Best Quote I Heard All Day
The fundamentalists have taken the fun out of the mental--Ken Kesey

Will the road trip to FibreNorth be akin to the Merry Pranksters, without the drugs?

Here's to the memory of Ken, and Hunter S. as well. Two writers who, along with Mrs. Parker, taught me that writing needs an edge, if it's going to fly.

Blah, Blah, Blah
No edgy writing this week. Every so often, when I don't have time to write for public consumption, which was the case this week, Ted emails me and asks, "Are you OK?"

Yep. Never better. In fact, I will be going back to work next Monday, back to Slovenia World, which is rapidly turning into a much better place than when I left it last year. And I'll be working for my dear friend Susan, icing on the cake.

As for my little vacation and state of public incommunicado, I was finishing up the writing of my interview with Kristin Nicholas, which culminated in a one-day blitzkrieg trip up to Massachusetts this past Saturday to photograph her, the farmhouse, and some of her new designs from her upcoming book, Kristin Knits. The interview will appear in the Winter issue of IK. I'm pleased with it.

You know that after leaving Kristin to dash on home down I91, I had to stop at WEBS. It was 5 p.m. and I had a half hour. So I bought two skeins of the new Regia Kaffe Fassett sock yarn, Landscape Storm. (Never yarn-shop when you're on your cellphone talking business. It ruins the experience.)



Let me say this about that--I was somewhat underwhelmed by the yarn. WEBS seemed to have them all, both the Landscape and the Mirage types, and I picked through them. I think that what makes this yarn so much less worthy of Kaffe's talents is the gawd-awful striping, not the colors. Somehow, the big ole stripes on the Landscape don't seem to do his colorways justice. Check out the line here and see what you think. In fairness, you must see these yarns in person to get the true colors.

Rove-ing
Thank God he's gone. However, it's too late. The damage is done. More time with his family? How nice. How unbelievable.

Watch for a major stock market crash in October. I believe my dear Neal when he says that the time is here. Already, the subprime market is in huge trouble. However, as we all know, the Maroon-in-Chief wouldn't recognize a financial disaster from a natural one. Given the fine display of his leadership abilities during Katrina--you know, the same ones that made him such a success during his tenure with the Rangers--I would expect that on the day of the crash, he'll be clearing brush in Crawford. Or perhaps reading Camus.

Open Mic Thursday
I actually opened up one of my Knit List digests today, after a very long hiatus, and happened to see responses from a few people I recognized. When I do bother to skim the digests, I often just look at the subject. When I see something like "What to do with Fun Fur?", my first inclination is to write "Burn it." Ah, the toxicity of burning Fun Fur. What a concept. Better than asbestos, I would think. Far more damaging, probably.

Here's my topic for this week:

Did the advent of knitting blogs cause the intellectual disintegration of the major knitting lists?

Of course, even back in the halcyon days of the Knit List, there were mindless idiots posting stuff of little consequence, no question. But as a rule, the discussions then were smart, interesting, and often thought-provoking. The smaller, specialized lists still have some value, I believe. Some, but not much.

Campanula Redux
When I was up visiting Kristin this weekend, I told her that I'd had enough of lace for the time being. This is true. When I look back over the past year and a half, other than the Knit Picks Fair Isle vest (a present from Mammy), the Zizzer Zazzer hat, and the Guernsey socks, everything has been lace, starting with the Melanie shawl for Corinne's wedding.

And now, I'm on my last lace project for a while, Jenn's Campanula. I do like Rowan's Cotton Glace very much, though. It's become the cotton of choice for me. The colors are sublime.


Because I posted pictures of my Campanula, I won't be posting progress pictures of this one. The only difference between the two is that I'm shortening this for Jenn--she's 5'3" to my almost 5'7", so one less pattern repeat will be a perfect length for her. When it's done, then there will be a picture.

Cape May Antics
Carol invited me down to Cape May, the tip of NJ, where she and Tom and the kidz are spending a week. So Liz and I will travel down there today for a fun-filled day at the beach, something I haven't done in years. And it will be good to see my Sissyboo Deux--haven't seen her for a while.

No pictures of us in swimsuits. I swear.

The Book
I stopped writing my book some time ago, simply because I refused to put out something that was basically a reinvention of the knitting wheel. Shit, there are too many of those books out there. And although it was suggested by a person high up in the knitting publishing world that I write a book about myself and my life in the knitting world, I nixed that idea completely.

Isn't that what this blog is about, more or less?

However, readers have pestered and I did some pondering. And yes, there is a book up in this cramped cranium but perhaps not the book that everyone might expect. I'm working on the proposal now, so we'll see who bites. I'm not going to self-publish, as I originally intended to do. More trouble than it's worth.

An author doesn't make shit from books, you know. Nor do they from articles. This I know for a fact. So when and if the book proposal is accepted, I will have more to say about it. But not much.

Surprises are rare and handy, dontcha know?