Updates

Things are going to be quiet here for a little while. I’m in the process of moving this site to a new server, as my current server doesn’t support blogging software. I’ve learned a lot by managing this blog ‘by hand,’ but a few things have gotten old, like coding the RSS feed myself, trying to get around to organizing the archives, and the free advertising that shows up in the comments window, courtesy of Haloscan. I’m a control freak, though, so the new blog won’t be up and running until I’ve tweaked the Word Press style sheet to look just the way I like it.

I’ve also got a few other non-knitting irons in the fire right now, not the least of which is a new poetry class. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area (or know someone who does) and think you might want to take an introductory poetry writing and reading class, you should take this one. I’m a really good teacher.

Oh, and did I mention I’m designing my first sweater? Very exciting. The new blog’s first post will no doubt include pictures. Stay tuned!

The Dark Side of Noro

Now that my mother has received her birthday present, it’s safe to post it here:

Mom's Scarf

This is the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf. I used Noro Silk Garden, color number 217. It contains the range of colors for which Noro is known and loved, but 217 is different from their others. The yellow that you see here is the brightest shade in the skein, and even though the yarn ranges through reds and purples, it keeps a few strands of black fibers running through all the way. The result is moody, pensive, and dark.

I didn’t know this was going to happen when I picked out the yarn at the store. I chose it because my mother, who always leaves color selection up to me for her hand-knit items, is fond of deep purples, browns and reds, and I knew the colors would go well with her winter coat (she’s also sensitive to wool, so any yarn with greater than 25% wool makes her itch). It was only when the scarf was one-third finished that I realized I was knitting a wonderfully dark item.

Knitting is not normally associated with dark. Yarn feels good; knit items are warm and cozy; our friends love us when we knit for them; baby items are cute. Knitting doesn’t ordinarily bring out the shadowy undersides of our souls, so when I looked at this scarf and observed the way it coursed through yellow, brown, purple, and red–without ever really escaping the black–I was thrilled.

Now, there’s an important distinction between dark and morbid; the latter is a fascination with death, destruction, and the associated color scheme; the former is an acknowledgment that being human is complicated, and that there are corners of our lives that aren’t always comfortable for sitting. If you’ve looked any my writing, then you know that I find these places to be much more interesting than the ones that, say, Disney movies come from. I don’t usually knit from those corners, but this scarf . . . well, this is a wonderful start.

Oh, by the way, my mom loves the scarf.

Left vs. Right

Last week I took a survey on Quizilla to find out what kind of knitter I am. Many of you may have already taken this quiz. If so, then you saw that one of the choices for the question about how you, personally, follow pattern instructions was as follows:

SSK is the traditional right leaning decrease, and it matches the k2tog which produces a left leaning decrease.

As a freelance writer and proofreader, my immediate impulse upon reading this statement was to look for a way to contact the person who wrote it, since they’d clearly made a huge mistake. K2tog, or knit two together, is a right leaning decrease, and is in fact the only right-leaning decrease. Every other decrease, including slip-slip-knit (SSK) leans to the left.

I mentioned this to my wife (who henceforth shall be known as Z), from whom I’d received the link to the survey. A fellow proofreading freak, our evening dinner conversations often consist of the grammar, punctuation, and factual errors to which we’ve been subjected throughout the day. She informed me that I was the one who was mistaken, and that SSK always leans to the right, with k2tog going the other way.

Crazy? Well, Z is a left-handed knitter. She’s forced to reverse many knitting pattern instructions, and has to put up with knitting books like Gertrude Taylor’s America’s Knitting Book, which contains this lovely little ditty:

If you are left-handed, you should not knit from left to right. Left-handed people write in the same direction as right-handed people do, so too, you should knit in the same direction as all knitters do, so that others will be able to help you.

This is ridiculous, of course, but apparently Z and I have been working our decreases in the opposite direction the whole time we’ve known each other. Who knew? So, I ask you: which way do your decreases go? Are you left-handed? If so, do you knit left-handed? What are the right-handed ways in which knitting instructions drive you nuts?

Oh, by the way, according to that survey, I’m a knitting purist. Whatever.

Google’s Greatest Hits

Like many web site owners, I like to use statistics tracking software to see how many visitors I get, where they come from, and what search terms people use to find my site. This last item has been particularly illuminating, and today I’d like to share some of my favorites. Let’s just jump right in:

insane knitter blog

I don’t consider myself an insane knitter, but if I were one, I’d definitely have an insane knitter blog. The more interesting question is, just what was this person looking for? I ask that question about a lot of the search terms on my list. Especially this one:

heterosexual knitting

I may be heterosexual, but I didn’t realize I had transmitted it to my knitting. I mean, I can’t even tell whether my hand-knit items are male or female. Given the rate at which they multiply, I guess we can assume that at least some of them are breeders. Anyway, the relationship between knitting and sexual orientation is apparently a much hotter topic than I thought:

does knitting make you gay?

It seems to me that simple observation would have cut off that search a long time ago. If it were true, there’d be a lot more lesbians in the world. I know, I know . . . when someone asks that question, they’re only wondering if it turns men gay. Well, I can only speak for myself. I just got married last summer (to a woman) and . . . I’ll just leave it at that. Meanwhile, it seems that other boys are causing a lot more trouble than I am:

pleasure boys having all the fun

Damn those pleasure boys! Every time someone wants to have a little fun, those friggin’ pleasure boys have to come along and take it all for themselves. The fact that this term led someone to my site means that, while knitting might not make you gay, it definitely turns you into a pleasure boy. If only I’d known sooner!

oakland jew blog

This is my favorite. It was probably some nice Jewish girl looking for a nice Jewish boy in Oakland with a blog, but it sounds vaguely offensive in that old school way. Can’t you just imagine the chat room exchange?

sknhed86: man, the internet used 2 b such a cool place but now it sux
whtpwr69: you said it!!!!!!!!!!!! its all cuz of those jew blogs
sknhed86: yeh, and dont even get me goin on the ones from oakland

I could keep going with these search terms, because they’re really just too hilarious. For now, I’ll close with my second favorite. Whoever did this search, I hope my web site helped make their day just a little bit brighter:

hate knitting