Pandering

What if I decided that I wanted to surround myself with fawning masses on this blog?

Blog Changes Required
First I'd have to come up with clever stories about Thaddeus and how he reacts to my knitting, or post pictures of my current sweater project in various historical locations around my hometown, or have daily pictures of my cat with accompanying cute stories.

Here. I'll get it out of my system.



Here's a picture of my "Darling Partner" with our incredible cat, Gage. Thaddeus has just finished administering Gage's twice-daily, tuna-flavored beta-blocker medication for the cat's heart condition. The medication is mixed specifically for Gage by a local chemist.

Thank gawd one entry won't be an open invitation to the hoards. I much prefer the intimate, intelligent group of readers (mostly) that come and read this site.

Current Knitting
I stayed up late last night and overslept this morning.

No knitting occurred what-so-fucking-ever.

I'll try to do better.

Other Fiber Activity
I finished spinning the singles and then triple-plying the remainder of the Blueface Leicester this past weekend.



I wasn't sure I was going to get the last bits to fit onto one bobbin on my Louet. You can see that the plied yarn is almost touching the flyer.

I wound this off into a hank with a whopping weight of 11.8 ounces. If my yards per pound remains somewhat around the same, there will be about 1,130 yards of yarn.

Now that my Robin wheel is empty of the Blueface, I'm itching to start a new spinning project. Which should I begin?



The choices from left to right are:

1. Blue, multi-tone Merino that I bought at "Twist" Knitting and Spinning
2. Flame colored Targhee roving from Carol's talented dyeing workshop
3. The new sliver or roving I got from James for a birthday present

Any suggestions?

Readers' Comments/Questions
Via e-mail and in French, Monique asks me to ask my readers, "Est-ce qu'il a quelqu'un qui peut traduire un modele de tricot d'Anglais, en Français?

Let me know, and I'll pass your e-mail to her for assistance.

M-H notes, "Having visited Anna's Gratton's little treasure cave, err, shop, more than once I can tell you that she's lovely and her fleece and fibre are lovely too."

I can't tell you how envious I am that you have access to such a wonderfully beautiful artist. I was talking last night with a fabric artist who started selling his fabric to Walmart until he realized they were only going to place one order, have his fabric knocked off more cheaply in China and then not pay his invoice. He's realized that sometimes his art and sufficient income to live are enough. One day, I'll make it to New Zealand and hopefully Anna will still be around.

Marilyn offers, "Joe, if you need help with the Brother..."

Thanks for that offer. After my big schpiel yesterday on obscene consumerism, I'm ashamed to admit I now own three flat-bed knitting machines and an antique circular sock knitting machine. I actually know how to use all of them, as a friend of mine does machine knitting for a living and gave me a number of very helpful tutorials. I don't know how folks could possibly learn to machine knit without having someone who knows how help them.

I just wanted to Thank Ann for her mini-lesson in economic indicators. It reminded me of the scene in Annie Hall where Alvy and Annie are in line behind a pompous blowhard pontificating about movie directors, and Marshall McLuhan comes out from behind a poster to tell the man, "You know nothing about my work."

Thanks for setting us all straight (so to speak).