Best Quote I Heard All Day
"Weather forecast for tonight: dark."
--George Carlin

Will the sun ever shine again in the Northeast?

Of course. Tomorrow. Naturally.

Hoisted on Their Own Petard
Or standard, if you will. I've just taken a stroll over to the Craft Yarn Council of America's new Standards and Guidelines for Crochet & Knitting, for lack of anything better to do of a Sunday.

Jesus. There's nothing more annoying than some American council setting up quote-unquote standards for the rest of the world to follow. And these "standards" have some fatal flaws, to my mind.

Do go and read them. All standards are contained in a convenient .pdf file.

For one, I found the yarn categorization to be mindboggingly useless. What happened to laceweight yarn? Why is Aran yarn bundled along with worsted? Why so general? But of course, I find most categorization a waste of time anyways. And I guess there are some people who want to reduce the craft to a form of "Knitting by Numbers" so the vast unwashed can figure out WTF it is they're doing.

And the skill levels. Sorry, I'm a nonbeliever in skill levels, having once seen a beginner work a Fair Isle cardigan as her first garment. People believe in skill levels if you tell them where they belong. And then perhaps advance timidly into the next category. Maybe.

What kills me is the differentiation between "Beginner" and "Easy." (Somehow, I thought a skill level of Easy could only be applied to Nikki, the Girl Who Put Out in 8th Grade.) Here you are:

Beginner = Projects for first-time knitters using basic knit and purl stitches. Minimal shaping.

Easy = Projects using basic stitches, repetitive stitch patterns, simple color changes, and simple shaping and finishing.

I see. And poor Intermediate knitters are only allowed basic and simple shit.

This rating system has exactly the same value as The Knitting Guild of America's Master Knitter dealie--nothing.

I don't need no steenkin' designations.

Neither does anyone else. Just do it, you know?

Dobby/Doby Socks
Will someone please tell me WTF these are? Some crap from Harry Potter? The Socknitters list is a-twitter with posts about these.

I only read the first book, so I must plead ignorance. I mean, I liked the book but really. Must there be such a hue and cry about HP? And knitting in the book? Give it a rest. And is the HP scarf about the same thing as the hideous Dr. Who scarf?

I guess Dr. Who is now passe. Oh well...

Warshcloth of Turin
I must thank my dear friend Annie Modesitt for her inspired illusion knitting chart for this warshcloth. This is just too fucking cool for words! And only Annie could do it.

So, let's have a knit-along, shall we? I'll knit one up and when I'm done, I'll post a picture of it. If you feel so inclined, send me your JPEGS. You'll find my e-mail address up in the menu. Just keep the JPEGs to a reasonable size--say, no bigger than 300K. That should do it. I might even award a prize to the best warshcloth.

I might. I'm not promising. I'll see what's good in the stash that I feel like giving away. Probably sock yarn. But don't hold me to it.


Off to redefine rare and handy. Time to get unbored.