Best Quote I Heard All Day
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.--Laurence J. Peter

As I always say, I haven't an original thought in my brain. I just remember a lot of shit and correlate it at the appropriate time.

Which means that having excellent cerebral retention is at the very least something worth admitting to. Tell me that anyone in knitting is doing anything much original these days and I'd be happy to hear of it. I do have a designer short list...very short.

Poseurs Tricoteux
With so many "professional" knitters on board these days, Loopy just had to send me the copy from her local newspaper about a "world-famous" knitter (I have forgotten her name, but it was forgettable) who was charging $75 a head for a one-day workshop in which one could learn how to knit her designs. No doubt she hired advance men and paparazzi to proclaim her arrival at the local yarn shop.

Hey, everyone's a fucking star, including a few fellow knitbloggers who need to keep their egos in their pants and just shut the fuck up.

Those knitters who have talent but just go about their business because they love knitting are the ones from whom to learn. The others have no clothes, as we know.

Here's my list of those people:
Joe
Kim Salazar
Jean Miles
Jenna The Girl From Auntie (forgot her last name...it'll come to me)
Jen Tocker

There are others and I may piss someone off by forgetting to mention them. But rest assured, most likely they're not so full of themselves that I'd hear about it.

Going Native
And while I'm at it, why is it that some designers feel the need to translate every textile technique into knitting? Sorry, but I've not yet seen a really good translation of quilting into knitting. Why might that be? Because quilting is quilting and knitting is not quilting. Somehow, I find patchwork knitting to be mediocre at best. Marianne Isager is an exception.

Trying to make knitting look like weaving is tricky, at best, although it can be done via slip stitch.

I love those designers who try to make knitting look like crochet, and vicey versey. What the fuck for? Because you can. Or as they might say on the Knitlist, BYC.

You seldom see a good translation of ethnic fabric motifs into knitting, either. Again, Isager is an exception. Otherwise, the result is usually tacky and without merit. I love Japanese textile motifs but I'll be damned if they work with knitting. Trust me, I've tried. Perhaps that's yet another good reason to buy a loom, eh Joe? Let the punishment fit the crime. Along with the flowers that bloom in the spring, trala. Maybe I should change the name of my blog to The Lord High Executioner. 100 bonus points if anyone gets the music reference.

Slainte
On hold until I can get some time to do serious charting. I need at least two to three days to translate written patterns into charts. Two of the major stitch patterns come from Walker, the central motif from Mon Tricot, and if I'm really ambitious, I might try to design my own cable motif. But don't hold your breath. I'd druther be knitting that putting heavy time into that. I'm trying to finish up some socks, my traditional summer knitting non-project. Socks are like toilet paper or worse. Ya use 'em and abuse 'em and then they go down the shitter and you need more.

Workaday
I'm back at work, temporarily. Probably a long-term gig but at this point, don't know. Everything is up in the air until I get the townhouse sold and have some stability. The Dell laptop is still on the fritz and I'm using the Stinkpad. I type faster than it thinks.

I Love the Smell of Merino in the Morning
The plan is to get that huge freakin' bag of wool/mohair spun by October and Rhinebeck so I can buy more. As it stands, I have 3 bobbins spun and need to ply. I'm debating on doing a 3-ply but that will make it heavier than I may wish. My singles are 36 wpi, with a 2-ply at about 18 or so. The treble would make it 12 wpi, I guess. Those more experienced than I could perhaps offer their thoughts.

So not much really getting done, I'm afraid. I'm a slow as shit knitter anyhow, with the thrilling medication side effect of palsied hands. In addition, I've been rather lackadaisical about knitting. These slumps come and go but fortunately don't last long. A revving-up is looming.

I need new yarn. That's it. There's nothing more rare and handy than buying something new, ogling it for a week, and then tossing it in the stash to age for ten years. But it does get the blood up.