Jupiter is closer than Saturn

I am wondering whether I should talk about this again. It seems personal and not very fiber-related.

When I found the *LSG Spinning group on Ravelry, I was interested because there seemed to be less of the newbie repetition and the G part of the name of the group would put off those smarmy women who think the only jobs women can ever have are being a housewife and mother. [*Lazy Stupid Godless]

There was something that went around and I PM’d someone who then mentioned there was a “local” LSG knitters group. It is “Bay Area” but 95% of all activities take place in areas the BART does not go. [Of course, some of that is a BART failing since south bay should be considered part of the Bay Area; San Jose has the largest population and its surrounding satellite towns have a lot of the jobs. There really was no excuse for not having public transit that goes all the way around the Bay.]  Now since I do not usually take public transit, this is not a huge deal, theoretically, but in practice the only places far from BART all require at least an hour of driving. I refer to most of south bay as “orbiting Saturn” to explain why I never go there.

Recently someone set up an excursion in Berkeley. There is no parking in Berkeley. Except for the parts of Berkeley that are worse crime-wise than the reputation that Oakland has of being the murder capital of the country. Still, it is not a spinning thing, so I would only need a small bag of knitting to fit in, and I could get a ride or something.

Then I realized where they were holding it. Realized beyond the logistics. Jupiter is a campus bar.

Happy Holidays to me?

I am considering the Crown Mountain Farms fiber club. I like that you can choose the colorway or get something random. (Admittedly I would like the right to refuse the random, so I want to see, then choose.)  CMF has a number of really good colorways.

The price is excellent, $15/month (buy any shipments you want) for 4 ounces of fiber, including shipping. It is not all the standard fibers either. A lot of the fibers are things that are harsher, but that certainly happened with the Spunky Eclectic club.

When I started spinning I wanted to be consistently good at spinning. I wanted to always be able to spin a sweater’s worth in my “regular” fiber. My regular fiber is BFL. When I started corriedale was still cheaper, but I really dislike it. I also dislike merino because of the short staple-length.

Now I am ready to really start branching out. I want to spin other things.

Of course, there is a problem in that I do not knit anywhere nearly fast enough to bother spinning yarn for my own use.

There were some issues with the CMF club. You have to register. Well, you have to register to buy their regular stuff anyway, so they already have my email address. When I signed up, it said my name would not be public, but my username would be. Then when I looked, my name was also public. That is uncool. (it was fixed) I added something to my “cart” and it goes to PayPal. It is a dealbreaker if I have to have a PayPal account.

I would have considered another year of the Fondle This! club from Susan’s Spinning Bunny because the price dropped to $150, but I did not enjoy it this year and cannot find any enthusiasm.

I looked for other fiber or yarn clubs and did not find anything that was open and not ridiculously overpriced.

[edited Saturday 1:30pm]

In search of talking penguins riding unicorns.

Name one pattern, free or not, book or PDF or whatever, in English, that is ready to go. No mistakes, no doing my own math, no secret knowledge where “everyone knows” that you have to continue the corner increases while binding off, no “go find your own buttonhole method”.

I want one, just one, fully functional, totally accurate knitting pattern. It does not have to be for a garment. And it cannot be the generic variant like a plain stockinette hat with ribbing band.

Also, no plagiarism. So if it is a washcloth with the turtle on it from the Barbara Walker books, that is not really a self contained pattern.

Seriously. I have been knitting for 6 years and never has there been a single pattern that was perfect and fully functional.

Book after book with serious errata. (I frogged the sole sock I started from the Wendy Johnson book, I doubt I will start another one ever, since the errata appeared after I started the sock, so if I start a new sock, there will be more errata.)

Nothing sized ever fits me. Not hats or mittens or shawls even. Socks are always too narrow in the toes. But that is not the fault of the designer who is creating a one-size fits most pattern. But even the be-damned pillow has mistakes.

Right now I seriously believe that anyone who buys a pattern for any knitted thing is throwing their money away. I would like to be convinced otherwise.

Does anyone have anything that is spot on perfectly accurate and ready-to-go as printed? Or is this the little girl who announces she does not want a pony for her birthday, she wants a unicorn pony. And her special party should have a dragon karaoke band and a cake baked by Hansel and Gretel.

I am not a Pharoah, but I am king of the Tut tuts.

I interacted with Wendy Johnson. She was really nice and actually responded. Of course it was mostly nice things I was saying. I am trying to keep with that nonsense where no one ever says anything negative. Of course I was inspired to write because I discovered the errata page which affects the socks I have on my needles right now.

Honestly, if the book had been printed correctly, I would not have bought it.  That is what irritates me about knitting pattern books, they always have mistakes, and frequently the mistakes are crucial.  Wendy Johnson’s patterns were the ones where I finally “got it” in terms of making socks. As much as I like having all the techniques consolidated in one place, and as much as I like the stitch motifs for several socks in the book, I would not have bought the book if I had known there was extra purling required.

I am going to be frogging my (modified) Serpentine Socks.

But I said nice things about her book, including that I had bought my own copy after looking at the library’s. I said I appreciated the errata page, which I do; I just wish it had been up months ago.

—-

Today I was investigating the Simple Faroese Shawl (supposedly by Cathy Chestnut, but it has the same formatting and layout as things I get from Susan at Susan’s Spinning Bunny). The pattern normally sells for $1 (but I seem to remember it costing more). It is a single side of a single page, and it is exactly a garter stitch triangle shawl with a paragraph about making selvage edges. Now, it has one row of fanciness (yo,k2tog;  just like how it looks in the picture) so it does not actively violate a copyright, but seriously, where does anyone get off selling a pattern to a garter stitch triangle?

[eta: I am not the only one who thinks this, I found a generic shawl recipe while looking for real Faroese shawls: http://wendyknits.net/archives/613 ]

What irritates me is that it is claiming to be the shaped kind of shawl that will actually stay on your shoulders, but there is no possible way that is true. I have made a number of triangle shawls (Lion Brand’s Homespun yarn had it on the wrapper when I started knitting, the same type of shawl, starting from the center neck even, though theirs had a lot more fancy rows and was stockinette based.)  Triangle shawls do not stay on.

—-

I mentioned to Wendy Johnson that I usually made triangle shawls with extra center lines. She is now knitting 4/6 of a hexagonal shawl. I had not realized there were hexagonal shawls. I bet that would actually stay on. I hope that I was an inspiration. Her idea is definitely original. My apparent muse tendencies might be coincidental, but I am egotistical enough to think I shifted her paradigm by sending an email.

I wish I trusted pattern designers to actually do their jobs. Since I have not bought a stand-alone pattern ever, I find myself wondering if they are as riddled with errata as the books are. It is difficult to tell whether the patterns I received as part of this fiber club have errors, since I have had very little interest in knitting them.  I can say that the layout and detail has left a lot to be desired though.

I really do not want to buy one of these download patterns. So far 100% of all the knitting patterns I have made from patterns in books have had errors. It appears that almost all designers of stand-alone patterns require payment via Paypal.  I can barely print at home.  Overall that seemed like a bad combination: potentially dodgy product, known dodgy payment service, having to sit in front of my computer to use the product.

—

I finished the tam/beret I was making. It looks horrible. Flat, smooth top; nice fabric drape for a hat; nice stitches throughout the field; colorful, non-pooling, easy-to-knit yarn. When I tried it on, the hat stands straight up. It will not flop over.  The colors, which look like a mountain meadow over-filled with wildflowers, ended up looking more particolored. Basically it looks like a bursting cylinder of circus-colored vomit.  I have not yet decided whether to frog or find someone whose skin will tolerate adjacency to a stomach full of mustard and cotton candy and “grape” bubblegum.

I will most assuredly post pictures.

Wp, fiberclub, Lambtown.

Weird problems with posting. All these posts that I have written this week were still in the drafts folder even though they had been “published”. I apologize for the burst of posts. It looked okay from here, so I did not notice.

For my own information, I received the September fiber club shipment today, October 2, 2009. The last shipment is (it was a 10 month “year”) is this month’s. The fiber is 2oz of falkland and 2oz angora+merino (no percentages given) in a solid purple color. It came with the Simple Faroese Shawl pattern. I like that pattern. (Not enough to pay someone $6 for it when I can buy a whole book of patterns for $13 on sale. But enough to be glad that was one of the patterns sent.) Pictures later.  I have liked most of the fiber sent. A lot of it is specialty fiber that is difficult to order as an individual. At the same time, I doubt I am going to do it again. It was not fun. I felt pressured to finish before the next month arrived, and the Rav group was not a vibrant and supportive community. (Signing up for the Rav group got me spammed with invites to swap groups.)  It was like having a bookclub where the book is assigned, but no one shows up to discuss it. Pointless from a social perspective.

I am not going to Dixon Lambtown. I am irritated that they have no vendors listed and they do not know the difference between “schedule” and “calendar”. I understand this makes me elitist and prejudiced, but I really do not want to spend $10 going to something and have it be as confusing and disorganized as their online presence indicates they are. My stash is full anyway. Eventually I will make fiber-liking friends who chivvy me along, but probably by then I will have decided to take up the cello or hang-gliding instead.

A hatful of jumbled thoughts

I am working on a knitting project and it distracts me from posting. It is a hat. I am making it with the “leftovers” from the slipper knitting. The 75% ball of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted. It really is a thick worsted yarn, similar to what acrylic worsted yarns are like and vastly different (superior) to Knitpicks Swish Worsted. I think if I used the Swish bulky, it would be similar to what I consider a worsted to be. But the Lorna’s Laces is a lot tighter ply and more solid. It knits up much closer to the effect I prefer.

One of the few comments I have received on my handspun is how “overplied” it is. But I like that.

However, I have a secret, I prefer knitting with commercial yarn. I like the yarns’ colors and fibers better from handspun, but the knitting has always been fraught with issues. Especially gauge issues. I find it extraordinarily difficult to get an accurate sense of gauge on handspun yarn. With the exception of my “Moss in the Dark” yarn, which is astoundingly consistent, even across all four balls of 300+ yards each.

I am attempting to make a tam/beret. Not sure what the difference is between those. Found a generic beret pattern based on the one given by the HK teddy bear calculator one.

But before I forget, I want to say that I really like TechKnitter. This, most recent, post was great. http://techknitting.blogspot.com/2009/09/some-ideas-just-make-you-say-wow.html
I do not haunt the Knitty site waiting for changes. I do not want to join their mailing list. (They should have RSS like normal people do. Mailing lists are lame and it means when I want to stop reading, someone has to notice I no longer like them. It makes changing your mind about what to spend your time reading into this personal crisis and insult balance.) And I find the Knitty format to be extremely opaque. There is no way to page through the whole issue. There is no way to get a decent preview of all the patterns. The articles are often blurbed to make them seem even less interesting than they actually are. Such is the case with Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off. I have some issues with some of TechKnitter’s techniques, especially the tubular cast-on (which I tried 3 times and it totally did not work at all so it was frustrating.) But most of the ideas presented there are phenomenally well documented and illustrated. They explain things in the kind of detail that actually substitutes for having a master knitter available for questions. Really brilliant work.

Yes, I do know I need to update my blogroll here. It would be so much easier if it would just automatically tie into my Google Reader. But then I might have to admit to all food blogs I read and you could see that I am a dilettante in the fiber world.

Eight Days A Week… too bad that was only a song.

(Watch me be irreverent!)

The Alpaca Direct people are apparently more than just an online store. The guy who runs it posted in several local Rav groups indicating that they had a knit night and that people were welcome to visit the store. I sent him a PM saying, “Thanks!” because I had assumed they were not local. The guy replied with a link to the Google map to the boonies and said they were open 6 days a week.

I wanted to reply and ask him whether they were closed on Mondays like yarn stores or closed on Sundays like everything in red areas.

Now I am wondering if yarn stores in rural areas are closed on both Sundays and Mondays. What about yarn stores owned by Jewish people? Or co-owned by a J and a C? Would that just never be open when people with jobs could go? Or would they work on each other’s holy day?

As a city-dweller, I tend not to shop at stores which are closed on Sundays. Most stores need more shopping capacity, not less. It seems criminally wasteful to have stores which close at 6pm weekdays and which are not open on both weekend days. Obviously they do not have lots of people who show up 10 minutes before closing and leave disappointed. But it has been my experience that small boutique shops are not open when people who have money have free time.

If I owned a yarn store, I would be open from 4pm to 10pm on whichever weekdays and 11am to 8pm on both weekend days. I might have an extra early-open day if there was a call for it. But most yarn stores are situated places with very, very little parking surrounded by other boutique type stores which are open exactly the same hours. I would really love to drop by the yarn store after putting my name on the waiting list at a restaurant. But I cannot, because they are always closed.

I wonder if the new place out in the boonies has parking?

I would probably be willing to drive that far (my car is air conditioned, unlike my apartment) if they had parking and were willing to recommend somewhere fantastic to eat. “Come shop for yarn, we have plenty of parking and when you’re done, be sure to stop at Billy Bob’s Grilled Beast which has the best BBQ west of the Mississippi.” Because, honestly, the barbeque in urban areas really blows, and that is if you even feel comfortable going into the restaurant given the location and clientelle. Or even if they could promise, “We have a sweater’s worth of everything in the store! Come in for the selection, leave with the product! No special ordering necessary!” I could probably search online for restaurants.
Here is what I did not reply, but wanted to: “I usually feel unwelcome in the urban LYSs here because I do not have 800 piercings and tattoos. Are you far enough into the boonies that you check church membership cards and require all women to show their babies at the door to be allowed in?”

Sadly, this dichotomy is prevalent throughout all the fiber world and I really hate being a regular person who fits neither extreme because it makes me ashamed of being a knitter and spinner.