Last-minute packing

OUT with the red oak targhee
OUT with the needlepointie
IN with the other spindle project
IN with the enormous neal stephenson book
OUT with the regular kate
IN with the tensioned kate
rushrushrushrushrush

and now to sleep.

They're Coming to Take me Away

. . . if by "they," you mean "me and my husband."

We are going away for a week to the stunningly remote Quadra Island, off the North coast of Vancouver island. We will be there in a tiny cabin -- 300 square feet. I'm bringing four books (that sounds crazy, but I read too fast), the Blue Alpaca Shawl (which I haven't knit a stitch on in three weeks at LEAST), my needlepointie learning motifs, the brand-new merino-angora I just finished spinning last night^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthis morning (seven ounces, 1100 yards), the pair of socks I'm working on and one other, the spinning wheel and some beautiful handpainted roving. . . do you think I have enough? Or should I ALSO bring Kinzel's Lace Knitting books and a ball of #20 crochet cotton, or all the wool and the graph pad for Erik's sweater, or the Encore for the crochet afghan for the two of us, or or or or or?

No More Drama

Noreen has coughed up and apologized. She's done the right thing, and the matter is closed. If there is still anybody out there who feels the need to pursue the situation, may I humbly suggest that you find a more worthwhile hobby.

Katrina Aftermath and How to Help

Hurricane Katrina is the worst disaster the United States has ever seen. Arguably, it's the worst disaster, period -- worse than 9/11, maybe even. Knitters, crocheters, etc. are good people, and we all want to help. How can we best do that?

If you want to help the people in New Orleans, give money to the Red Cross. Do not give blankets or other supplies. There is no way into or out of the city right now. If you want to help the people in NOLA through your art, investigate one of the many charity auctions that is currently underway.

If you want to help the people who have been evacuated, google "Katrina Shelter" and start making phone calls. DO NOT SEND THINGS WITHOUT SPEAKING TO SOMEONE FIRST -- every shelter has different needs, and nobody needs to be bogged down with supplies they can't use. The big shelters (the Astrodome, etc.) are worth talking to as well. Tell them what you have, ask them if they need it, and ask what method you should use to get it there. I've found USPS to be the most reliable personally, but every area is different.

Consider tucking something into every box you send, too; tampons/pads/Instead cups, hand sanitizer, neosporin, ibuprofen. Toothpaste or a toothbrush. Baby wipes. Ziploc bags. Think of what you would want if you were on a road trip, or camping, and then think about how much MORE you would want it if you had been ripped off your foundation and flung far from home.

The only way to rescue this nation from this crisis is by everyone working together. Do what you can do, and hopefully it will be over as soon as possible.

A change of pace.

I have gotten bored with doing beautiful knitted work at very fine gauges. Therefore, I am now doing some enormous ugly-ass crochet. An afghan, in double-stranded vintage (!) acrylic, in STRIPES, on an N hook. One stripe is a mix of rust, avocado green, golden brown, sky blue, and violet that is so ugly Red Heart discontinued it. One stripe is a mix of cream and harvest golds. One stripe is probably going to be dark maroon.

It looks like the 1970s threw up. I tried to take a picture, but my camera refused.

I am doing this, you see, for charity. I run a charity called Made With Love by a Liberal -- there's a link in the sidebar. This afghan will be ugly as hell and twice as warm, but the warm part is really important and really good. I hate knitting with Red Heart and can only barely bear to crochet with it, but that shit is indestructible; you can drag it up and down sidewalks, share it with your kids or your dog, wash it in industrial washing machines, and it will still be as important to a person who might be scared or sick or alone as ever it was.

We also make baby clothes and blankets out of soft baby yarn, and clothes and hats for older children out of bright, machine washable yarn with a nice hand and some decent wear to it. But for the giant indestructible blankets, you really can not beat good old Red Heat Super Saver or Caron Perfect Match. The next time you're at the craft store and those enormous rolls of brightly colored acrylic tempt you with their low low prices and landfill-defying colors, go ahead and give in a little.

You'll need about four pounds of yarn, which is 8 gigantic rolls. Double-strand the yarn, take your N hook (or possibly a P hook, depending on how tightly you crochet), chain 122, hdc in 3rd chain from hook and all the way across, chain 2; repeat the half-double crochet rows until you run out of yarn, patience, or hope. It'll take you two weekends. Then fold it up, drive down to your local homeless shelter, and drop it off for whomever needs it. It's like the fiber arts equivalent of a twinkie, quick and silly, but good for others instead of bad for you.

Turns out Cthluhu spit is good for your skin.

Many months ago, I made a post on the Ten Commandments of Lace Knitting, in which I said "Plenty of people knit lace doilies from cotton and linen. These people are so crazy Cthulhu would spit them out."

Fresh from the asylum and covered in Cthulhu drool, I present Anita:



As you can see, I learned my lesson about high-contrast photography. The blocking doesn't come across as gimpy in real life as it does in this photo, though it certainly isn't perfect. Next time, I'll block something like this on a piece of styrofoam in my lap instead of on the guest bed, kneeling on the mattress and bending over. It is remarkable, the inverse correlation between standards of perfectionism and lower back pain.

Anita is knitted from a pattern in "Old World Treasures," a book of old German (I think) doily patterns. I used Cebelia #30 crochet cotton in White, and Inox plastic-coated steel #0 / 2.0 mm needles. Despite my reservations about metal needles and cotton, the plastic coating on the Inox needles actually makes for a splendidly grippy surface.

I have no use for doilies in my life, and yet I am compelled to knit dozens of them. Instead, I shall go back to the edging on the blue shawl, which shuffles ponderously on.

Flush with Victory

Yesterday, it came to my attention that someone out there had stolen a photograph used in a published pattern of Emma's.

In investigating, it became clear that not only had this woman stolen the photograph, she had also stolen the pattern, re-written the framing text and left off the applied edging, and was having the gall to sell a pattern for $4.25 that was better available for free. In fact, of the 26 patterns she offered for sale on her site, we discovered the source photographs for seven of them, and I am 99% sure that not a one of them was actually original. This "designer" (http://noreensknitche.weblogs.us/, a.k.a Noreen's Knit*che, a.k.a. Noreen Jameson) was contacted, and she insisted that she had done nothing wrong, that Emma's (heavily doctored) photo had been given to her by a test-knitter friend of hers who was now conveniently dead. She has since pulled all her patterns off the Knitting Vault, taken down her patterns page, and taken the book she was selling for $26!! off of LuLu, a self-publishing storefront. She's disabled comments on her blog, and posted a brief message about how she has a family emergency and doesn't know when she'll be back at the computer.

Folks, don't do this. No matter how cleverly you file off the serial numbers, stealing is still stealing, even if the original pattern was offered for free. Emma's still trying to sort out what course she wants to pursue, and while I am a gentle soul and I'm pretty sure that nobody made millions off of this book, it wouldn't make me sad to see ol' Noreen in court.

Y'all are adults, and I can't tell you what to do. But if Noreen ever climbs back out of the murky depths and starts offering patterns for sale again, I would strongly recommend not buying them without detailed information about her pattern creation process and without examining her photos for signs of duplicity. As far as I know, she doesn't yet believe that she's done anything wrong, which means that she could well do it again.

Peace out. Don't steal.