Spinster

Ok, so I have a confession to make. I’m trying online dating. I know, I know, it’s lame. And I swore I’d never do it, but after hearing from a coworker that she met her fiancee online, I signed up for it.

[Here's where I explain how LL works. Signing up is free, as is sending and receiving "smiles," which basically just let people know that something about them has caught your eye. If you want to make IM or e-mail contact with that person, however, you have to buy credits.]

LL seems to attract mainly gym-bound yuppies. Now, I’m not exactly looking for someone who’s obese and unemployed, but I’m just not a gym rat. I walk, I eat well, that’s enough for me. I hate running and just don’t care enough to do sit ups or lift weights or whatever. Additionally, while I’d like to meet someone who has a decent job that they enjoy, salaries don’t matter to me. I don’t need or even want to date someone who’s so concerned with his career that he has no time for me.

So, while LL may not be the perfect place for me to meet my kind of guy, I really don’t have the time or money to hang out at emo shows or the architecture and design faculty or whatever. Plus, having to guess someone’s sexual orientation annoys me, as I don’t really like barking up the wrong tree.

I have definitely received plenty of smiles from people I have no attraction to and no interest in, but for the most part,they seem harmless and decent enough. It’s a simple issue of compatibility.

Today, though, I received a smile from this gem.
First, he writes, “Anyone who needs things like foundation and other touch-ups to look really good must realize the irony in someone drooling over their “looks”. It is a fact that in the animal kingdom the males are naturally more beautiful than the females. So by connecting the dots it must seem obvious the implications of that and therefore, who should be pining for who?”

It gets better.

Here’s this:
“Personally, I take pride in my “chauvinistic” abilities to see all this stuff. Even more so when someone gets upset over it and gets their beliefs handed to them in pieces.”

Next, he commiserates with those who really get it, those who have seen and understood the need to “go with the flow,” and counsels these kindred spirits to not let it get them down: “Let the haters hate.”

This is my favorite part, however:
“If you’ve ever had that feeling of “missing out” and never want to go through that again, then we might have something to talk about…”

And here’s the clincher:
“PS. Since I don’t have any credits you will have to message me.”

Uh huh. Yeah, I’ll get right on that, you fabulous catch of a man.

Hilarious. Just try it.

My friend Stephanie’s mom is a Book Junkie. Seriously. Barnes & Noble should offer the woman stock in their company, cause I’m pretty sure she’s the main customer keeping them afloat. Stephanie’s mom is also a knitter. Stephanie recently learned to knit and, lucky for her, she has a very generous knitting mother who loves to encourage Stephanie’s reading and knitting habits by sending her books. I, as Stephanie’s friend, benefit enormously by being able to borrow the newest fiction, non-fiction and now, knitting, books, without having to plunk down a red cent for them. (Can I just tell you how many times I played with the commas in the previous sentence and I’m still not sure I got them right? A lot. A lot of times)

Anyway, I pride myself on the size and quality of my knitting book collection. Sure, it’s not complete, but as a voracious and very speedy reader who almost never actually purchases books cause let’s face it, when you can start and finish a 200-page book in a day, what’s the point of paying for them when you can bum them from friends or the library, my knitting book collection is pretty decent. I’ve got your Stitch n Bitch, your Knitting Without Tears, your Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns, your Color in Spinning, your Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques and so on and so forth.

I do try to be selective about which books make it into my library. I will NEVER buy a book that features primarily fun fur patterns, for example. There are TONS of knitting books out there; the canon is growing exponentially, and as a result, one must certainly be a little discerning if she wants to have time and money left over to buy yarn and actually knit something.

Which brings me to Mason-Dixon Knitting. At first glance, it’s nothing too special–most of the patterns are of the sort where you look at them and go, “Well, I could’ve thought of that!” They make good use of everyone’s stand-by, garter stitch, and the yarns that the Kay and Ann use aren’t of the $50-for-100-yards variety.

However, as I was going through the book a second time, I was struck by how enamored of knitting the authors are, and how well that comes through in the book:

Ann, on learning to knit: “The agony of knitting beat the daily grind of my job at a publishing house in Manhattan. Knitting was the perfect antidote to a job filled with the endless piles of manuscripts that would never be published yet had to be read, or at least stared at, by me. Knitting was nonverbal. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. The problems of knitting were solvable: the worst thing that could happen was that I had to rip something out. Mistakes would disappear, just like that. I would complete something” (page 16).

And in the end, or in the beginning, isn’t that why we learned to knit? It gave us something to do with our hands, something that was repetitive and fun, something that relieved stress and allowed us to revel in something non-work related. I think that, too often, I forget that moment when I first learned to knit and I finally got it. When I stopped having to look at my little American School of Needlework pamphlet to remember to pop the stitch off the needle; when I loosened up enough to be able to complete two rows of knitting without wanting to cry from frustration; when I mastered a simple k1, p1 rib. What happened to that feeling of pure joy?

In Mason-Dixon Knitting, Ann and Kay have figured out that we are not all perfectionists; that we have lives and jobs and–some of us–kids, all of which means that we have limited hours in which to knit; and that blemish-free knitting is impressive, but my God, a wobbly row here and a clashing color there is not the end of the world.

So thanks, Ann and Kay, for reminding me that knitting isn’t a job or a chore, and handknit items do not have to look perfect or be perfect to be beautiful and well-received.

I wet-blocked the Hot Lava cardigan, my first wet blocking experience. I’ve used steam in the past but wanted to try something new. Of course, the days I chose to do this were the soggiest days we’ve had in a while. Because my apartment isn’t air conditioned, this summer I’ve been leaving my windows open and using a fan, but with the rain this week EVERYTHING felt damp–my sheets, my towels, my clothes. I laid the cardigan out on a towel and pinned it in place. Eventually, after a full day of waiting for it to dry, I trained my fan on the cardigan while I was away at work.

After three days, here’s the result:

It’s such a silly-looking thing when it’s not being worn; it looks like the knitted version of some strange deep sea jellyfish. (P.S.: I swear to God, the little string you see on the bottom left corner is NOT a loose end. I wove in the ends with nary a straggler. Swear.)

Here’s a close-up of the color:

And here, for comparison, are two photos of roughly the same spot on the cardigan, the top one taken before blocking and the bottom one taken after


Manos del Uruguay might not illustrate it as well as some other, smoother yarns, but blocking certainly does make a difference. It smooths out the stitches and generally tames the finished piece.

Finally, the pathetic amount of spinning I’ve done in, like, two months:

A couple of days ago, I decided that I should devote at least 45 minutes a day to either knitting or spinning in order to get through my stash. My stash isn’t that big, compared with others’, but relative to the amount of time I work on reducing it, it’s pretty hefty. I did spin the other night, much to my own surprise. And last night I spent two hours at Toronto’s Knit Cafe, a delightfully warm and welcoming little store on Queen West. So I guess I’m sort of keeping my promise to myself, but I definitely need to devote more time to the old spinning wheel. God I’m like 90 years old.