Knitters get this concept. When you wake up one morning and realize you’ll never have to wear store-bought socks ever again because you can’t go to the cinema or stand around or watch TV without keeping your hands busy, you gain the visceral understanding that one small thing (a knit stitch, or a $10 donation) done over and over adds up to something big (a drawer full of socks, or $400K for charity).

In two days, the “10 Lousy Bucks” group on Ravelry raised $30,000, enough to pay off Ravelry’s startup costs.

I am so proud.

Fast forward twenty years, to a long Ravelry thread defending crochet’s utility and beauty, and it occurs to me that a really snazzy way to use crochet would be to make lacy edgings on sleeves, or to extend garments in interesting and graceful ways. I wondered if that’s one of the things this woman was talking about when she made that comment.

It’s been said, “When an old person dies, a library burns.” I’ll never get to ask Mrs. Murdock about her creative uses of crochet (and cross-stitch, though my interest has drifted away from that); she died about a decade ago. Given lots of free time and a travel budget, I could go hunting for physical evidence and draw conclusions on what I find, but it wouldn’t be the same as finding out from her. I don’t have many regrets (having read as an impressionable child the advice “Live so that your tombstone could read ‘No regrets’ “), but I admit to feeling a twinge of sadness that I didn’t know to ask her more when I could.

The tone of the news segment seems to be “How cute, knitting has gone mainstream,” which is ignorant and has missed the trend by a few years. (Knitting in LA actually seems to be on the downswing, as evidenced by many yarn shops closing or moving or otherwise becoming unable to sustain their business.) But it does show y’all what the heck I was doing the weekend before last, and for that I post it for your viewing pleasure.

As warned, I have not shipped out that salt, so uber’s box of kosher salt is first on the list. If there are any Irish knitters still reading who want wool from KnitPicks or other places that can’t or won’t ship outside of the US (or will but charge ridiculous prices), get in touch and I will see what I can do.

There are three Irish designers in this issue of Knitty. And here I’d been thinking the “new wave” of knitting had passed Ireland by.

Knitty is a Canadian publication that initially had a primarily North American audience. After spending years reading through the knitting community, I enjoy the culture around Knitty as much as its content. (Even when the content isn’t to my taste, which has been often.) In some cases, I get to know people because they’ve published in Knitty and I start following their blogs. More often, I get to know people and then find out they’re submitting designs to Knitty.

I knit with the designer of this pattern, and the kid in the kiddie pictures is a friend’s kid. (He just broke his arm and has to have surgery tomorrow to get it set — send him warm thoughts.)

This lady saved my sorry arse this summer when I ran out of wool for a project. I found what I needed in her stash on the Rav and begged her to swap with me. She took a skein of Socks that Rock off me and I got to finish my shawl. And now she has a cute scarf pattern published.

And so on. I love reading about the designers and their inspirations. And, because it’s an odd quirk of my personality, I like knowing where they’re from. (It’s a habit I formed in college and never shook — whenever I meet a person, I want to know where they’re from. I often remember places of origin better than names.) I watch in awe as the strangest things become wildly popular things to knit. I don’t think there’s a sinner in the knitting community who hasn’t at least heard of Clapotis, though I might be the only knitter in the universe who doesn’t hate the design with an irrational passion but still hasn’t knitted one (or five).

The publication might be considered the flagship of the “new knitting.” You know, that knitting that might not be your grandmother’s knitting but we’re not saying that anymore because your grandmother’s knitting was pretty darn amazing and I’d really like to be able to knit like that thank you very much. So I’m happy to see Irish designers submitting their stuff and being included. I’m even interested in actually knitting one of the designs.

It could be that I noticed the Irish representation simply because I’m flying out there in a few short weeks and have done absolutely no planning.

In other news, I’m working like crazy and was accosted by door-to-door evangelists yesterday. By Tuesday, it had already been a long week. Now I’m in a twilight zone of long-weekness and juggling things, I’ve only dropped one thing so far, and it didn’t break.

1. Stuff that would make watching paint dry seem really interesting.

2. Stuff that is none of your damn business.

3. Stuff related to knitting. (Which sometimes, but not always, falls into one of the two previous categories.)

Last time something like this happened, I requested leave to include some extra content (knitting-related), and that worked out pretty well. Now, facing a month where I will either blog a great deal or almost none at all, I must address the issue again. I’ve signed up for Twitter and enjoy it. Would people object if I used something like LoudTwitter to compile all my Twitters (basically microblogs) and post ‘em here automagically once a day?

You need not phrase your answers in the form of a haiku, but I will give extra weight to your opinion if you do.

A friend of mine is a knitter. This is an actual friend not as opposed to those other “a friend of mine has a problem” friends. She loves to knit. She occasionally blogs about knitting and reads the blogs of other knitters. And she’s not the only one. There’s a huge, incredibly passionate, online community of knitters.

When one knitter (who was a photographer by day) wanted to create a photo-project of knitters sent out a request for participants, he was inundated with offers. This has led to the 1000 knitters project where he brings in knitters and photographs them as they knit a wool scarf, each person taking off where the last person finished.

The traditional image of old ladies being the only people who knit is apparently quite dated, despite advertisers telling us otherwise.

One of the interesting things about knitting is that it’s a very social hobby. The knitting circle is a centuries old entity where people (usually women both then and now) would gather together and knit and chat.

So why the blog about knitting? My friend told me about a website she frequents, www.ravelry.com, what she described as knitting 2.0. Unfortunately it’s in a closed beta so you can’t just sign up (I tried but there’s a huge waiting list due to its viral popularity). I did however borrow her log in and go have a shufty about. It’s one of the best examples I’ve seen of a community-oriented web 2.0 site.

The members of the community are passionate and involved – they can set up and participate in groups and they can post their current knitting projects online for other s to view and comment upon as the project progress. They can rate the materials they use (the types of yarn and the patterns they work from) and compare their experiences of using them with those of others. You can easily find people who’ve worked on the same pattern and ask advice.

The point is that social networks do not have to be like the facebooks or myspaces of this world – with a goal of having everyone in the world sign up. A focused involved passionate community can be much more successful. Ravelry is successful because it’s a friendly, inviting community; where people are happy to help each other out (often complete strangers) because they have something in common or can relate to each other.

Leisa Reichalt mentioned that connecting to others comes from exposing just enough of yourself to allow others to relate to you; it doesn’t matter whether it’s about an interest in social networking ot knitting and it doesn’t have to be earth shattering or phenomenal.

Ah my dear Ravelry. My favo(u)rite timesink is growing up. Just this morning you were all tiny and small and made of clay, and now you are expanding. 20,000 or so people have entered the “beta,” and we’re all learning just how quickly the IQ of a mob can drop as you increase the size of that mob.

It will all work out, just hold on to your principles. They are good and wise, and your code is amazing, and this stuff will shake itself out.

Love,
Dixie

I don’t want to talk about the specifics of the “exploding thread” that will surely go down in the annals of Ravelry history alongside the infamous “Muggles” thread. Suffice it to say it was a fascinating cross-section of opinions and concerns, and a stunning example of how it’s completely possible, legal, and probable for morons to hold other people responsible for their own unwise actions. It made me realise something separate along the way.

The Internets have gone mainstream, for good or for ill. I complain frequently about the “dumbing down” of discourse because it bothers me, but there’s another very real problem that I’ve been overlooking in my raging arrogance. There are a lot of people who are “using the Internet” and have no clue what that means. I’m not talking about idiot politicians making policy based on things they don’t understand — that ground has been covered. I’m talking about people who put photos of their children on Flickr so they can share with their family and then find out people can download those pictures and edit them and use them however they want.

Yes, in some cases it’s not legal, and yes, there are ways of dealing with that specific issue. All of us here know this, but the rest of the world might (and in many cases does) not. There are hordes of people traipsing into this series of tubes with not only no idea of how it works (not necessary) but no concept of how big and open it is.

My initial reaction is to say, “Well tough, you should have thought about that before spewing your personal life onto the Information Superhighway.” But the reality of the situation is that sometimes people who are smart, well-meaning, and giving end up being held responsible because someone else used their tool unwisely. I know you shouldn’t blame Prometheus when the silly humans burn themselves, but the US is so litigious that such a thing would be possible if you could beat back that eagle long enough to subpoena the poor guy.

We have made the Internet so easy to use and so accessible that people are having the time of their lives from the comfort of their living room and then getting very upset when they find out that anyone can see what they’re doing. Then they create problems. I do wish it weren’t so.

They are crazy.

The first pot I drank made me ill. Really. Not a quiet, polite sort of tummy discomfort ill either, more of a hork up the entire pot ill. Since then I’ve been able to drink it (barely), and I might be persuaded that it is marginally better than Lipton…but it is not better than Lyons, and certainly not worth scouring local tea dealers for. I have no idea what these people are about, and really wish I could send them all sample packets of Lyons Gold Blend. Surely they have never tried better tea, otherwise they would not be drinking PG Tips.

Perhaps they are enchanted by the pyramid bags. I understand this. My current crate of Lyons is all single-cup disc-shaped bags, which are functional but less fun. I understand the bag shape might contribute to the quality of the pot. And it’s really fun to shake the bags into shape after pulling them out of the box. But it is not good tea.

I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.

As the K3 expires this week, the Wanderer’s new status is “I-485 pending,” which means he’s not allowed to leave the country. Well, that’s a little dramatic. He’s certainly allowed to leave whenever he wants, it’s just that USCIS will cancel his green card application if he does. (And it “may trigger the three or ten year ban,” though it’s not clear exactly what would change that “may” to a less ambiguous “will” or “won’t.”) We can also apply for a travel document, but such things take at least three months to process (and cost a nontrivial amount of money), which makes Christmas plans a bit tight. This state of limbo remains until the application is completed. Current processing times are between 6 and 9 months, and they received the application on 8 August.

So that’s February at the earliest (read: luckiest) that we’ll be able to go jetsetting again, for those of you keeping score at home.

The really exciting part is that one’s driver’s license is linked to one’s legal presence, and the Wanderer’s job makes frequent and necessary use of this license. (The xenophobes will try to tell you illegal immigrants can get all sorts of nifty benefits like driver’s licenses without having to prove their status. They are wrong, woefully wrong, in addition to being loathsome individuals.) So the Wanderer’s driver’s license expires at the same time his K3 does, this week. Bad things happen when you let your license expire, whether you’re a citizen or not. USCIS assures us the I-797 Notice of Action is sufficient to reassure the Legal Presence Verification Unit of the Wanderer’s status, but the Unit itself is less reassuring, demanding a Notice of Approval. We will hopefully learn more tomorrow, after carting the I-797 to the DMV and waving it about under their noses.

We’re also filing another EAD application, as it too expires soon. The fun never stops.