I have several drafts of posts but will try to sum up.
Blogging, I do it because it allows me to participate in a wider fiber community when location narrows the potential friends too much. (I am opinionated and contrary… A knitter who does not like babies? I might as well be building a mosque in Iowa while roasting pigs (someone who appalls even the splinter groups.)) Though I sometimes miss formats with threaded comments and notifications, so I can interact more.
One thing I think is essential is a good feed reader. I like the Google Reader because it works well and everyone can use it. I would hate going through the 30 blogs I read looking for updates manually. I would get frustrated and angry whenever someone had not updated then. Instead new posts show up automatically and I find that I can add more people without significantly increasing my time committment.
Gifts for Knitters. Sometimes I want to comment on famous bloggers’ posts. I was really irked by the recommendation of Signature knitting needles as a gift idea, for example, because what really makes those special is they can be customized to suit the knitter. With 3×3x6 options and a dozen sizes, either the gift will not be a surprise or the giver has about a 1 in 300 chance of getting the right thing. I believe gifts should be a surprise or one should buy them for one’s self. It starts to feel like extortion when you tell people what you want. [ see opinionated disclaimer above.]
Yarn. I wish yarn was always marked with a useful measurement like wpi. So the Blue Moon Fiber Arts people are having a sale, but I do not think of 6 stitches per inch on size 3 needles as “heavyweight”. I want to know how it really translates since tightly spun and sproingy yarn would be excellent for cables and lace both. Plus I really like some of those raven-clan colorways…
I am going to go back to tighter spinning and tighter plying. As much as I like the yardage and the soft&fluffy texture, I really dislike splitty yarn. Hopefully I can find a happier medium.
Social knitting group? I went out for coffee this morning to a new neighborhood place. (Grand Lake Coffee House, Oakland, CA, which is, on Grand and near Lake Merritt) Not a Starbucks! The chairs were comfortable, there was a lot of space. It was not crowded. The service was friendly. The coffee was great. Prices were reasonable compared to other cafes. I think I would like to start an unemployed knitters group in the mornings. Something like Wednesday or Friday morning at about 9:30a to be past the morning rush. I am not sure how to start a group except by showing up with my knitting and possibly posting in the local Ravelry group. I do not care who comes, but would obviously prefer people who do not think I need to be someone else in order to be fully human.
I have a lot of reluctance to post on Ravelry because every new thing that is started has dogpiles of people explaining why they cannot come. It starts to seem like no one wants to do anything and people who were somewhat interested are really put off. I am also reluctant because the “local knitting community” is very clique-ish and I would hate to be pushed out of my own group because I am not the “right sort” of knitter. I am usually the “left” sort of knitter. I do not see it as wrong and try to be amused by society’s attempts to homogenize everyone.
Take a pass on the BMFA. They charge too much, and their yarn is sub-standard quality. I got loads of joins – and knots – in mine, and they don’t bother to totally saturate the yarn in dye, so it loses a ton of color in the first wash.
Comment by Jasmin — December 6, 2008 @ 10:20 am
Thanks for the warning. It did seem over-priced and I do not buy much yarn anymore.
I was bothered by the sock yarn being 100% merino and only 3 ply. In my opinion, great sock yarn is cabled. Like a 3×3ply yarn, where 3 3-ply yarns are plied together. I would probably be willing to pay someone else to spin that!
Comment by UndyedYarnpire — December 6, 2008 @ 11:34 am
We had one hank of the BMFA and really disliked the feel. It’s going to her Dad as gift socks and he won’t be as picky as either one of us.
Our Tuesday night group was started by a lady who just wanted to go sit in a coffee shop and knit. She was going to sit alone but advertised it on the Orange County board in Ravelry. Not Starbucks and not really all that formal. She goes each week while the group has ebbed and flowed but their are a few who just want to get out of their homes and knit for a couple hours a week.
My last three ply is going to become socks after Christmas but I’m liking the idea of the 3 x 3 cabled yarn. It would have to be fine lace weight to become 6 ply fingering. Or are you talking about sport weight?
Comment by TwistedKnitster — December 7, 2008 @ 1:44 am
I love the colors the way they look on the BMFA site. But pictures on Ravelry of completed projects did not convince me they were showing a true representation. Hearing that other people did not think it was high quality yarn made me grateful I had not been seduced by the seemingly-black colors. It was too expensive for what it was when I read the descriptions of it being merely 3-ply yarn. 3-ply 100% merino does not make for a durable sock yarn!
3-ply Wensleydale might make for durable sock yarn, but only for someone who should be wearing a smaller version of a hair shirt.
I did some investigation after I was emailed a suggestion to try plying some commercial SW cobweb laceweight yarns to see if I liked the result. I was not able to find any SW cobweb yarn anywhere. I did not even find SW laceweight (but I did not look very hard). I am going to pick up a few skeins of Knitpicks lace yarns and try it. The experiment interests me! I am not sure what I will end up with, but it sounds like fun. There is some concern about what I would do with the completed yarn since I cannot imagine wanting non-machine washable socks….
That “I will be there, join if you want to.” method is what I think I would like to have for my kind of knitting group. I am struggling with my own prejudices in terms of where I might mention it because of my recent problems with local people who all name drop when introducing themselves. I tend to be more egalitarian; I do not believe it should matter who you know, only what you can do. So I would rather know someone who taught themselves out of a book from the library and who customizes everything on the fly than someone who lives next door to the LYS owner and who can only knit stuff from pay-for patterns using exactly the specified yarn.
Comment by UndyedYarnpire — December 7, 2008 @ 11:37 am