Best Quote I Heard All Day
It is too hideous and nauseating. Owners and owned, they are like the two sides of a ghastly disease. One feels a sort of madness come over one, as if the world had become hell. But it is only superimposed: it is only a temporary disease. It can be cleaned away. --D.H. Lawrence

D.H. was talking about the people who owned "scaly houses" at the seashore.

It's an apt quote for the Gallery of Ghastlies. Hang on, kids. There's a lot of pictures in this entry.

Stitches East 2004
Three hours down. Three hours back. One hundred and sixty-six miles each way, with a detour of 40 miles to pick up my mother. I left at 6:15 a.m. and got home at 6:30 p.m. Was it worth it?

I'm still not sure. It means quality time with my 81-year-old mother, seeing my friends, and buying some stuff. I can do all three without the traveling.

In any case, we got to AC about 9:30 and almost immediately ran into Carol S., who kindly took this picture of me and Mom.

Jesus, don't we all end up looking like our mothers? I should look so good at 81.

My primary goal was to buy sufficient sock yarn for the next 6 months. At the very least, Stitches is good for that because everyone brings sock yarn. However, as is always the case, there's one garment design that catches my eye. This Fair Isle vest, from Shelridge Farm, was a beauty.

Yeah, I bought the kit, even though they will be at Rhinebeck next week.

And here's a picture of the rest of my assorted purchases.

Doesn't seem like much but there's enough Opal, Socka, Socketta, and one lovely skein of Schaefer Anne to drill a fairly large hole in my wallet. The vest kit is on the left.

And of course, it's always good to run into friends--here's Kathy Merrick and Sandy Feinstein.


But enough of this. Now come the pictures you've all been waiting for.

GALLERY OF GHASTLIES 2004

A bumper crop this year. Many, many thanks to Carol for her able assistance and great photos. A baker’s dozen of the finest.

Are you ready?

GHASTLY #1

This wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d left out those white stripes and the tuck rolled thingies. The yarn was actually quite nice. And as someone commented (Carol, I think), no one over 25 should be wearing peplums anyway.

GHASTLY #2

I had to follow this woman around for about 10 minutes before I could get a decent shot. The pink ruffle added immensely to the Ringling Bros. effect.

GHASTLY #3

Bad scarf. Bad color. Bad frou-frou. Far be it from me to comment on anyone’s weight but at least she had the sense not to make a sweater from this shit.

GHASTLY #4

Beautifully made sweater. But this pattern belongs on the bedroom wall, not on someone’s body.

GHASTLY #5

His vest is bad enough (clearly, the missus told him he was not only going to walk around the market carrying her purchases, but to add insult to injury, he’d have to wear this lovely vest AND pay for more drecky yarn) but the thing on the woman taking her order could not classified as a known garment. Perhaps a shawl. Perhaps a schmatteh. I vote for the latter.

GHASTLY #6

Yes. You love purple. So do we. Lose the hair. Lose the shirt. And God help me, the pen was purple.

Carol took one of her too. Great minds, etc.



AND NOW, THE CS COLLECTION. Prints available.


GHASTLY #7

The Revenge of the Schmattehs. As CS says, the worst garments were worn by the vendors.

GHASTLY #8

Ms. Kathy Merrick makes a moue of disgust as she puts maximum distance between herself and the delightfully bedecked frou-frou Mrs. Claus jacket.

GHASTLY #9

What? Why? What happened to the neckline?

GHASTLY #10

Typical frou-frou garment often seen at Stitches. Pattern: Buy 25 balls of assorted junk glitz yarn, cast on a bunch of stitches, knit in stripes until piece goes around your body, sew together. Memo to self: Don’t forget to leave openings for arms. Oh yeah, and leave a hole for head.

GHASTLY #11

CS suggests that this woman should be arrested for unlawful use of Noro.

GHASTLY #12

Once again, Kathy plays photo decoy as unsuspecting modular-knitting, chevron-loving KnitDweeb peruses books.

LAST BUT HARDLY LEAST, GHASTLY #13


Just imagine what this cost. The mind boggles.

Did that satisfy?

For all of you who cannot go to Stitches, I will say that there were some very nice garments worn, although they were scarcer than hen's teeth. I did see a very nice Fair Isle vest and several lovely cabled pullovers. But the ponchos, scarves, and glitz sadly overshadow them.

I can only hope that some of these knitters are buying books at Stitches and taking classes so that they can give up their addiction to novelty yarns. Elly thinks that despite the proliferation of crap, we'll be seeing a new crop of dedicated, skilled knitters arise from the "hipness" of knitting. My mother's usually right.

Oh, and one last parting picture, from CS. I leave you with this rare and handy photo of Carol herself and Carol's words from her e-mail to me:

A weavette shot for Joe "I'm too cool for Stitches but not too cool for a Weavette" Wilcox.

NEXT WEEK: Rhinebeck. And more pictures...but I hope not ghastly ones.