Best Quote I Heard All Day
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.--H.L. Mencken

I only look for coffins when I see gladioli.

Flowers are second only to knitting. Soon, baby, soon.

Did you all have a nice Easter? We did here chez Roberts.



That cat has ceased to breathe.

Spinning Stuff
It's got me hooked. I seem to find it easier to sit down at the wheel than to pick up the needles, although with Loopy knitting an AS, I've been picking at the Queen Anne's Lace again. Finally got the cranberry merino skeined up.


Four ounces. And I'm collecting all these bits and pieces for what? Certainly not socks. With the abuse I give socks, this stuff wouldn't last a day.

The skein needs be measured but I'm thinking that homespun such as this, in limited quantities, would make a nice lace demi-shawl. (I hate the word "shawlette," by the way.) This would be a project that might pique my interest, since everything else I'm doing doesn't.

Patternworks
My mother finally got tired of waiting for her catalog and called up to New Hampshire demanding to know where it was. I feel for the customer service person on the other end. So they sent her a copy. After telling me it was full of the usual crap, she announced that she was going to order some yarn. Heh. Of course, I still haven't received mine. And don't much care, either. I've got enough in the stash to last me for 30 years.

The Book
Someone, I forget who, said something snarky about the book I'm writing. Well, I'm still writing it; however, I made a decision to change the format of the book, mostly because I felt awkward with what I had written. Now I have a real focus.

The book will be called My Life as a Knitter and track my knitting life, following what I learned when and how, with accompanying patterns that reflect what I was knitting at the time, and lots of tips. For example, when I first started knitting seriously, back in 1973, I made layettes for employees at the mental institution I worked at. I'm updating the traditional layette design with unbaby colors and more modern garment design. That kind of thing, you know?

Or when I learned about shortrowing and how. I remember reading the directions and saying to myself, "This is SO fucking wrong!" Um, you live and you learn.

Anyway, I've had a pretty interesting life, from psychiatric technician to editor to writer to mother of two, and most of it involved knitting in one way or another. Even if no one reads it, I'll leave it as a legacy for my Liz. She's the one who counts.

The bottom line is, knitting is my life. And a rare and handy life it's been, too. With bumps and thumps but always with yarn in hand.