Best Quote I Heard All Day
Make it idiot-proof and someone will make a better idiot.

If you work in IT, you know this to be so...today's quote is dedicated to my favorite Applications guys at work, Warren and Johnny B.

KC on TV
That's right...my 15 minutes are finally here. Cablevision is interviewing me and another Chubb Institute employee tomorrow about the Unity Quilt project that we helped to run in cooperation with the Morris County, NJ, Arts Council. The two quilts are made of squares decorated by our employees and their children to remember and reflect on the events of 9/11, and will be given to victims' families. For those of you who have Cablevision in the NY-NJ metro area, I understand that this is to be broadcast on September 12.

All curmudgeonliness aside, I can't remember being involved in any project that meant as much to me as this one did.

Splendiferous Snotrag and Other Stupid Knitting Tricks
I've been threatening to do my ingeniously conceived answer to the warshcloth knitting phenomenon since I started this blog and now it is about to become reality...with an extra ball of Fur Luxe made by our Italian pals at Baruffa. I'm thinking, cheesy holes in furry, lurexy yarn does it for me. Everyone will be just whipping this baby out of their purses to wipe their schnozzes in style. Pattern to come...dare to be bold.

I do so love Stupid Knitting Tricks (sorry, Dave, but you ain't got nothing on these). My favorite of late has been to extricate myself from my idiotic mistakes made on some double moss caused by my interminable lack of focus on what I am doing. ADD? No, just a case of what my mother always accused me of being...careless. So I carefully unpicked half a row of knitted-when-they-should-have-been-purled sts and vicey versy...16 total...reworking them as I unpicked. Now, you ask yourself, why didn't she just rip out the stitches and then rework them in one swell foop? Because A) it was 11:30 p.m. and I love to torture myself or B) I enjoy doing knitting acrobatics for the sheer delight of it? I don't know. I'm still wondering why I did this. Anyone got some good Stupid Knitting Tricks to share? I can't promise you a Big Ass ham...or a refreshing beverage...or even a sycophantic Paul Schafer for a good trick.

No Runs, One Error...
There's a school of thought that says, "Handmade items were meant to have mistakes...it gives them their charm." Bullshit.

There's nothing charming about mistakes in knitting, especially when they appear on the cover of the latest Vogue Knitting. There is a major omission in the directions of a design element that is clearly seen in the cover sweater. First person who finds it, wins. Not as glaring as the incorrectly crossed cable of the other grossly screwed-up cover sweater--was that last year? But a good one nonetheless. This is better than looking for 10 frigging little cartoon-y dragons.

As my friend Pat always says, "If you want it in the worst way, that's generally how you'll get it."

How rare! A maxim for our times.