Saturday, May 29, 2010

Book 17: Lessons In French

Laura Kinsale's historicals are fun to read. The character of the bull was a bit dry though. Actually, being as I am from Nebraska, I really get enough cattle talk without it in my relaxation reading. The heroine has a bit of a boring shame spiral going on. I am a little tired of that old thing. Yes, she has freckles and red hair. B F D. She also has a crapzillion dollars-- of course no man could possibly really love her. Blah blah blah, yadda, yadda.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

I want to believe

I have somehow gotten a desk that has more UFOs than Area 51. I am currently working on swatching lace up all over the place, plus a baby blanket, a dog bandana, a couple dishrags, another hedgie, and and the scarf left unfinished from Ravelympics. Since Lent is over and I just got my tax refund, I wanted to find something to bind it off. I looked at 3 places and nothing really struck my fancy, so I am going to thread a lifeline in and then rip it back 2 rows and use that yarn plus the yardage that is still wound off to do the picot bind-off.

I am, quite honestly psyched out by the loveliness and the cost of two sparkly, costly yarns in my stash. Tilli Tomas sequined silk lace and Dream in Color Starry. I know the sequined lace will be a huge pain to frog if I bork it up. Hence the littering of lace swatches all over the house. Turns out that since I am a left-handed-continental-mirror knitter that my k2tog leans to the right just like a righty. My ssk and psso though? Completely buggered. I have been looking at videos all over the place in order figure out the mechanics of my mistake. This morning I think I may have gotten it right. Instead of Slip 1, Knit 1, Pass Slipped Stich Over I am trying now to Knit 1, Return to needle, Slip next stitch over purlwise. I need to practice more until it feels natural, but it looks like the picture.

I bought a couple of small lace stitch pattern books yesterday at The Empire of Fundies-- Hobby Lobby. For a bunch of Jesus Freaks, they sure treat their customers like crap. You can't return books there at all because you 'might have copied them all'. Normally, I buy knitting books from bookstores for this very reason. They don't treat me like I might have stolen from them. I rec'd 2 knitting books from HL for Christmas that were not to my liking and I am stuck with them.

This brings me to another thought, a criticism of Ravelry, really. I love Ravelry, but I am in general opposed to heavy handed moderation of internet communities. Rav does not allow negative feedback on their board for any yarn shops or such like (well, except for chain stores because, Big Business is Eeeeevil.) Because of this, all positive feedback is suspect. Suppose a store has 4 people who love it all over Ravelry. How then are you to know that 5 people really, really hate it? It's like the Fox News of Yarn.