Knitting Corner

Initially, it seemed like this may be a phase. Another one of those interesting pass-times that burns brightly, but too fast, soon existing only as a fond memory of short-lived enthusiasm for the latest fad. Initially, I had no idea that I'd end up sharing my home with a vast stockpile of wool, needles, tape measures, row counters, moth repellents, crochet hooks, pins, blocking boards, drying racks, knitting magazines, yarn brochures, wool, more wool and yes, even more wool.

It's amazing how much paraphernalia comes with this hobby. I figured there would be a couple of pairs of needles and a ball of wool, but those days are long gone. Now all my manly, sophisticated electronic gadgetry has to share the living room with Knitting Corner, a collection of all the above that's growing, steadily but constantly, to take over vast tracts of our home. I must concede it's all neatly boxed and my Knitter probably knows exactly where everything is, but I can't imagine how the older stuff can even be reached.

It's like a mighty tree that's added a ring every year or like the ancient, kilometre thick layers of ice in the Arctic. In some distant future an expedition may be sent in to retrieve a core sample and months later they'll return with a brittle rod of compressed yarns, illustrating the history of her shifting tastes. Scientists will ponder over the meaning of such an amalgam of fibres from different sources, baffled at how camel hair, bamboo and alpaca came to co-exist and flummoxed by the occasional vein of verdant green or rusty red amongst the blacks and browns accounting for the bulk of the sample.

But for all this, I tolerate, neigh encourage her. I'm one of those scientists, at heart, and I can appreciate the sense of discovery when some exotic new yarn turns up at our door. If I may be honest with you, it gives me a thrill to see the concentration on my Knitter's face when she's tucking into a tricky pattern, running through her tension squares or asking me to check over her mental arithmetic before she invariably throws out the rule book and heads off-piste once more.

But will this remain just a hobby?

Cheers,
YarnBoy

Yarnal Knowlege

It turns out that entering the blogosphere is surprisingly easy, even for a first timer like myself. You can sign up on a site, get some advertising on there and even begin with a basic colour scheme within minutes. It's simple to use someone else's layout and even easier to post.

The first challenge is coming up with a title and an original one seems almost impossible. Should you go for short and snappy or something sophisticated; maybe with a double meaning? Are you going to appeal to readers with a pun or will they prefer a clever reference? Can you think of anything, anything at all that hasn't been used several times already? It's a bit of a toughy and it hits you early on.

I've seen a few catchy knitting names, like Stitch n Bitch or Yarn Harlot and things like Stash seem to be too generic. I thought it'd be cool to take inspiration from elsewhere and came up with
Much Ado About Knitting and The Whole Nine Yarns, but both turned out to be shops already. It appears that with six billion people on the planet, a rising number of which are knitters, it's going to take some effort to be original.

So for now, I have gone high-brow with Dude, Where's My Yarn? and we'll have to see what future that will bring.

Cheers,
YarnBoy