Lost of Random Things

A very good and interesting day was had knitting. I met with a young lady who is writing articles for the Tribune Review. She asked me my views on the current knitting trend. I hope I did not bore her too much with my off subject stories about my seemingly random life. During the interview a male patron of the Hive was so enthralled with the subject that he interrupted the interview to ask knitting questions. He now says that he wants to come to the Hive Knitting group to learn how to knit. It was interesting talking to her about how knitting was it’s own unique entity that attracts people from many walks of life. And then during that conversation to have someone find it interesting enough to ask about learning to knit.

That is once again one of the truly interesting things about knitting that makes it such a strange and wonderful thing. For all intents and purposes there really is no pressing reason anyone should knit. Everything that a knitter can make a machine could make usually cheaper and faster. I know there is the whole artistic side of it. And I respect this.

In no way shape or form am I suggesting that it is unimportant. Many incredible important things can be done with out. Clowns for instance. Would the world come to an end if there were no more clowns, probably not. Still, the mosaic that makes up our society would some how be less.

Oh I have heard that it is the new yoga. And I am sure it has many benefits in that regard. I am also sure that making something with your own two hands it a good thing as well. And survivalists could say that it is necessary if civilization falls apart. All of this is true.

I am not sure where this is all going to I will just go onto my next random bit of knitting stuff today. Well some one from Greece stopped by the blog. So welcome to the pantheon of nations that have visited here. Thank you and enjoy.

Also the good CarlaK sent me a link to a Machine Knitting list. I signed up and am waiting for my first posts from them.

It is good to see there are still some machine knitters out there. From the lack of people selling high end machines in this area I was beginning to wonder if people still used them.

One interesting thing today was working on The Marley. I have found that turning the skein into a ball makes it easier to knit with the icord gizmo. Oh boy that is a lot of skeins of yarn to turn into balls. Of course this would be the time that my ball winder would drop dead. Well I got it second hand and it never really worked right to begin with. I suppose I should break down and just get a new one. Although doing a couple hundred skeins by hand would be character building.

Something else I noticed is that the dye lot we received is more brilliant than the original skein that we made the test swatch with. I mean it is noticeable a better color than the test swatch. I recall when we made the test swatch I wished it had a bit more purple and was a little less muted. It is as if my mental critiques of the first skein were taken to heart by the manufacturer. If I had to imagine the perfect color for this scarf the way this icrod turned out would be it. I may be loosing my mind. Still, it is as if forces greater than us mere mortals were guiding The Marley.

Yeah I know that sounds booko crazy. What can I say? The Marley may be the perfect long scarf. This does bring me to my next crazed realization.

This long scarf thing has become the first tradition of our Clown Brigade. I suppose I have talked about clown tradition before. It is interesting how much of our budding tradition centers around knitting. There are many things that everyone is working on from juggling to balloon animals. Some of them would appear to be more important to clowning than knitting.

Maybe it has to do with us spending so much time with yarn. I don’t know. I know personally I have spent more time juggling the last few months than I have knitting. This is all very interesting. And I am sure someone out there might have a good explanation why this is unfolding like this. Well I don’t know what it is. I suppose we are all just along for the ride.

By the way has anyone heard the Flyleaf version of “Smells like Teen Spirit”. This song really annoyed me when Nirvana first performed it. I mean I wanted to rip my ears off to prevent the horrible pain it caused my brain. And this was my first reaction to the song before the end of the first verse. Imagine how I felt after it was played on the radio until I contemplated destroying every pop rock station in North America with my bare hands and a dull serving spoon.

By the way I would like to take a moment to apologies the people at Clear Channel Broadcasting. I did dig a brick out of their building in Green Tree before I realized that a dull spoon was not the best weapon for mass destruction. Some lessons are harder to learn than others.

Anyway back to Flyleaf. I heard their cover of the Cobain power opus recently and found that I was enjoying it. Even after I realized what they were singing I still liked it. It is possible I have short changed grunge all together? Well I wouldn’t go that far. Still, I liked their take on one of the most evil song every written.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.