Knitting Mayhem

It’s February, it’s cold, and the Northeast is bracing for yet another dumping of snow. And so, to appease the blogging gods despite not having a brain, I offer you this video of Ravelry’s beloved Bob and his new pair of boots. Because, seriously, I almost pee my pants each time I watch this because I laugh so hard. And I promise I’ll be back with my own damn stuff soon.

Smooches.

I’m starting to see some craaaazy inventions out there for knitting. Just thought I’d leave them here for your Friday Frolic.

ECAL Low-Tech Factory/Rocking-Knit from ECAL on Vimeo.

And if you don’t have enough room for a rocker, well then, tick tock!

Yes, it’s a clock that knits without you! WOWZA! One full rotation is the equivalent of one full day. Ergo, you have a lovely 365 row scarf in a year — and not even have to be present! Heck, that’s farther than I’ve gotten on some of my WIPs. You can watch an interview with the designer, too. Now, if it only did lace….

This weekend, as part of a larger blog/ePortfolio renovation, I’ve decided to retheme knitting mayhem. While I am certain I could have done a lot more, I like to think that an iterative process allows me to add little bits, see how I like it, and then add–or change–to suit. At least, that’s my story.

The cool part is that I took some time to go through my flickr library and view all my stash pictures that I’ve taken and uploaded to Ravelry. Two things stood out: my friend Unraveling takes the best damned pictures because she has an amazing camera, and I have one hella stash. So most of the day has been spent pulling the best pictures into Photoshop, making, cropping, and uploading new headers that show off some of my awesome bits of fiber. Mmmm, lovely!

So stay tuned. Among other things, I’m planning to add a legitimate blog roll, a better flickr widget that allows some pretty pictures to live on the site and, last but not least, give some serious Ravelry love. Now that they’ve made Ravelry links easier to view (hat tip to Casey!), we shall see if we can get more integration with Ravelry. No promises. But it’s definitely on the list.

And now, back to the knitting!

geek by splityarn, on Flickr

I’m a knitting geek with a tech problem who happens to work with a bunch of male techies. This in itself is not a bad thing, per se, but there are times when the (far fewer) women I work with roll our eyes at each other whenever we witness their stubborn refusal to listen to things we say because it might be girly or, God forbid, even tangentially related to the dreaded k word (K–N–I–T–T–I–N–G).

ZOMGBBQWTF!

Can we grow up? Because we, as geek women (and yes, I am talking about my beloved KnitPistols) are a damned smart bunch. Not only do we have pointy sticks and know how to use them, but we have brains and know how to recognize wicked smart applications. But, when a respected tech site notices this same wicked smart application, TheBoyz just might have to consider giving it serious consideration, despite it having to do with, you know, yarn.

So thank you, Slate, for being MAN ENOUGH to see that Ravelry is a wicked smart, kick ass social network that is ten times stronger—and more useful—than any other social network or intranet than I’ve ever been involved in.

It’s about damned time others—besides us smart ass knitters—figure this out.

I cannot believe I am so behind on blogging. Well, okay, I can believe it—mostly because I am behind EVERYWHERE. My work blog, my personal blog, my knitting blog. Behind, behind, BEHIND. The good news is that I haven’t stopped knitting; I’ve actually been working hard at getting some pieces done (yes, the cardigan redux is complete! w00t!), but I seem to have gotten stuck somewhere. I think it’s because my Ravelry stashing is in ruins. I’ve done quite a bit of adding to the coveted stash, but I haven’t documented it—no pictures, no entries, no nuttin’. And of course, that makes it tough to add a new project in Ravelry and link it to my (non-existent) stash entry.

After the runaway success of last year’s Grange Fair knitting competition, the Knitpistols were on a submission frenzy this year. I had finally agreed to enter some of my things (well, okay, almost everything I’ve knitted that turned out half decently) and even got our paperwork hand delivered on time. Wexlermoon and Unraveling were set as well with their incredible horde of apparel, pillows, and little birds. Really, I am continually in awe of their expertise. I myself was putting in my green Wisp, my sister’s Noro scarf, my Wisteria scarf and matching Aspen hat, one of the twin’s baby leaf hats and booties, and my Rose Brown hat. Sadly, the cotton tweed cardigan I was working on did not get finished in time, so I was going without on that submission. Had that been the only disappointment of the event.

Opening day arrives, and we caravan to the Grange to submit our knitted pieces at the proper building. That’s where the drama begins. We go first to the submission table, but are told to go get our paperwork and tags from the other end of the building. So we grab our paperwork and work our way back to the submission table. Upon further examination, we realize there are only about half the tags for the number of items we actually entered. It appears we’ve each got a single entry tag for each general category classification and we all have multiple submissions in several categories. So the women at the submission table tell us to take our tags back and explain our problem to the women at the paperwork table so that they can correct it, and we dutifully trudge back to the table to show them the error of their ways. THIS, my friends, is where we learn of the existence of the unwritten, unspoken rule I like to call the Invisible Knitpistol Clause. Because we are told at the paperwork table that we are not allowed to submit more than one item for any category classification. Not having entered last year, I cannot speak to this firsthand and decided to stay in the background, because I was with two knitpistols who knew their entry regulations backwards and forwards. (For the record, the 40+ page rules handbook states that each item can only be submitted in a single category, but nowhere does it state that submissions are limited to only one item per category.)  Let me grace you with a brief snippet of the exchange:

“Hi. We’re missing some of our submission tags.”
“Ah. I need to speak with you over here.”
“Is there a problem?”
“No, but you can only submit one item per category.”
“Really? Where does it say that in the rule book?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Well, we did it last year.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Really? Because we did. I still have all my submission tags and can show you if you’d like.”
“No, you didn’t. I’ve worked this for 18 years, and we’ve never allowed multiple entries in a category.”
“I’m sorry, where is this in the rule book?”
“It isn’t there.”

You get the gist here. So we took our limited options and returned to the other side of the building to the sympathetic women who couldn’t do anything about it, and picked out what we hoped would be the best of the best of what we had to enter. As we waited for them to process our items, we looked over the other entries and I felt somewhat confident. But hey, what is it they say? Pride always goes before the fall? Yep. That’s the one.

Fast forward to Saturday. I was busy moving TheDude into his freshman dorm room at Lock Haven University, but noticed Wexlermoon checked into the Grange Fair and so I kept an eye out for entry updates, but Twitter was suspiciously quiet. Finally unable to wait any longer, I tweeted that I was waiting for Grange knit updates, and only got the following response from Audrey:

“Yeah about that… you should give @wexlermoon a call. She is the one who is at #grange.”

If you can’t read between the lines, let me help you here. Decoded, that reads:

I know I’ve been off the radar here, but things have been rather busy in the real world. However I *have* been knitting. Honest. And I promise I’ll update soon–both Ravelry and blog. I’ve simply been blogging so much for work (among other things) that I’m a tad tired of listening to myself jabber on and on. But I thought this would help. I mean, srsly, how can knitters not rock this kind of motto?

Squee!!

creative commons flickr image by new_sox
I’m starting to worry about myself. Lately I’ve been seeing more and more tattoos that cause the “Ooh, I like that. A LOT.” thought to skitter across my brain. This is another one that looks funky enough to trip my knitpistol trigger. Brought to my attention by long time friend and new knitpistol fruittart, I totally dig it–especially the way the yarn wraps around her wrist to twist itself around the other needle. Didja catch that part?

Very cool.

So today I sat down to do some stash updating and attending to my Ravelry account, and look at what my inbox had in it:

Holy smokes!!! They like my mobius so much that they want to put it on the Life Is Uneven Cowl Ravelry page??!!!? That’s so … INCREDIBLE! Not to mention unreal. And right, like I’m not gonna approve this request? You have GOT to be freaking KIDDING ME. Approve! Approve! Approve!

This is what I get for channeling Audrey. 🙂 w00t!

I have something to confess: I have been studiously ignoring my Ravelry account. Ever since Ravelympics, I have been so burned out on maintenance that I’ve been afraid to go back in. There’s still seven messages in my queue, which are full of Ravelympic badges that I won for all the work I did, but that three week push just did me in. I know it sounds pathetic. But it’s taken over a month to gather the strength to go back in and start cleaning up, putting things into place, organizing new stash items (and even moving some to the “Will sell or trade” category, believe it or not), and just generally wading back into the waters of yarnporn. Yarn that has been sitting in limbo is now getting pulled out and pictures taken, and the time has come to upload and update the stash.

I think it has actually helped that I’ve been away from it. I’ve been working on a lightweight piece that has gradually soothed the frazzled nerves of churning out badge friendly event items asfastasIpossiblycanpleasedon’thurtmeAudreyIpromiseI’llfinishsoon. But it definitely took a while. I think that’s interesting; I enjoyed the camaraderie of the Ravelympics (as opposed to the competition), but I much prefer my knitting to be something that I enjoy while I’m doing it. I think I’ve finally made it to the point that, so help me God, I really do use knitting as a stress reliever. Who knew? But I think it has actually happened. I think it’s also helped that the weather has prematurely moved into thoughts of spring, and sunshine, and the promise of new projects is once again beckoning to me.

So tonight I am hoping that I finish my latest piece, along with a glass of wine. But if I don’t finish, I’m not gonna stress about it. Because this time, I am enjoying the journey along the way to the final destination. And if that means another glass of wine now, and another day to complete later, so be it.

I think I’ve earned it.