Best Quote I Heard All Day
The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance, superstition and incompetence. Elbert Hubbard, American editor, publisher and writer, 1856-1915

Nice to know nothing much has changed in a century.

Thank you all for commenting on the last entry. These are bad times indeed and it's good to let it out. I have written both my senators, Lautenberg and Corzine, urging them to demand a full congressional investigation into this debacle. They're both Democrats, for what that's worth. Right now, probably not much.

A few knitting blogs are doing their own fundraising. I will not list them here because I am of the opinion that if one cares to donate, one should donate directly to the appropriate charity rather than fuck around with auctions of previously owned knitted garments, yarn and the like. If you wish to do the auction thing, I'm sure you know where to find it. Please understand that I don't denigrate others' efforts to raise money. Doing something is better than doing nothing. I simply think that it's more efficient to infuse the charities directly, quickly and without fanfare.

Donate the cost of your next knitting project. If you're like me, that'll run you about $100. And don't forget, money will be needed next month and next year too. If you don't have the money to spare, by all means see if you can donate bedding, which is needed, or whatever else works for you.

My readers are sharp enough to do what they need to do without my holding their collective hands or putting up one of my schmattehs for auction. You know what's right.

That's it on the Katrina disaster. And now, back to our regularly scheduled bullshit.

The Color Experiment
Can't watch the news all the time. It's healthy to take a break and do something fiber-oriented. When we last left off, everyone was voting for what color combo I should use. A was the overwhelming favorite, with 16 votes, followed by C with 11 and B with 10. D got one half-hearted vote for a thong for Joe.

I love him dearly but I think he can spin and knit his own thong far better than I.

In any case, A was also my favorite and Liz has been salivating. Here's a reminder picture.

Here's the denouement.

I spun two half-filled bobbins, alternating colors as best as I could. There was more navy than the other two colors. I would take about 6 inches worth of one color, spin it, then join the next color. Not very scientific but it made distribution of the colors easier.

Merino is not easy to spin, I discovered. It's short-stapled and I had to give it a bit more twist than I normally would have done. This morning, I did the plying. I was most definitely not liking what I saw on the bobbin, although I knew upfront that the plyed yarn would be marled.

This is the finished yarn on the niddy-noddy and I was actually quite pleased with the outcome, despite my initial reaction to the plyed yarn on the bobbin. I think the colors are pretty true, since I shot the photo this morning in natural light. It remains to be seen if there is sufficient yardage to knit Liz a pair of socks. I doubt it. I haven't done a wpi yet but since my plyed yarn is usually about 18 wpi, I figure that's about right for this.

Working with color like this is a good exercise for me. I will try another of the methods I had mentioned in a previous entry for C. However, I want to get back to Starry Night. There are two bobbins waiting to be plyed since prior to my move.

Crochet IK
OK, now I'm going to piss off my crocheting fool friend Kathy Merrick by saying: I don't like how crochet looks. And now I'm going to say that I really thought Kathy's tote bag in the latest issue of IK's Crochet was the best piece in the entire magazine, hands down. (It's in the upper righthand corner of the collage picture.) Her scarf was nice too. The rest of the designs were so fugly and retro they reminded me of why I dislike crocheting.

That said, I enjoy the act of crocheting. It's fast, it's fun and I like having just the one hook in my hand. Sorta the way I view sex these days. Problem is, Kathy is one of the few, if not the only, crochet designer whose stuff I'd make. I wish she'd publish the pattern for her incredible crocheted jackets. I don't know if I'd have the skill or the patience to crochet with DMC flosses like she does. I bow to the mistress. Few can match her talent.

I always buy Interweave magazines even if the designs are barfola. For some strange reason, Interweave manages to present the worst designs in the best light. Maybe it's their layout. I don't know. Fugly is as fugly does and all of the magazines are suffering from fugola these days, Interweave included. Fresh blood is needed.

Time to end this and go rummaging in the garage for my Barbara Walker books that are MIA. I'm working on a to-be-published lace shawl that's currently in various stages of swatching, having been charted. Yikes. Not a job for the faint of heart but a rare and handy job that's been very rewarding.