I have lost Lolita. I procrastinated about reading it, and now book club is meeting tomorrow and I have not only not finished reading it, but I have lost it, so I will not be able to finish it.
Oh, well. Here is the completed back of Brooklyn. That’s Brooklyn from Denim People, in Den-M-Nit, on #3 needles. I’m very happy with the yarn sub so far. I haven’t re-started the Lotus shawl because I have decided to be a good little lace knitter and mark every repeat of the stitch, but have also lost my stitch markers. I always say that losing things is a sign of an untidy house, so I do lose things more in the summer, but this is a pair of inconvenient losses.
What to read while I wait for Lolita to come home wagging its tail behind it like Bo-Peep’s sheep? Well, there are plenty of knitting blogs.
There are in fact way over 700 blogs in the knitting blogs ring. If you read a bunch of teen xangas, you know that the typical teen xanga goes “My life is terrible! Yesterday I went to the mall….” The typical college xanga goes, “My life is @#$%! Last night I got wasted…” And the typical knitting blog at the moment goes “It is too hot to knit! Here is my progress pic of Clapotis/Tivoli/Kiri. The colors aren’t really like that, and I apologize for the weird face I’m making.”
But just as with the teen and college xangas, not all the knitting blogs are typical. I have nothing against typical, you understand. I have benefited myself from being able to see many, many pictures of Sophie bags and DNA scarves. But it is easy to find typical ones. So I want to mention some of the ones that are not typical, because you might — assuming that you are not being as daft as I am and trying to read through all of them — you might never see these atypical ones.
Sweet Georgia has stunning photos. Stunning photos of knitting. Stunning photos of yarn. Stunning photos of landscapes, meat smokers, and cocktails. Beautiful knitting, too.
Strikker also has good photos and nice knitting, but check it out for the links. It also includes the word “grumptigrump,” which struck me as both new and useful.
Gibknits is a very stylish site. It has clever, unusual ideas, with instructions.
The Knitting Revolutionary is one I have mentioned before. She’s smart and witty, but also makes all these Australian jokes that I don’t get and mostly has pictures of yarn. But you know, smart and witty is worth a lot. She also has a very funny manifesto, and the best skull chart.
Jofrog is a trendy knitter, and you need to read one trendy knitter to keep up. Her blog is one of the cutest I’ve seen. She’s cute, for that matter. Lots of good pictures.
Infinite Stitch is the blog “of an angry knitter.” Um, I didn’t actually find any knitting there. But there were some really interesting links and thoughts regarding things like economics, philosophy, religion, art, justice… You know, important subjects that a person might want to think about while knitting, so they belong in a knitting blog.
We are taking Dr. Drew to the Farmers’ Market today, assuming that everyon can get up early enough to do this before we have to go to work. We learned last night while playing Malarky that the color of an egg can be predicted by checking the hen’s earlobes. I totally do not believe this. So I hope the egg lady is there, because I intend to ask her.
RYC: What you call ‘ketchup’ I think we call ‘tomato relish’. I don’t think anyone over here would consider putting tomato relish on hotdogs, saveloys, sausages whatever. It is used on salads mainly.
As far as travelling in NZ is concerned – had to spend a lot of time in Christchurch in crummy hotel rooms when I was in my teens and very early 20s which has left me with a permanent distaste of the place. Lived in Auckand for a year and it used to be my favourite urban spot to visit when it had a great downtown with unusual shopping and markets (not like that anymore), Taupo has too many mosquitos, Rotoroa smells like rotten eggs (sulphur from mud pools), Nelson used to be a nice place to visit, Whangarei was boring, Palmerston North I liked but spent quite a lot of time there when doing block courses for my undergraduate degree in my 20s (I also have an old school friend up near there who keeps nagging me to go up and see her – might get around to doing that), Invercargill I found boring (too flat 🙂 ) but it has some lovely gardens, the West Coast is reputedly beautiful but it is sandfly country and it is quite possible to get washed away and never seen again over there if you misjudge your weather conditions, Hamilton is really boring, Central Otago is beautiful but is now the domain of rich tourists and rich ex-pats from Asia and America – NZers can’t really afford to travel (or live) there anymore. The holiday just past was actually my first in about 14 years which possibly goes some way in explaining the sense of dislocation at the moment.
Oh, shoot me now! I just posted –what you said on my blog. Ack! I am SO typical!!!!! AND boring!!!
” Last night I got wasted…” And the typical knitting blog at the moment goes “It is too hot to knit! Here is my progress pic of Clapotis/Tivoli/Kiri. The colors aren’t really like that, and I apologize for the weird face I’m making.”
Right, lets sort out this matter of grave international importance right here and right now. The NZ correspondent is not having a bright bulb day – as well as getting her definition of various tomato products all twisted up she has also managed to turn up a tad late to the US correspondent’s sister’s lecture – the NZ correspondent arrived at 3pm, just when the lecture was finishing. As recorded – not a bright bulb day.
I think what we call ‘tomato sauce’ you call ‘ketchup’. It’s smooth and a moderately dark red in colour and some nutty kiwis pour it over everything – including chips (ie ‘fries’) – which this kiwi thinks is a desecration of that gustatory marvel the ‘chip’. What you call ‘tomato sauce’ I think we’d call ‘pasta sauce (of the type tomato) and would put over pasta of all descriptions.
‘Relish’ sounds to be the same thing in both worlds. It is what we would put with meat in salads. (Unless you are like my aunt whose eyesight is not too good – she puts it on top of whipped cream on top of pikelets (do you have pikelets?)