Thursday, May 7, 2009

This Is Turning Into A Knitting Blog, Isn't It?

...Maybe. Ok, not really. I'm supposed to go the movies this weekend and see Wolverine AND Star Trek, so you know, it'll be all geeky movie reviews pretty soon. And surely there will be something new for me to whine about. And I have an entry cooking about terrible American remakes of awesome British shows and I need to hassle you all about how you should watch Criminal Minds and how it hurts me in my heart when you don't.

So, back to knitting. I've mastered casting on and the knit stitch. And I know how to purl. FUCK YOU, PURL STITCH. I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU. You are the evil twin of the perfectly fun knit stitch!!! HAAAAAAATE.

And I've switched knitting books. I was using Knitting for Dummies, but I was finding it frustrating. Not enough pictures of what things should look like, directions that weren't terribly clear, boring patterns. It got some bad reviews on Amazon and my friend The World Traveller recommended Stitch 'N Bitch*. So I got that and like it much better. It has some SUPER CUTE patterns, including two very easy-looking (easy to make, not slutty) scarves that I am going to attempt as soon as I learn that binding off step and buy the yarn.

YARN. WHY IS YARN SO EXPENSIVE AND WEIRD? Ok, there are no craft stores that are very close to me. They are all out-of-the-way and inconvenient. (You get totally spoiled living in N.J. because everything is really close to you. If a store is 10 miles away, it's unbearably inconvenient. Or maybe that's just me.) Walmart, aside from being soul-sucking and evil, has really ugly colors of yarn. And damn it, if I'm going to fuck up some yarn with my bad stitching, at least it can be PRETTY when I do it. And there is a really cute privately-owned yarn store near my work, but I went in there today and DAMN. I can't afford that! I would love to patronize an independent store but I can't be paying $8 a skein. (It's not that I don't appreciate quality, I totally do. But my knitting is not up to quality yarn. I'd rather make some practice projects that won't cost a ton of money while I learn, you know?) And the knitter ladies all hanging around in a circle eating butter cookies and knitting impossibly complicated projects intimidated me, I'm sorry to say. So, it's back to the craft store for me, I guess. Grrr. Anyone have any secrets for cheap, non-ugly yarn?

*HA. So, I got the Stitch 'N Bitch book from the library. I'd requested it a few days ago and went to pick it up, along with a freakisly eclectic selection of other books. I go to the sweet, prim little librarian and tell her that they are holding a book for me but I'm not sure which one. (True, at any given time, I have 4-5 holds going. I'm greedy.) The sweet, prim little librarian looks in the system and her face tightens and she says, "Yes, it's...a book on knitting." (Usually the tell you the title.) I start giggling on the inside and consider trying to make her say the title out loud by asking, "Which one?" but that's probably mean. She hands it to me, "Interesting title, " she sniffs disapprovingly.

Heh. Who says knitting isn't scandalous?

3 comments:

EGT said...

Unravel something ugly.

Bea said...

Hmmm...that would be rather amusingly Depression-era of me, wouldn't it?

Doug Jeffreys said...

I knew I could count on you to add a little scandal to something as innocent as knitting (for the love of god, next time make her say it!) Also, I'm sure you'll soon have the knitting club ladies "Geeking out" with you at the Star Trek movie.