Blogging for Dummies and the Addictive Qualities of Knitting Socks

As they say, third time’s a charm. I have been waxing poetic about the evolution of my sock knitting for what seems like days, to no avail – every time I try to save my post as a draft, it disappears into never-never land. Not that I don’t love never-never land; I would spend a lot more time there if I could, but that is not where I want my hard work to end up. Because, although easy to get to, it is damned near impossible to retrieve things from never-never land.

So, instead of talking about socks, because, frankly, I am SICK of hearing myself talk about socks, I will talk about blogging. What it is to me, what it means to me, what it meant before we started this blog, and how that meaning has changed.

I have been reading blogs for a long time. It is the voyeur in me, I think – you get such an interesting, if narrow, view of someone. Almost like reading someone’s diary. Or looking through their book cases the first time you are at their home. I know someone who blogs, and I remember thinking – why isn’t she writing about that party she went to yesterday? Or the dinner she had at so-and-so’s place? Why is she leaving so much out? But, now that I am (an admitted) amateur blogger, I can see why. You need to narrow your life down if you are going to not only write about it, but actually put it out there, for anyone to see. I don’t want strangers knowing intimate details of my life, but my knitting life, (which, ok, is a BIG part of my life), well, that’s a different story. And having a blog like this, which is almost like one of those roundabout intersections that are so common here in Portland, with four completely different women, four completely different knitters, attempting to converge on one blog, and make something not only cohesive, but, dare I say it? beautiful? is quite an endeavor. So we MUST concentrate on the knitting. This is, after all, a knitting blog, right?

Speaking of our family of yarn-hearters, we had an impromptu night knitting together this week – at a local stitch and bitch. It was fun, and NK will have to tell you all about what is quite possibly the WEAKEST excuse to buy yarn I have EVER heard. I love it, but, girl, you have to admit, it doesn’t hold water. E and I worked on Rogue (well, I did one row, but the lack of good lighting and the sheer complexity of the cable patterns, and the fear of miscrossing those cables convinced me that the Rogue hood wasn’t the proper project to be working on at that particular point in time. Oh, yeah, by the way, I did NOT finish my Rogue assignment, which was fine, because E didn’t either, although, I will admit, she is quite a bit further along than me, but who’s counting?) I tried to do the toe for Tiger #2, but, again with the lighting – I ended up just chatting and eating brie, forsaking the knitting until I arrived home. Once home, I did end up getting the toe done – straight-up knitting, here I come! NK attempted to cast on a pair of socks, in her new, gorgeous, but weakly-constructed excuse of a purchase, and was having problems, too, and WG was working on a multidirectional scarf one minute, and playing with a full ball of frogged yarn the next. The only person making any real headway was E, showing off her mad skills, pissing us all off! (hee, hee, just kidding, E!)

So, sock updates – I have a “pair” on the needles, although, admittedly, they are not a pair in the traditional sense of the word.



S’s Tiger #2 is ready to be knit upon; the toe is done, it is on its two circular needles, and is now residing in my purse, alongside its fraternal twin, Alina Jaywalker #2. I casted on for her last night, inspired once again by Cara, the Jaywalker queen (or is it zealot?) Her newest KAL “ends” on February 13th, meaning the only way to win one of her skeins of STR is to get this sock DONE by then! Being on a yarn diet means I need to find more creative ways to get my hands on new yarn. Contests, bets, (I won a skein of STR Marbles from WG as a result of a bet we made a few months ago. I was “right” on the thing we were betting on. It was an unfortunate thing to be right about, as WG can silently attest to, but I did get myself a skein of STR, so it couldn’t have been all that bad, right?), possibly even trades will get me through this diet.



I can almost guarantee some blathering about socks in the next few days, so watch out! E was also making noise the other night about us all coming clean regarding our stashes, taking photos of the entire thing, and posting those. Hmmm...