us that we also have skirmishes with or over other bloggers?

As with some of the more contentious knitting yahoogroups, it's impossible to please everyone while offending no one. But at the same time, why bash each other? With so many issues in the country and the world that need focused attention and activism, why sit down and bash another knitter, especially in the name of humor? A letter to the editor, a phone call to your representative in Washington DC, an email to your Senator...all of these things are suitable activities for venting and expressing feelings of discontent or anxiety. And, of course, there are many other activities, not the least of which is to tend to your knitting.

I remind myself that knitters do extraordinary things when we come together: witness Afghans for Afghans, the Dulaan Project, Heifer International, and any number of less high-profile acts of kindness and courage. So I am filled with admiration when knitters put their money, or their yarn, where their mouths are. And I'm dismayed when knitters take it upon themselves to point out the flaws of other knitters. However, since I did that myself this weekend, I realize I'm not immune, and I thought I was. What's the solution? Should we simply ignore acts of (knitblog) war, or should we engage? As in life, we choose our battles in order to avoid uselessly scattering energy, but in a virtual sense, knit blogs compose a world now, and we are its citizens. What do you do when you run across knitblog hostility in our small knit-oriented world? This issue comes up periodically; have you changed the way you respond to knitblogs? Your thoughts will be appreciated.

Pups

Jack is slowly getting stronger and stronger with the addition of the thyroid meds; many thanks to all of you who suggested ways to pill pups. He's enjoying taking walks again, and we're all happy about that.

Tuesday! Movie reference: Smell the glove.

Cheers!