Monday, August 28

Silly Quiz...

This is about as much energy as I can devote to the blog right now. But it's a short silly quiz.









What kind of yarn are you?




You are Mohair.You are a warm and fuzzy type who works well with others, doing your share without being too weighty. You can be stubborn and absolutely refuse to change your position once it is set, but that's okay since you are good at covering up your mistakes.
Take this quiz!








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Monday, August 21

New look, new post

I had ~15 minutes at work today to change the look of the blog... So here's a quick update to go with it.

I'm still knitting on:



the fibertrend bunnies, and bought the squirrels when I got to the Llama store, my local yarn store, for the first time in several weeks.



Secret Pal stuff


I got my final SP box out today -- I had it packed since Saturday, but I got a speeding ticket on my way to the PO, and so was unable to mail it then. My sister-in-law mailed it for me today, actually. Since she doesn't know who I am, I'll give y'all a preview of what's in the box. A pair of lighted knitting needles, a Fibertrends pattern for some cute bears (who doesn't like bears) along with the yarn that I thought screamed "bear", a skein of hand-dyed yarn (one of the 8 ouncers) in pink and purple, a set of chainmail stitch markers (made with niobium and real gold links), and... well, other cute stuff. :D



This summer's been probably the busiest and most chaotic I've had in all my years. I've been working long hours at work, long hours at home, and long hours in between. My knitting time has been cut into tiny pieces.



Knitters with(out) Altitude


And one of the big reasons I've not blogged in the past 2 weeks (other than time constraints)... my knitgroup self-destructed.


There was a brouhaha about a few people who thought that spinning was dominating discussion. These people couldn't bear to bring it up at group, or in email, or thought that their voices weren't being heard. We got emails from the founder, who hadn't shown up or been on the list for months (because of surgery and work), decreeing from above that "this is a list/group about knitting and you will talk only about knitting, and you will meet here on these days and like it". It was weird, but most of us were willing to work with it. A splinter group formed for those who wanted to continue to talk about other fiber-related topics that weren't knitting. Since I spin and weave and dye, I joined the 2nd group as well.



There was a big discussion of "why would you join a knit group and not talk about knitting?!" to which the other side said "because we always talk about other things, now you're making those of us who spin feel alienated". The whole argument upset me because we talked about a lot of things that weren't knitting related, like TV, hunky guys, local goings-on, food, books, clothes, shoes, etc. I know some of us didn't care about TV, others didn't really want to hear about Crocs, etc. But we all seemed to have gotten along, and there was always someone else to talk to if you didn't want to talk about shoes, or spinning, or [some actor] without his shirt on. Non-knitting related stuff, you know. That night (the night before we were to meet), *poof* the mailing list for our group disappeared. It left those of us who met at the prescribed place & time confused and upset.



Speaking for myself, and only myself, I found that if I waited 5 minutes, the conversation would change to something I was interested in (even if it wasn't knitting), so if there was some conversation about whatever, I'd concentrate on my knitting, knit a few rows, and come back to the conversation when it changed. I never felt "left out" or "pressured" to talk about or do anything, go anywhere, etc. which was the big complaint that we had constantly before the kablooie. "I feel like I'm pressured to go to all the bonus meets", "I feel left out when you talk about X", etc. As adults, all of us (and all of us well over the age of majority), I'd have thought that we'd have been able to work this out reasonably without the temper-tantrum of deleting the entire group.



Most of us have re-formed, both through the "splinter" group set up before the big delete, and through the other group formed the day after. I get to see most of my fiber friends, but the "disgruntled others" haven't talked to me since the big kablooie. It makes me sad, because I thought we were all adults, and all friends.



This post will probably not make me very popular, and will probably garner me a "well, it was MY group, and I could delete it if I wanted" from the deleter or deleters either in comments or private email, but I don't think the person or persons who deleted the group understood that it was OUR group, every one of us. It was a community, and was democratic in all things. It was the group of everyone who belonged to it. Now, it's gone. Destroyed because someone's feelings were hurt, and they had the power to do so. I know that some people are meeting separate from the others, and that kinda hurts, again because I thought we were friends, and I thought we were adult enough to work out our differences.



I think I've rambled on enough. I've finally (after 2 weeks of silence about this publicly) gotten my opinion out, and finally had the time to post. I don't think this is what the SP "Yarn Yenta" thought would come out of her prodding me to post, but frankly, I don't care. It's my blog. I'll say what I want.



Pictures of weaving progress when I get to it. Pictures of felted bunnies when I'm done. Pictures of monkeys dancing the hula on my TV and my needle-felted monkey when I have time.