Hope I Die Before I Get Old

Best Quote I Heard All Day

Age is a very high price to pay for maturity--Tom Stoppard

I'm starting my countdown to 60. Less than three months to go. Gack. Well, that's the age I'll be according to my birth certificate. Given that my mammy is going to be 87 in August and still knits lace, I have no reason to angst about it.

Teaching the Old Bitch New Tricks

For a long time, I felt that using the Magic Loop technique to replace my dps was a waste of time. I tried it a couple of years ago and hated it.

Now, designing a pair of socks that I've named Naughty Nudge Nudge, I found that the lace pattern I'm using for the body is a royal pain in the ass if done on dps. It's a 6-stitch repeat but decreases land on the needle junctions on the instep. Shifting stitches from one needle to another sucks. Feh. I ended up putting it on the instep only. That made me quite unhappy.

So I decided to give ML another try. And still hated it. However, the two circs technique was something I could live with. I tried it out on a pair of plain vanilla socks. The two socks are shown below--I was too lazy to go downstairs and get my Canon, so bite me. I used my cellphone camera.

Needless to say, I'm ripping out NNN and starting over.

My point--Never say "never" when it comes to shit. I'm not ditching dps but using the two circs will allow me to use my lace pattern throughout the sock, rather than simply on the instep. I actually like this method.

Sillybus

I'm working up some workshops for Sheila at Stix-n-Stitches. Finishing, Lace 101, Knitting Clinic, Spindling for Beginners, to start. Sheila figures she'll open the shop on Sundays so I can teach. I love this place. It's more than just a local yarn shop. Sheila, Patty, Monica, and the other women who work there are my kind of wimmens. I've been loitering there every Saturday afternoon. Does the soul good. I enjoy helping the beginners--despite what you may think, I love novice knitters. They're like blank pages open to ideas.

Obligatory Knitting Shit

Other than the NNN socks, I've started recharting Jerry's sweater and blocked out the Crayon Madness set. Haven't gotten to spinning yet this week. However, I did buy some lovely Harrisville Shetland for an upcoming lace shawl. Yes, a bit heavier than usual but honestly, I wear my heavier shawls more often than my laceweights.

I don't see submitting anything to the mainstream magazines. For one, I don't want an editor dictating what yarn and colors I use. And second, I would rather sell my patterns online. If an editor would let me do what I do, then I might rethink it.

Knitting News

I was thrilled to see that Schoolhouse Press is publishing Ron Schweitzer's patterns. For those of you who are not familiar with Ron's wonderful Fair Isle designs, take a look at his Flowers of Life. I've never made one of his designs but they are all truly lovely.

Eight Years and Counting

Yesterday was the 8th anniversary of Jimmy's death. I don't generally dwell on it but I don't forget it, either. It was arguably the worst day of my life but there has been much joy since then. It also means that this blog is approaching its 8th anniversary. Jeez. Back then, there were very few knitting blogs. When I started, there were maybe 100 of them, some of which are long gone.

I wonder how much longer blogs will exist. With the birth of FaceBook, Ravelry, and other social networks, blogs may become obsolete. I know I update my FB status every day, pretty much. I doubt that blogs will go away entirely but instant gratification is truly the bane of our time. To some degree, I enjoy the immediacy. And to another degree, I recall the time before faxes when you had to wait for what you wanted or needed. The instant gratification syndrome has infected our world. As my former boss Pat Conway always said, "If you want it in the worst way, that's probably how you'll get it."

A rare but handy philosophy, indeed.

P.S. Haloscan, the service I have used for comments, is going out of business. They've cut a deal with a service called Echo so I've transferred over to Echo. A few people have told me that they've had problems loading my page recently--the page loads but then aborts. If you've had that problem, drop me a line so I can figure out how many readers have been affected. Danke.