What We Saw

What She Saw

Murphy's Law Strikes Again

The Knitterary Corollary to Murphy's Law: If there's a way to arse up a blog, it will be arsed most arsily.

If any of you can see actual pictures in the previous post instead of annoying little boxes with Xs in them, please, for the love of Addis, let me know.

Is it just me? Or does everyone have problems like this?

Mommy, What's a Harlot?

What she saw. Chicago knitters turned out in hordes for this event. Way to represent!

What we saw. The bohus is a thing of beauty. The woman wearing it ain't so bad, either.

This was my second time attending one of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's booksignings. The first, last summer, was a real turning point in my knitting life. But what led up to it was even bigger.

I'd been knitting quietly, in isolation, off and on for almost two decades, when one day about two years ago, I stopped in at the library to browse the pattern books. This was shortly after I began making that grand cosmic personality shift from "someone who knits" to "KNITTER" with a capital KNIT. And there on the bookshelf, wedged between a hat book and a ragged Mary Thomas, I saw the first Yarn Harlot book. Reading that book opened my eyes to the existence of the online global knitting community. (Not to mention that she helped me laugh at my own yarn obsession, which had lived in a pretty secret place until then. But that's a whole other story.)

So when I went to the signing last summer, it wasn't just about the book. It was to pay tribute to the woman who made me aware that there was an internet knitting presence. I knew about a local knitting group by then, but hadn't managed to attend any of their weekly meetings yet. I met two members of that group in the audience that night, and meeting them -- plus all the other knitters -- helped me get over my shyness about joining a knitting group.

I'm not a shy person. But for years and years and years, I didn't know any other knitters. Not really. I had met a few in the yarn shop in my former hometown, but it wasn't the kind of place where people mingled and bonded. It was more the kind of place where the clerks sniffed at my humble projects and scorned my student budget, and the patrons were afraid to touch anything. I wasn't all that sorry when it closed except that it left me nowhere to buy yarn except the big box stores. And we know what that means. We call those the Acrylic Years, and we try not to think about them much.

The funny thing is, I had witnessed the way the internet revolutionized the writers' community. And it just never occurred to me that it might have a similar effect on the knitting community. Maybe I'm just the slow knitter in more ways than one. But those early harsh experiences with the snobby knitting shop had pretty much closed me off to the possibility that other knitters might be worth finding.

Something else might have flung itself in my path and made me aware of all that I was needlessly missing. But it wasn't something else. It was that first Yarn Harlot book, and it changed the way I thought about knitting and the way I interacted with other knitters.

I went to the signing last summer to pay tribute to that book, and found a knitting community while I was there. I went last night because now that community has become such an integral part of my life that staying home would have been unthinkable.

All of which is just to say, Thank You, Stephanie.

Knitterary 2, Imps of Inconvenience 4,217

The Imps may be beating me senseless, but at least I got some points on the board now. Can I get a woot? Woot!

Here's the cuff of that Bearfoot sock. You should all know that this yarn is much better than it looks here. Soft, squishable, and a purple as deep and rich as a twilight sky.

Now, for my next trick, I will figure out how to post multiple snapshots in a single post. Brace yourselves for many blurry pictures of dubious color accuracy. (But don't brace too hard. We all know my track record on these things.)

HOPE Is a Four-Letter Word

I'm trying a different method of picture uploading. I have no hope of it actually working. Why would it? Nothing else has worked. I've futzed and fooled and frittered with this stupid process for days -- feels like years -- and haven't yet managed to post a picture. We could have a deep philisophical debate about why, precisely, some people seem to attract these kinds of odd problems the same way strippers attract dollar bills (and bobs and joes). I mean, nobody else I know has been unable to post pictures from her hard drive using the standard procedure. So why me? (shaking fist at sky) Why, dammit, why?

But that would not solve my problem. So I tried different software and am trying not to get my hopes up.

Except this time, there's a picture in my post draft. That's new.

For the record, this is the very first picture I took with my shiny new camera. It's very hard to see what's going on with that yarn because I still hadn't figured out the whole macro thingie. So, for the record, what you see is a ball of Mountain Colors Bearfoot (that's the one with a dash of mohair) and about an inch of 2x2 ribbing on size 2 DPNs. The color is called Grape, but it's a purple much darker and richer than any grapes I've ever munched.

I have a better picture of the cuff, but I'm afraid to try to post it. I'm afraid that if I do anything at all now besides click "publish," the picture will disappear, along with this post, and I'll be back at square one.

So here goes.

Crossing our fingers....

Why Knitterary Can't Knit. Erary.

I don't know how it happened, but every spare minute of my life has been hoovered up this week. And we can blame knitting. (Well, we could also blame that pesky little work ethic that drives me to do things like earn an income rather than knit. Someday, I will stop working and do nothing but knit and eat chocolate. Wait, why are you all laughing? I can SO stop working!)

But mostly, for this week anyway, we can blame knitting for the fact that I don't have much knitting time.

Last night, after a very long and intense work day, I got to do something new thanks to two knitters, Becca and Aleta, a delightful mother and daughter pair from my knitting group. They invited me to their family's Seder. (Have I spelled that right?) We ate, we sang, we ate, we drank, we ate, we read, we ate, we laughed, and then we ate some more. I had a marvelous time, and I didn't knit a single stitch. ps. I did not go home hungry.

Tonight ... the Yarn Harlot. Now, I know darn well I'm going to take my knitting with me. I'm sure I'll take it out of the bag, and I might even knit a few stitches. But let me tell you a little secret. Last time Her Royal Harlotness was in town, I had to rush straight from work to her booksigning, and I forgot my knitting bag. I know, I know, and the knitting police already fined me for that one. But....

.... it was wonderful. Instead of sitting there knitting, I got to sit there and look at what everyone else was knitting. It was like knitting group on steroids. There was an argyle sock behind me. A drop spindle in front of me. To the left, across the aisle, someone knitting left-handed with miniscule stitches on weenie little needles. (To that lady, I again apologize for hovering in the attempt to see exactly how you were knitting lefty. I was not stalking you. Really.)

Funnily enough, to the front right was a gorgeous baby blanket being knit by Kris, whom I spoke to for the very first time at that signing. And now we're carpooling to the new booksigning tonight. Go figure.

Tomorrow night is our regular SnB gathering, and then Saturday night, we're having a special edition SnB to celebrate the return of our favorite prodigal knitter. Vicky was such an integral part of our group that even though it's been months since she moved to NYC, I still haven't completely acclimated to her absence. I can't wait to see her and hear all about her new life without us. (pout)

A year ago, I didn't know any of these people.

Blame it on knitting.