The Lumpy Sweater

Or $91 dollar Wollmeise, to be precise.

Well, that’s what we call demand, children, although I certainly wouldn’t have paid $91 for that particular color myself. There’s an interesting dilemma in this, because Claudia, the woman who dyes the Wollmeise sock yarn, has specifically asked that people do not charge more for the yarn than they paid for it. (Here’s a link to her shop)

 Now, in this case, I can see that this person didn’t have control over how much it sold for—after all, it is an auction and Ebay auctions can get crazy. But apparently, some people made a habit of buying Wollmeise and turning around and reselling it for much more on Ebay. Claudia has apparently said that she won’t sell to people that do that.

 Here’s my opinion: she needs to raise her prices.

 Seriously. There is a huge demand for this yarn. The yardage is great (over 500 yards, I believe) and maybe it would slow down the frenzy. Otherwise, I am unsure of why it is so offensive to have your yarn resold on Ebay. Honestly. I mean, I would have thought that it would be flattering to have people who are willing to pay more than retail for your yarn.

 I guess that this is part of a personal shtick with this mentality that I’ve seen that it is mean to make money when you destash yarn or trade or swap. That somehow, this evil knitter is rubbing their skinny villain hands as they bilk fellow knitters out of an extra $5 for a discontinued Socks that Rock color.

 Let’s put it this way: if someone willing buys something without someone else holding a gun to their head—then I don’t care if you pay $200 for a skein of Caron Simply Soft. Yarn is not a life-giving essential. You do not need yarn to live. (Ow, I felt a twinge just writing that!)

 Raising the prices, at least by a buck or two (or I should say, euro, since Wollmeise is a German-based company) could maybe help stem some of the demand, thus automatically lessening the chance of $90 skeins of Wollmeise.

 Whaddya think? You can comment here and check out the original thread at Ravelry about the uber-expensive Wollmeise)

 A brief editorial note: as the title states, this was written late at night, and excessive snark may be attributed to that. I must admit, I thoroughly enjoyed writing it. Tonight is the opening night of Midsummer’s Night Dream and there shall be photographs and much rejoicing to come very soon!

  My darling cousin Margaret,

 I know you’re special, but do you really need to tell everyone on Ravelry that someone didn’t roll out the red carpet for you at a yarn store and your confidence has been shattered since that experience? Displaying ones emotions that way seems so…demeaning.

 Also, my royal darling, I know that it’s hard for you when someone has the audacity to have an opinion different than your own, but these plebians must be humored in some respects.

 Oh, your little copyright thread didn’t go well? Tsk, tsk, well, I suppose telling all the designers on Ravelry that you believe in freedom of information and that you lift all your patterns from piracy sites might incite some strong feelings—but it really seems too bad. After all, you are a princess, and every princess needs her own copyright thread, doesn’t she?

 And I couldn’t believe that someone dared to accuse you of laziness when you simply asked how to K2TOG–not everyone can figure out how to use something as difficult as a search engine, can they? Even expecting someone to do so assumes that they have the time or the inclination not to needlessly waste others time with questions that have been answered and reanswered a multiple of times.

 Don’t worry about the fact that your Malabrigo is pilling–you can always buy more, dear, from the royal purse. After all, can’t everyone afford to buy hundreds of dollars worth of yarn every month, and subsequently pretend that they’re ashamed of it—while secretly gloating over their wealth? Never mind those who can barely afford more than a skein or two of anything once a month—everyone knows that real knitters always have stash.

 In conclusion, darling Margaret, always assume the worst about other people, never trust their intentions, and reinforce your own personal prejudices daily with a good strong dose of privilige.

 Love,

 Cousin Clare

  Remember this hat?

  It’s a beautiful hat. I love it. And because I also love my older sister (also known as The Artist) I offered to lend it to her theater friends. She is taking a leading role in a Midsummer’s Night Dream in the role of Hermia and Puck, a fairy character, needed a hat.

 I love it. The costume person loved it. But Puck didn’t love it. An outdoor performance makes a bulky merino hat rather hot and I can’t really blame her that much. But because they need to have a Puck that looks like a Puck, she is now going to have to do something slightly more drastic than wearing an adorable wool hat.

 They’re dyeing her hair green!

 ”So, I was thinking about all these acrylic debates, and I just can’t figure out why people have to be so mean. Some of us can’t afford anything other than Red Heart, and it’s really offensive for people to act as though you can only knit with cashmere.”

 ”I agree; my grandma knit an acrylic blanket 80 years ago, and it’s still pristine and perfect. Acrylic has its uses!”

 ”Well, acrylic is a fire hazard. It melts when it burns. I never use anything other than cotton or wool when I knit for babies.”

 ”Honey, if you’re so close to a fire that your clothes are melting, you have bigger problems than your sweater. RED HEART 4EVER!”

 ”I don’t use acrylic because it’s just darn nasty. It’s squeaky, ugly and come on, there are totally affordable wools out there. Knitpicks, Webs, come on! Cost is just an excuse.”

 ”I know that some people can’t afford anything better, but I just can’t stand it. I only knit with organic yarns, handspun from the wool from my own sheep. That, or I just buy Malabrigo, why knit with something you hate, lol! I have 27 tubs of the stuff in my house…”

 ”I NEVER use yarn from animals. Shearing sheep really hurts them. Have you heard about those poor sheep that get mutiliated? It just sickens me with this wanton cruelty.”

 ”I don’t know about acrylic versus wool, but breastfeeding in public really annoys me.”

 ”Knitpicks DOESN’T SHIP TO CANADA, ARGH! HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO SAY THIS! The only thing I can get in my town is acrylic and it works just great for whatever I knit. It’s washable and durable.”

 ”Have you tried Knitpicks?”

 ”My knitpicks circular needles broke 3 times. I just stopped bothering returning them. Susan Bate forever!”

 ”It’s called mulesing, and it’s actually more kind to the sheep than letting them get infested with flies. They’re phasing it out anyway.”

 ”Breastfeeding in public is totally normal. I should be able to pop out a boob whenever I want. If you don’t want to see, DON’T LOOK!”

 Moderator Wannabe: Everyone! Stop being so mean! Acrylic and wool have different uses, let’s agree to disagree.

 ”Isn’t anyone thinking of the children?”

 Explaining the dynamics of the local poetry group would be difficult. It’s like trying to explain an in-joke to someone; it never pays off. But I’ll try.

 Cricket.

 Well, I always bring my knitting. Knitting is a safe refuge if the weaselly looking guy decides to read a Ribert Frost poem—an unfortunate incident which occured as follows. The scene is the Seattle Best Cafe. I have a laptop on my, er, lap, and a short, skinny little man stands up to read.

 Weasel Man: (In flat, nasal voice) 

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;

 Me: (Starts to giggle)

 Weasel Man:

He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

 Me: (Starts to giggle even harder as he speaks each line like he’s dropping a dead animal onto the floor)

 Weasel Man:

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

Me: (Now visibly convulsing in my chair, barely able to stop from exploding into laughter. Did I mention the bristly little blond mustache, that simply adds to the weasel impression? He read on, blessedly deaf to my muted explosions.)

 Weasel Man:

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there’s some mistake….

 By the time that he reached the very famous last lines, “And miles to go before I sleep,” I was this close to lying on the floor, writhing with hysterical laughter. It may have something to do with the fact that this was November and I was in NaNoWriMo, a novel writing challenge that required 1,667 words per day. Emerging for the poetry reading was one of the few social ventures that I made that month. I guess that it showed.

 However, now I have knitting, and I knitted alternately on my t-shirt and on a hat, which is not going to pictured here until I have found out whether I actually have enough yarn for it or not. Tonight, everyone put their poems in a bag and so everything was anonymous. The evening went well. Poets are strange and sensitive breed, so when everyone starts laughing, you know that it’s going well.

 Afterwards, me, the Artist and a bunch of the other poets, including Matt, piled into our cars to go to the ice cream shop nearby. Fueled by sugar, everyone began to share stories.

 ”I remember the best fanfiction line ever,” Matt said, “You know Doom, the computer game, with the marine? Well, this fanfiction story is about John, the marine, and he’s on the phone with the commander. And John says, ‘I have to defeat all these demons!’ and the commander says, ‘YOU are the demons,’.”

 He paused, savoring everyone’s expectant faces. Then he giggled, which spoiled it slightly.

 ”And then he was a zombie.”

 Everyone gaped for a moment.

 ”Seriously, that was the ending of the story. And then he was a zombie. That’s it.”

 This spurred many stories about fanfiction horrors, another memorable ending line being, “BUT WHO WAS THE PHONE!” because we are all geeks, and probably everyone there had written at least one fanfiction story. However, Rob, a generally good natured guy who enjoys teasing, started to dig at my and the Artist, namely because everyone in my family is rather short. I joked that at the family reunions, we have a ruler that says, “Must Not Be Taller Than This,” because if you’re taller than a certain height, you’re not actually a member of the family!

 However, this did not stop him. Instead, it encouraged him. I knit on my cotton t-shirt, and reached the end of the row. My needle—my size 6, 14 inch long bamboo needle—was free. Finally. He made one more quip.

 Snap

 I flicked the blunt end of the needle against his leg, not too hard, but enough to make a point. Bamboo needles sting.

 ”Ow!” he said, whining.

 He got no sympathy, however, simply laughter. When all the ice had melted, finally, me, the Artist and her friend needed to leave. As I got into the car, he called out,

 ”Goodbye, hobbits!”

 Darn it. Maybe I should start using metal needles.

 Note: There will be a t-shirt KAL update this week, probably Thursday or Friday. Sorry for the delay.

 If someone has taken a brief wander around the knitting blogosphere—by the way, I hate the word blogosphere—then they’ve probably run across Marilyn’s blog. However, I always think of her by the name of her blog—the Knitting Curmudgeon. In her latest edition of Open Mic Thursday, she asked;

• Are you still using Ravelry? If not, why not?I continue to see the value in Ravelry, although probably not for me. One friend, who shall go nameless, says that it can be an enormous time waster. Another friend is convinced that it has become KnitDweeb Heaven. Well, that was rather easy to predict. It is what it is, and you can use it as you wish.

 I love the phrase KnitDweebs. After being mauled by a panting, frothing mass of irrational knitters, KnitDweebs is a comforting term. I briefly answered Marilyn’s question with 3 easy ways to avoid KD, but it got me thinking, about Ravelry and dweebs in general.

 The funny thing is that good old fashioned trolls bother me less than some of the dweebs that I see on Ravelry. Having someone post, “Acrylic is for dirty people,” is less disturbing than the Nice Nazi. The first person is simply stupid. The second group is everywhere and they are CONVINCED that anything less than sugary heaven means that Ravelry will fall apart.

 This means that even reasoned discussion is immeaditely followed by a thread entitled,  “The Hand-Holding Thread” or, “The Lovey Thread,” or something similarly saccharine. That irritates me. Irritates the heck out of me.

 That may simply be because I am not a naturally nice person. Sarcasm, a quick retort, snotty quip—come on, I’m a teenager, you’re surprised at that? But overall, I think Ravelry helps to tone down the loudest dweebs. The worst forums are inbred little enclaves of “regulars” who all have labels next to their names like “Permanent Resident” or something similarly patrician. Ravelry is too huge for that to happen easily. The few people that get noticed are noticed because they’re nice, not because they’re trolls.

  As a teenager on forums other than Ravelry, my regular posts get pats on the head. My opinionated posts have gotten me into some of the weirdest, nastiest discussions that I’ve ever had, barring the fanfiction emails I once exchanged with a fanfiction goddess and her outraged fans. (That story LATER) That exchange left a bad taste in my mouth, so I very rarely frequent that forum anymore.

 My absolute favorite was when I posted about a certain yarn that I liked. This was after the first incident and I decided to give the forum another go. I did not start a new thread. I added my thoughts to an already existing thread. One person was virulent about their dislike of this yarn. Whatever, I didn’t respond to that.

 Imagine my surprise when a little message arrived for me–from that same person telling me all about how horrible this yarn was and how since I was a “new knitter” and all stuff that I probably didn’t know how this yarn was just full of knots, etc.

 I politely responded that our experiences differed and our exchange ended amicably enough. No harm, no foul. But it reminded me of how incredibly…incestous it all felt.

 So, yes, there are definitely dweebs on Ravelry. Can we possibly hope to avoid them all? But it’s certainly far more valuable than the few trolls. Stick to the knitting, or crocheting or spinning—it all works out.

  I blame porn for the lack of pictures in this post. No, not yarn porn, the real kind of porn. Naked ladies and all that stuff. My dad (who was briefly mentioned in the Nyquil story) is waging an all out war on any possible porn. This means that

• A lot of nasty sites get blocked by the filter–yeah!
• I cannot access Flickr, which means that this post will have no pictures
• Result: irritated readers!

  I do have some beautiful pictures, too. Endless sweater and t-shirt knitting resulted in a knitting breakdown and a complete Monkey sock (from my Marianne Dashwood sock yarn) has resulted. I am nearly finished with the leg of the second. I even learned the Kitchener stitch.

 But, due to my father’s WOP (War on Porn) you can’t see any of this. In fact, the only picture is the studious looking Tolkien, who looks slightly miffed this week–due to my Monkey obsession, he has not gotten any love from me this week.

 This makes it difficult to persuade you when I say that this yarn is very nice indeed—in fact, Kate is considering making it a permanent colorway to be released this fall along with her other new colors—and it makes a rough start to my Yarn Marathon.

 Let me explain: this has nothing to do with knitting down your stash. My modest stash doesn’t really need to be reduced anyway. The Yarn Marathon is basically a customer rewards system devised by Eat, Sleep, Knit, an online yarn store devoted to some of the more popular yarn lines, including Yarn Love. The first goal is 1 mile, and you get a marathon welcome package then. Other goodies include scratch-off prize tickets for $5 in store credit and various little notions.

 One of the ways that you can earn miles is not just by buying yarn—full disclosure here—but also by linking to their website. This means that every time someone clicks on a link from my blog, I earn 5 yards in my marathon. If someone clicks on my link and then buys something, I earn $5 in store credit. This is nice for me, but please don’t feel obligated to click or buy or anything. This blog is not going to be a giant eatsleepknit advertisement–I value my readers, and I refuse to spam you with junk!

  All yards or rewards aside, I have fallen head over heels for one paticular colorway of Marianne Dashwood—it sounds delicious and it looks delicious, too. It’s the Turtle Cheesecake colorway and it is the only yarn that I have seriously considered eating. The next $21 that I have is going to this yarn. Sadly, my obsession with sportweight means that I will only be 330 yards into the first mile, but I am extraordinarily lazy. And now i’m hungry.

 Sometimes, when I step back from the yarn and the knitting, for a moment, I see all the insanity. Yarn marathons? Eating yarn? Knitting…knitting all those thousands of stitches!

 Then I am overwhelmed by the fumes of cheesecake and happily succumb.

 I spent a good chunk of Memorial Day working on my knitting tract.  I wrote, paused and edited. Writing is something that always takes time for me, but at least I wasn’t trying to write a poem. It’s not that I can’t write poetry, but I tend to obsess over the tiniest changes when I’m writing a poem. At least prose flows more swiftly.

 It’s not finished, but I feel good about the work that I’ve gotten done. However, at church this Sunday, it became very guilt-inducing when I took my knitting to church–my new knitting, my pink cotton t-shirt. Over and over, this question was asked.

 ”So, have you finished that orange sweater?”

 This is compounded by the fact that this is usually asked by serious faced children under 10 years of age. I hid my shame behind pale pink cotton. I’ve also started the front of my t-shirt, and the idea of knitting a t-shirt seemed novel to many people.

 ”I don’t think that is going to fit you,” said one blond-haired munchkin with a heavily freckled face.

 ”Sure it is,” I said confidently, throwing another loop of cotton around and lifting the new stitch onto my left needle, “I’m making the right size.”

 ”I really don’t think that’s going to fit you,” she insisted, a kind of pity in her voice, as if she felt bad that I was so deluded. I glanced down at my figure, wondering if I had suddenly gained weight. Nope.

 ”Oh!” I said, suddenly realizing why she was so doubtful, “This is just the front; there’s an entire back that I’ve already finished.”

 She laughed, obviously relieved that I wasn’t completely crazy.

 ”I thought that you were going to try to wrap that—” she pointed at my knitting, “—around your whole self.”

 I had to admit, her adamant statements did make sense if she thought that I was going to try to wrap a rectangle 18 inches wide around my torso. I laughed in some relief, and patted my stomach. Yes, still my normal stomach, nothing changed about it.

 However, I have resumed work on my orange sweater!

Maybe I’m just jaded.

Or maybe I’ve seen too many discussions about copyright go awry.

But a day ago, someone posted this question on Ravelry.

•  I belong to a website in which you can feature your art. I consider my knitting my art; but I do not usually do my own designs. More than likely; it is a pattern I have adapted slightly. I was wondering if it would be “against the rules” to post it and claim it as my own if I site the designer and where I found the pattern. What do you guys think?

Nothing is wrong with that question. In fact, it’s perfectly legitimate. But somehow, a looming vision of doom came before my eyes like a darkling mist…old threads looming out of the past, mocking me with their pointless and endless existence.

Anything about copyright. Anything about “Ravelry rules” or designs, or anything. All spiral into thousands of posts. The cycle runs like this: copyright question, reasoned discussion, heated discussion, crazy-white-hot-anger discussion, cake. Repeat.

So I posted a reasoned and logical response.

Or not.

• DIE, evil thread of potential b!tching and copyright crapola!

  Take thee and thy spawn to beyond the grave to the fires of hell, FROM WHENCE YOU CAME!!!

  ETA: Nothing against the OP. I just see darker forces (not her) that could work havoc about this topic.

So far, there have been only 10 posts on the thread, 2 of which are mine. My curse blessing invocation seems to have warded off the evil.

 That, or The Crazy Person just scared everyone away!

A short letter to the Knitting Godz.

      Dear Sirs, 

•  What is the difference between sale yarn and clearance yarn, and why do you have these as seperate categories on your website?

• Is there anyone else who doesn’t think that bulky yarn is of the devil?

• Why do I forgot to SSK at the the beginning of the row and K2TOG at the end of the row when I’m trying to so hard not to screw up my first sweater?

• Could you stoop your divine skills to help me choose a great pattern for that skein of Cascade Chunky Baby Alpaca that I have knit and unwound so many times it should rightfully be called Cascade Chunky Fuzz?

• Why is hasn’t my specially dyed sock yarn prize from Yarn Love come yet?

• Isn’t my dog supposed to be a carnivore? Because he keeps taking bits of my baked potatoe and hiding them so he can eat them later.

•  Is there a Knitting Hell?

•  If so, does it exist in reality, or just in someone’s head? Would everyone be forced to knit with acrylic, or would RedHeart Junkies be given cashmere?

• Is blasphemy (or letter writing like this) going to get me into Knitting Hell?

• Do you have my address? If not, email me, and you can direct those boxes of cashmere and merino wool straight to my front door…yes, right there is fine.

 Your Loving & Adoring Friend,

 Genuine