On Suicide and Homosexuality

I woke up not too long ago and, against what judgment I still believe myself to possess, hopped on Facebook. After playing around for a few minutes, I noticed I had been invited to participate in this "event". Jump on over. I'll wait. Read some of the comments and then you can return at your own leisure. Trust me, there's plenty there...

Back? Great. Let's talk.

I have noticed that people really like to remember things that make them upset. We're constantly having some "in memory" of wars, deaths, hatred, violence. What happens when you remember those things? You get angry, vengeful, fearful, hateful, and depressed. What happens when people feel those things? Wars, deaths, hatred, and violence. Or, if you don't feel or do any of those things, then you can feel nothing.

What you need to do is STOP giving so much power and attention to all the things that we DON'T WANT! Have an event in memory of a life, not a death. Be more vocal about resources for teens, gay or otherwise, so that they don't think their only option is to commit suicide. Spread the word that they are loved, no matter what some people think.

Reading those comments, you notice the lack of respect people have for each other and for themselves. Raise your hand if you're surprised that hatred comes from both sides. We will never get rid of all the things we don't want in the world, but so what? Choose your focus. Life is amazing. So much more good happens in this world than we give attention to and we wonder why all we notice is the bad. Statistics (that's real simple math I'm talking about) will tell you that it's a tiny percentage of bad going on out of all the good.

If you want to sit in the 0.0113% of people committing suicide, feel free. I'm gonna sit in my 99.9887% of people who don't commit suicide.

And to answer the question, sure, I'll wear purple. And I'll wear green, and brown and grey and any other color I feel like wearing on any day of the year while I remember how many people are living and help think of ways to keep people happily alive.


The only time you can be happy is any time you decide to be.

Knitting Needles on Planes: A Rant

As my imminent trip nears, I consider all of the things necessary before I depart. Packing, for one, would probably be a good idea at this point.

I intend to bring three bags: 1) the one checked bag that I am allowed, under 50lbs with everything I can manage in it; 2) one carry-on bag (my "purse") with my laptop, a novel (John Steinbeck's East of Eden) and some essential documents; 3) one carry-on with yarn and needles.

Now, that said, I decided to check one more time and make sure the international airlines don't have any restrictions against knitting needles. For a while now, they've been accepted on planes here. I'm flying Lufthansa and they have no issue with knitting needles and say specifically that they are acceptable items to carry on-board.

I was curious, though, to see what else I could find about knitting needles on planes. I came across a thread in which a person asked why knitting needles are accepted on planes, as they are sharp and thus deadly.

This person has clearly never touched a knitting needle before. You have to get pretty small before they get sharp. How sharp? Approximately as sharp as a dull pencil. Most knitting needles small enough to puncture the skin are double pointed (they are equally pointed on both ends), so if you're gonna stab someone with it, you have to push on the opposite sharp end with your hand or a finger. If you give it enough force to puncture someone else, you've given it enough force to puncture yourself and that just seems counter-intuitive.

As a matter of fact, being punctured by something just hurts for a second, it isn't deadly. People have been impaled by huge stuff and walked into the emergency room with it.

In short, people shut up about knitting needles on planes unless you're ready to give up your pens, pencils, styluses, long fingernails, most earrings and lots of other kinds of jewelry, chopsticks, and anything else that's long and slender and "sharp".

End rant.

This is why people think knitting takes patience

Not much to report today. I delivered yesterday's items. I didn't even have to talk to anybody else. It was fantastic.

Yesterday's progress on the sweater is a little disappointing.

I know it looks like a lot from yesterday, but it's less than I wanted. I'm kind of surprised that the relaxed width is SO much smaller than the stretched width. I'm still learning this machine and I don't like to swatch. What I'll likely end up with is a sweater that fits rather than a large jacket. Oh well.

So what you see there is the back, and no, you can't see the fronts yet because I don't feel like taking another picture.

There was quite a bit of knitting on my mom's gloves last night. Result:


Looks almost identical to yesterday. Why? Because I started the thumb gusset and almost finished it when I realized that without the colorwork continuing up the glove, it's coming out too wide. FANtastic. So I ripped back to the colorwork. Actually, I don't rip, I tink, cuz I'd rather take forever going back than try to pick up all those tiny stitches when I get there.

Did anyone notice what I didn't mention? Work. Yes, actual work projects. There are bags and arm warmers and mittens etc to be knit and I have forfeit them for this sweater and maybe that's a bad idea cuz they should really be up before I go... I suppose if I'm shipping them from overseas, I can post them overseas...

Help! I need somebody. Help!... I suppose it could be anybody...

I finished a cowl and a headband yesterday for two former coworkers.



Cowl is, of course, in Patons Classic Wool in Chestnut Brown. The headband is three different colors of skinny green ribbon. Not ribbon yarn. Just ribbon. Pain in the behind.

In any case, I packaged them all pretty, drove 30minutes out to give them their goods,



and realized I had left them at home. Ugh.

Now that I'm finished with things for other people, I'm working on a jacket to take with me to Germany. So far, I've done the ribbing.



I'll be using some stitch patterns from Katharina Buss' Big Book of Knitting again. I like that one. Updates as it comes along.


In other news, I had been making these headset covers for work (hint: it was a call center).



We have to have our own headphone covers to cushion our ears. I'm sure it's something about germs and stuff. I lost one of mine and didn't want to pay $2 for another pair, so I made one.


Then people started asking for them and in all kinds of crazy colors.


It was getting too tedious keeping up with all the colors I had available and all the colors people wanted, so I just made and packaged a bunch.



Now I have extra and I don't work there anymore and I'm trying to come up with something else to do with them. They're kind of shaped like little doll hats and can flatten to a disk with a lip. I wish I could explain that better. Any suggestions??? Help me out.

Only the kind with fingers

I'm seven days from a trip to Germany/France and I'm pretty excited. I was supposed to be using this week to work on my shop, but so far, I've been working on other things. Here are just a couple of quick pictures of things I have done recently.


This hat was from a pattern on Ravelry. I'll put it in when I find it. Used the usual Patons Classic Wool in Water Chestnut and Dark Grey Mix. Sold. I've done a bunch of hats with this basic shape as a template, and I don't like having the increases all the way around, although the taper seems about right. In any case, I'm going to reformat for my shop hats.

My mom's birthday is also coming up so I started to make some mittens for her:



No pattern. I am using a chart out of Katharina Buss' Big Book of Knitting, though.



This pattern circles the wrist. I need some clever, relevant way to divide this from the hand section. I may try to two-colored braid if I can find a book with those in it. Otherwise, I'll just make stripes.

I'm using Knit Picks Palette in Mist and Lipstick (I think).

I asked my mom last night if she likes mittens. Her reply?

"Yes, but only the kind with fingers."

Good thing I asked.