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.

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out, Kid.

And the winner of the camera race is ...

(drumroll)

.... a Nikon Coolpix L12 7.1 megapixels with 3x zoom, a 1 gig SD card, a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time!

Woot!

We are all in trouble now. I almost know how to use this thing. At least, I can use it enough to decide that my inaugural yarn snapshot should be purple.

So.

I took pictures of the purple sock-in-progress. This was fairly easy. And then, just to get really fancy and hi-tech and all, I figured out how to upload them to my computer and edit them using the exquisitely simple editing program that came free with the camera.

And that's as far as I can get.

I've tried and tried a thousand times to get the pictures from my hard drive into the actual text of this blog. I've spent forty-eight hours fooling around with this. I've clicked on the little picture icon and followed all the steps, and the best I can get is a window telling me my pictures are being uploaded to blogger.

So where the @#*! are my pictures? Not in the blog. Obviously. For all I know, there are nine thousand snapshots of a purple bearfoot sock cuff popping up all over the blogosphere, but they sure as heck aren't here.

Anybody know what I'm doing wrong?

ps. Someone commented privately that they thought I should find a nicer term than slush pile. But this is what it's called. I didn't invent the name any more than I decided a hammer should be called a hammer. Someday I might wax eloquently (snort!) about how the slush pile contains the hope of both writers and editors, and occasionally delivers a diamond in the rough, but for now let's just say this. My sometimes snarky feelings about slush are tied to its volume and to my own lack of time available for grooming new-but-raw talent. So let's just all untwist our panties, ok? I'm not calling it slush out of meanness.

Don't Be a Hater

It seems that knitlandia can be divided into two camps: VK haters and VK lovers. Well, paint me pink and croon me a ballad, because

Knitterary Hearts Vogue Knitting

The current issue generally lives on the left-hand front corner of my desk, perched atop my slush pile. (For those of you not in publishing, "slush" is what we call an unsolicited manuscript, and "pile" is the cutesy-poo diminutive applied to the avalanche of dead tree shavings forklifted into our offices six days a week. A slush pile ain't a thing of beauty, but a VK on top does gussy it up some.)

What draws me to knitting is exactly what draws me to sewing. I like garment design and construction. No deep zenlike philosophies here. I just like it, and because that's what I like, I also like VK. The patterns are bold and well-executed. I can find rich fodder for knitdreaming in the pages, no matter how many times I've already leafed through the issue. I know, I know, their sizes range from starving third world child all the way up to anorexic supermodel, but I can usually figure out how to upsize them. Or normalsize them. Depending on your perspective.

The designs are usually more interesting than what you find in some of the other knitting mags. Yes, I concede that sometimes "interesting" amounts to "so weird that even the bag lady on Lower Wacker wouldn't dress her pet bicycle tire Fluffy in it, not even if you paid her four Milk Duds and half a cement brick to do it." I usually just treat these strange patterns as comic relief and keep turning the pages.

For my money, this month's candidate for "Not Fit To Be Worn By A Schizo's Pet Rubber Tube" goes to the bizarrely French-knotted baby onesie with the Charo-esque ruffled hems. I usually love this particular designer's designs, but egad! This thing is practically deformed from the thousands and thousands of teenie weenie French knots, and did I mention all the damn French knots? There are so many of them, they look like hedgerows, and personally I don't think it's good to dress a baby in shrubbery. And by the time you got all the embellishments in place, the onesie would weigh more than the baby.

Did any of you read the liner notes for this thing? "Babies make the perfect tiny, beautiful, helpless models," she wrote.

Helpless.

Yup.

Because if any infant could help it, she sure wouldn't wear that thing.

But I digress. I meant to write with great verve and eloquence about all the patterns I love in the current issue. The mesh hoodie beach cover-up that will be perfect for weekends at our lake house. The very interesting twisted cable tee from Vladimir Teriokhin worked in, of all things, Coats & Clark TLC Cotton Plus. The Michael Kors short-sleeved cardigan, or the three-button cardigan with eyelet detailing and small gathers over the bust, or the kimono with the lovely zigzag texture stitch, any of which could see a lot of use in a summer wardrobe. And, above all, the I-Must-Cast-This-On-Right-This-Very-Minute lace babydoll dress from the cover. Love this dress. LOVE it.

Yet despite all this pink heart love and swoony knitdreaminess, what do I do? I lose the stars in my eyes and start ripping on the one pattern that guarantees VK will preserve its reputation for bewildering, unwearable fashions.

But that doesn't make me a VK-hater.

Call Me Sisyphus

In addition to my very busy schedule of coloring my blog and counting to four over and over with a stopwatch in hand, I have been camera shopping.

And camera shopping.

And camera shopping.

I have fondled the aluminum husks of dozens of lightweight beauties small enough to fit into my wallet's coin pouch. I considered actually testing the fit of cameras and coin purses, but realized quickly that this would also test the store's security response team. Curiosity is a poor reason to get arrested, even on an otherwise dull Monday.

I have pushed buttons both foreign and domestic, and never once managed to liquify Altoona. Or if I did, nobody complained about it.

I have asked thousands of apparently very stupid questions of hordes of teenaged salesdorks. They don't like me very much. One of them actually hid behind a counter to avoid me. Heh. Like that worked. I just walked up to that counter and leaned right on over, and took special wicked pleasure in the enormous sigh that escaped the boy.

These salesdorks, they sure have mastered the art of the expressive sigh. Their collective sighs were voluminous enough -- and noxious enough, dudes, skip the onions on the burgers for all our sakes -- to widen the hole in the ozone layer by the size of an eastern seaboard state. God help us all if I ever decide to buy a camcorder. Invest in sunblock, that's all I'm saying.

I've scoured dozens of internet review sites, most of which were useless without a camerageek-to-English dictionary. I mean, what exactly is an aperture, and why would I want one? Will it make my knitting look pretty on the screen?

Interesting side note: There isn't a teenaged boy salesdork in any camera department in the south suburban shoppingopolis who can respond to that question in an intelligent fashion. The best any of us can hope for is, "Knitting?" accompanied by a blank stare. Though one did say, "Knitting?" accompanied by a look that said, "That explains a lot." This was before he hid behind the counter.

I brought two sweaters with me, one white stockinette and one purple cables. I dare you all to photograph knitting in Best Buy. Double dog dare you. Two things will happen. First, many many innocent consumers will back slowly out of your presence. Second, one of the many clerks hiding behind the counter will emerge, white flag in hand, and volunteer to take photos of keys for you.

I don't know why either, but keys are the hot thing. Soon you will have a large collection of pictures of car keys, cabinet keys, keys to the employees' bathroom, against various backgrounds and with various cameras. This is supposed to prove something about something, but all it proved to me is that they didn't want me taking pictures of my knitting.

So where does this leave us?

I've learned that you have to spend $600 dollars for a camera, plus another $550 for a special macro lens, if you want to take a really cool picture of a key.

And I still don't actually own a camera.

But we're getting closer, if only because I will sooner or later lose patience and buy the first camera that jumps into my coin purse.

Speed Knitting

On one of my knitting lists, there was some chat about a recent fiber festival in France. They held a speed knitting competition with two divisions. The winner of the French division, Ariella Lecuyer, clocked in at 213 stitches per minute. Think that's something? She's a turtle compared to the winner of the international division, Maria Nicolo, who knit at an astounding rate of 240 stitches per minute.


Let's savor that.


Two Hundred. Forty. Stitches. Per minute.


That's -- wait for it -- four stitches per second.


Now, just to really complete the picture, go get yourself a stopwatch. Try to say the words "one-two-three-four" out loud in one second. Can you do it?


I can't.


And then try to factor in that each knitting stitch has a series of moves. No matter if you knit righty, lefty, English, Eastern Uncrossed Continental, or with a half-twist-double-pike-reverse-tuck-flip-flop thrown in, you're going to have to accomplish a certain sequence of moves. Insert the needle. Wrap the yarn. Make the new stitch. Release the old stitch.


Counting one-two-three-four hardly captures the grace and complexity of that sequence four times in a second. You'd have to at least bump it up to "a one and a two and a three and a four." Which I still can't say in a second, let alone knit in a second. Heck, I'd do a happy jig to reach half that speed.


And then I'd go yarn shopping. Because even my stash isn't big enough to survive those kinds of knitting speeds.


Sweet Jane

I think I am starting to get the hang of this here blogamajig, and made a few small style changes. Those of you who have been yarn shopping with me will not be at all surprised to see that this includes liberal use of the color purple. (And those of you who've read my first drafts will be equally unsurprised. But that's a whole different kind of purple.)

The quote in the "about me" section is one of my favorite moments in a Jane Austen book. This one is from "Emma." Everyone should read this book. Seriously. Go get a copy and read it right now. I'll wait for you....

.... Great book, isn't it? The careful readers among you will note that my sidebar quote fails to preserve the paragraphing of the original text. That's because I couldn't figure out how to do it, and lost many, many minutes of knitting time in the effort to figure it out. Seriously.

At Maria Nicolo's speed, we're talking like nine sweaters.