True Confessions

April 26, 2007 By

But first, a little clarity. I WILL be showing off the final miters – as soon as I’m finished knitting them. Or maybe I am finished knitting them. Maybe I haven’t slept or showered or eaten in five days and not only have the miters been knit, but the entire blanket has been seamed and the border knit and I’m writing this right now from the very comfortable room they’ve given me at the hospital. The white walls are SO MUCH BRIGHTER when you have a mitered blanket to cover your shoulders as you rock back and forth and back and forth.

Or maybe not. Maybe I’m still knitting. Maybe maybe maybe.

Anyway, I’ll be showing you the last five miters just the way I’ve shown you all the rest. Only I can guarantee you I won’t be showing you them until next week. Or when I’ve finished. Or I’m finished. Whatever. You’ll see them. When I let you see them. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Excuse me, the nurse is here with the happy juice!)

True confession time. I bought more Tahki Cotton Classic yesterday. Two new colors. Or non-colors as they’re both greay. (That’s how I’m spelling now – should make everyone miserable – whether you’re a gray or a grey.) And I bought a second skein of a color I’ve already used. You see, I’ve got a problem. (Insert mad laughing here – like I’ve got only ONE!!! Go ahead Annie! I can hear the cackling now!) There are a few colors that I’ve used twice as a background and now I’d like to use one of them as a main color but I know I won’t have enough yarn. So I bought a color I already had and I might use it. Or I might not. It depends on how it all plays out.

Or maybe the blanket’s finished and I’m just messing with you. I didn’t buy any yarn at all. (SHHHHHHH!!! Anyone who may have happened to see me in a yarn store yesterday. You know who you are. Or maybe you don’t.)

Gotta go! They’re coming to take me away HAHA!

Filed Under: Madness

Radio Silence

April 25, 2007 By

I’m declaring a moratorium on miters. I will not be blogging about mitres until they are FINISHED! I will try to blog though. Sort of like practice for when there are no more miters to blog about. It will be sad, won’t it? I will miss them.

Yeah. Yeah. I remember I used to blog about socks. But does anyone remember the two sweaters I whipped up this Winter? Huh? Sometimes I feel like a one man band with these obsessions. No matter what I knit, I will always be known for the Jaywalker thing. Just yesterday I was reading someone’s site and they were talking about me and Jaywalkers. The knitalong ended over a year ago. I’ve knit a lot of stuff in that year. And maybe only one pair of socks were Jaywalkers.

Not that I’m complaining, really. The Jaywalker sock pattern is a GREAT pattern and I’ve actually been thinking about it a lot lately. It may be time to knit it again. When I really think about it, this miter obsession is very very close to the Jaywalker obsession. At the heart of all of it is COLOR. The Jaywalker thing wasn’t really about the sock pattern (it became like stockinette to me) – it was about how the colors of STR worked with the pattern. It was an exploration of the colors of Socks That Rock and Tina’s true genius. The Jaywalker pattern just happened to be a great way to manifest that color. I’ve never made a pair of Jaywalkers in anything other than STR.

Maybe I’m just obsessed with COLOR. If you ask me, in a world where there are so many awful things I could be obsessed about, color might be the best choice.

Thanks for all the contest entries and for all the lovely things you’ve said about my miters. I really appreciate it.

Filed Under: Madness

Leftovers

April 24, 2007 By

I don’t have a new miter to show you today (maybe I’m dragging things out because I don’t want the knitting to end!) so I thought I’d answer some questions about the project, and maybe, just maybe, if you’re patient, they’ll be a little contest at the end of this post. Firstly, I’d like to say – what the hell did I blog about before I started this project? Everyday I think about what I’m going to blog and the only thing I can think about are the damn mitres. And what’s with the spelling of mitres/miters? Does it matter? When I spell it miters, do I look like a bumbling American? I mean, I AM a bumbling American, but do I really want to put that out there in the world?

Alright. The miters. I currently have 28 unused colors. I have FOUR SQUARES – actually 17 MITERS – left to knit. That’s potentially 20 different colors. I’m not going to use all 28 because I know I’m going to repeat some – but still – I started out with 95 different colors – I think I did pretty good.

One of the questions I’ve been getting nonstop since I started this project is about my leftovers. What am I going to do with my leftovers? I’ve been offered money for them. One beautiful knitter offered to take my leftovers and knit me something from them. Others have been so kind as to take them off my hands – FOR FREE! As if I didn’t want them. PEOPLE. I’m KEEPING the leftovers. I’ll do something with them eventually and if I don’t, they’re still mine. It’s like when you read a book – you don’t give it away when your finished. You put it on your shelf and there it sits forever collecting dust because it’s now a part of your soul and you can’t ever part with it. Yarn is just like that. At least the yarn for this project is like that. So give up on the leftovers. They ain’t goin’ nowhere, no how.

Another question I’ve been getting – did I have all this yarn in my stash? Well, sort of. Last January, I bought four grab bags of Tahki Cotton Classic from WEBS on the advice of the mitre master, and then stuck them in my closet. I had no idea what I was going to do with them. No project in mind at all. Then one afternoon I mitered and the rest is history. Pretty quickly I started buying up all the different colors I could find and I ended up with 95 different colors. I think. I have to go back and check, but I’m pretty sure that’s the final color count.

More answers: I will be putting a border on it – I’m thinking a dark garter stitch. Single color. Simple. Maybe black. I haven’t given any thought to a back. I don’t think I’m going to back it, but you never know. Never say never. I have thought about mixing up all the squares and making it completely random, but that’s a different blanket. The rules stay. I will not be placing the same color miters in a particular square at opposite corners ALL THE TIME. I will do this occassionally, whenever I see fit. Chuck Close has been mentioned before. I like Chuck Close. Have seen his work up close and personal. In fact, once, a long time ago I was looking at a Chuck Close at MOMA and Vincent Price was looking at the painting next to me. I have noticed – especially when finishing one miter and starting another – that the color of a yarn can look SO different depending upon which color it’s up against. Very much like it’s a different dyelot, but I can assure you, I’ve only used ONE SKEIN of each color I’ve used. I mentioned before that I’m getting five miters out of a skein – four dominant color mitres and one background color miter, but your mileage may vary. Everyone knits different and just because that’s what I’m getting – you may knit loser or tighter or whatever and get a different result. Some of the squares have a color repeated twice in the background and some of them have four different backgrounds and I’ve made these decisions on a square by square basis. The rule that there is one constant MAIN color has remained constant. And will not change.

I think I answered a lot of the questions I’ve been getting, but if I missed yours, please ask again.

CONTEST!CONTEST!CONTEST!CONTEST!

It’s been a while since I’ve given anything away and I’ve got a bunch of fairly new readers and I used to give stuff away all the time so I’m feeling guilty about not giving stuff away and you’ve all be SO SUPPORTIVE of this project and while you say you love it and I believe you, I know that some of you can’t stand to look at another freaking miter, so I’m going to share the love.

GUESS WHAT DAY/TIME I WILL FINISH KNITTING THE LAST MITRE AND YOU WILL WIN:

Your own 10 skein/10 color grab bag of Tahki Cotton Classic and a copy of Mason Dixon Knitting.

I mean, really, what’s the good of being MAD if you can’t share it, right?

This is how to play – SEND AN EMAIL to

MITERMADNESS@JANUARYONE.COM

In the body of the email give me a date and a time – like this: 4/29/07, 11:53PM – (THAT’s MONTH/DAY/YEAR because I’m a BUMBLING AMERICAN!) for when you think I will finish the LAST MITER! (Not the border, not sewing it all up – just knitting the miters.) And you can say hi if you want but it’s not necessary. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON! The person who comes closest to the winning time WITHOUT GOING OVER will win. IN THE CASE OF A TIE – I will choose from the winners AT RANDOM.

ETA: I SCREWED UP ABOVE and said that I had only 4 miters left to knit. As of this edit, I have 17 MITERS to go. If you entered the contest before 11 PM EDT and would like to re-enter based on this CORRECT information, please do so. Thank you and sorry – I’ve got miters on the brain and I can’t think so good.

THE CONTEST WILL CLOSE APRIL 28, 2007 at MIDNIGHT EDT. Any entries received after that will be discarded.

REMEMBER SEND EMAIL HERE: MITERMADNESS@JANUARYONE.COM

PLEASE – DO NOT LEAVE YOUR ENTRY IN THE COMMENTS. Entries left in the comments will not be counted.

A couple things to know – I will be working (photo shoots) both Saturday AND Sunday this weekend, but I will be sleeping at home. Have fun. Play safe. Peace out.

Filed Under: Contest, Madness

Tunnel Vision

April 23, 2007 By

I’m so close on this project, I can taste it!

I wasn’t that close this morning, when I was getting ready to post. I had taken all my photographs and prepared them and was all set to upload them when I realized I had no internet connection. I checked the tvs and no tv either. Cable was out. It went back on about 5:45 PM (It went out around 10:30 AM.) Needless to say, while I did get a lot of stuff done around the house, I also figured out my next miter.

See, this morning, I was going to tell you that for the first time since the beginning of this project, I DIDN’T immediately cast on for a new miter. Not because I didn’t want to – but because I felt like I really needed to sit with the project before deciding on how I was going to end it. I know how I’m going to end it.

First, though, let’s look at the progress I made this weekend:


Square #23

This square is yet another in the Stained Glass series based on this photograph:


I’ve taken to using the photographs as more of a suggestion than an acutal color palette and I’m enjoying the process very much. Two more squares:


Square #24




Square #25


That brings my miter total up to 100 – 25 squares. I have definitely decided on 30 and the last square that I knit for this blanket will be based on the finger photograph. The finger square will anchor the blanket – it will be placed in the lower left hand corner and the layout for the rest of the squares will grow out of it. So that leaves four more squares to plan. The whole weekend I had the blanket laid out on the floor. (G was so good to step around it – especially since it was right at the entrance to the kitchen and pretty much blocked the whole passageway.) I wanted to study what colors I had used and what I felt like the blanket needed and what better way to do that than walk by it a million times a day. This is what I studied:

It goes without saying, of course, that this is no where close to the final layout – either for the squares OR the blanket. This is just putting it all down so I can get a good look. After I took a picture – I applied the Stained Glass Filter so I could get a better idea at the colors represented and hopefully what I need to concentrate on for the last four squares.

I’ve already started a mainly purple square because I feel like it needs purple – and I’m using lighter colors for the main color because I think it needs some lightening up, but I’d love to know what you think it needs. It’s become very hard for me to be objective anymore. I have to say, though, I am LOVING what I’ve got and am so excited to put it all together. I just hope I don’t drive myself crazy with the final layout.

Here are a million more pictures of the squares laid out – I couldn’t resist. Feel free to skip over.

So? What do you think? Fantastic, no? Okay – so maybe you feel like your retinas are being blown out, but I’m very happy. Very very happy. EXTREMELY happy. I can’t wait for this to be FINISHED. I told G I was getting to the end and he said that’s great! What’s next? What’s next indeed! (Someone’s bound to ask – most likely I’m going back to the KH Cardigan.)

For those of you doing the Mason Dixon miter, Kay gave me a tip that can help you get into a rhythm on the miters. For every decrease row that has a stitch count divisible by 3 BEFORE the decrease, you do a SSK, K2TOG, K2TOG, knit to end (should be the same number of stitches as BEFORE the decreases.) On the rows that DON’T have a stitch count divisible by 3 – you do a SSK, SSK, K2TOG then knit to the end (should be one LESS stitch than the number of stitches before the decrease.) Trust me on this – it works. The first few miters I was doing all this division, because, you know, I’m math-challenged, but it’s pretty intuitive now. I also know that when I’m using my “main” yarn, I’m going to have two decrease rows that are divisible by 3 (the first and the last) and one that’s not. The opposite happens when I’m using the contrast yarn.

Whew! Before I sign off, I wanted to let you all know that I’m not going to Maryland Sheep & Wool this year – family stuff came up and it was too much of a pain in the ass to get down there around the family stuff. Not to mention the fact that the last thing I need to be doing is buying more yarn or fiber. So I won’t be organizing a knitblogger meet-up, but I understand one is being organized by Gryphon. So go on over there and check out the details. Have a blast everyone! (At least this year there’s NO WAY I can be blamed when the STR sells out in five seconds flat. So don’t even try it.) (Oh and if there’s anyone out there willing to buy me a t-shirt, I’ll paypal you the money ahead of time and hopefully make it worth your while. BUT only if you’re planning on standing in that hideous line anyway. I don’t want anyone going out of their way. THANKS!)

Okay. Back to mitering. The finish line is calling!

Filed Under: Madness

Repetition

April 20, 2007 By


Square #22

This square was inspired by this photograph:

Applying the Stained Glass Filter in PhotoShop:

The white looking color in the square is actually a peachy pink that perfectly mimics one of the lighter colors in the photograph. To be honest, all the colors look a little off. It’s really much closer to the photograph.

Guild was fun – but I have to admit my mind was on squares rather than spinning and llamas. I spun for like five minutes and it was all I could do to take out a miter. I have to measure my bed today, but I’m leaning more towards 30 squares instead of 25. Somehow I think a rectangular blanket will be better than square. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s the right thing to do or because I can’t see myself stopping. Everything’s sort of muddled together now and I’m pushing myself.

I’m also knitting hurt. This project has taken a toll on me physically. I have slowed down CONSIDERABLY (and please – no lectures on repetitive stress injuries and exercises and whatnot. I’m a big girl and if I want to fuck myself up I will.) But I start to get some pains in my right elbow and right wrist about half-way through a miter. I know what this means and I’m taking steps to fix it. The biggest problem, though, is that I’ve put a hole in my left index finger.

Basically, I split my callus. I’ve written about how proud I was of my calluses before, and I still am. Proud, that is. I showed my finger split to Ann while I was out on Lawn Guyland and defiantly proclaimed that I was HARDCORE! Look at me! There’s BLOOD! She cackled in the way that only Ann can and told me I wasn’t freaking hardcore. All my booboo meant was that I was DOING IT WRONG!

I told her, if I was doing it so wrong, how had I managed to knit 91 miters (with another one on the needles) in 37 days? She told me madness trumps knitting skills any day. I think she might be right. But hey – I may get a square out of it anyway!

Have a great weekend!

Filed Under: Madness

Stained Glass

April 18, 2007 By

Yesterday, knowing I didn’t have anymore color combinations lined up for mitres (that’s for you Sundara!), I went a little crazy playing with Ruth’s method of singling out colors in photographs. Just to reiterate, I’m using the Stained Glass Filter in PhotoShop. You’ll just have to wait for the results because at least the next two squares will be from this method.

Anyway, so I went a little crazy pulling up photographs – especially photographs that didn’t seem like they’d yield a lot of different colors and I came across one that looked a lot like the square I was currently knitting. The colors for what would become Square #21 had been sitting around for awhile – I knew I wanted a red as the main color and gold yellow as one of the accents – possibly with two squares and I had a deep blue purple and brown as the other accents. The way I knit the squares is to knit all of the different colors first – and then decide what the repeat color will be. Well, last night, I had knit the three different squares and I couldn’t decide on the last color. I knew I didn’t want to repeat the yellow, but what to choose? So I went to the altered picture and the stash and this is what I came up with:


Square #21

This is the altered photograph:

And this is the original:


Salmon Roe

What do you think? I’m pretty happy with it!

Okay – I’m off to Guild tonight in Long Island – so no post tomorrow and another square on Friday. I have a feeling we’re getting down to the knitty gritty on this thing. Then the adventure REALLY begins!

Filed Under: Madness

Yet Another Member of The BBC

April 17, 2007 By

Today Vicki linked to a story I wrote entitled “The BBC.” The story is a satirical look at tragedy in our world today. With the events that occured at Virginia Tech yesterday, and the news that the shooter was a Creative Writing student at the University, I’m putting up the story again for all to read.

My hope is that the story’s absurdity makes you laugh a little bit today, as well as think about the nature of such events. My thoughts are with the entire VT extended family.

Read “The BBC.”

Thank you.

Filed Under: Life

The True Measure of Life

April 17, 2007 By

So you know how some people will say: “It was so much fun I pissed my pants!” or others might say: “That scared the piss out of me!” ? Welp – that’s the kind of weekend I had! Lots of wet pants.

My sister set up the new huge trampoline in the backyard last week – you know – when it looked like it might really be Spring? – just in time for the litte one’s birthday party on the weekend. Luckily Saturday turned out to be the NICE day and we all got a chance to jump. Can I just tell you? I can’t remember the last time I had that much fun! I cleared all the kids out and went to town, windmilling my arms higher and faster, forcing my body to SOAR! I was laughing and laughing and jumping and jumping and I pissed my pants. Literally – pee came out. THAT’S HOW MUCH FUN IT WAS!

(I’d like to think it was also the bottle of water and gravity and not some kind of bladder malfunction because I thought all that pee stuff was supposed to happen AFTER you have kids. Not before. Needless to say I’ve been doing Kegels like crazy. There. I just did another ten.)

The party was great and we all had fun and then Sunday night I got the opportunity to have the piss scared out of me. It was late and I was having trouble sleeping what with all the wind and the rain and I had finally fallen asleep. Then – CRACK – CRASH! I bolted upright! What the hell was THAT? I listened. Nothing. I waited for the others to come running. Nothing. I checked for wetness – whew! Nothing. (Although I was sleeping in the waterproof princess bed, just in case.) Eventually my heart stopped pounding and I went back to sleep, figuring that it was just the wind. The next morning we found the branch across the backyard and the hole in the roof of the garage. Thankfully it missed the house.

Quite the weekend of extremes. I’m ready for some nice weather now. Any time Mother Nature is ready.

Onto the miters! We’ve got two (I just love reaching my goals!)

The first was inspired by this photograph:

I applied Ruth’s method by using the Stained Glass Filter in PhotoShop.

Then I went to the stash and pulled out some colors:

Which gave me this!


Square #19

I’m pretty happy with how it worked out! I’ve got four (or nine) more squares to go – and I may just try this exercise again.

For the next square, I just put together colors that made me happy!


Square #20

I just love how the dark chocolate brown sets off all of the bright colors. You’ll be happy to know that Square #21 is half finished.

Thank you again for all your comments and opinions on my post about blog behavior. I’d like to reiterate that I welcome constructive criticism. I understand that my opinions are one in about 6.5 billion – opinions, it turns out, really ARE like assholes. My blog life is VERY charmed and while it IS hard work and occasionally people like to rain on your parade, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. At least as long as it takes to sew up all these miters. Have a great day!

Filed Under: Madness

We now return to our regularly

scheduled mitering.

April 13, 2007 By

Thank you all so much for your eloquent comments and a wonderful free exchange of ideas. I’m so glad to hear from all of you – whether you regularly comment here or not. Please know that I’m working my way through every comment. If you don’t hear from me – I READ WHAT YOU HAD TO SAY and took your words to heart. I have to admit, when I pushed publish yesterday my heart sunk a bit at the earnestness of my post. I’m don’t like to be earnest – it’s uncomfortable and embarrassing to say the least – plus I’m not sure it makes good writing (I put it just below sentimentality.) But I don’t think I’m all that earnest on a regular basis and sometimes you just have to get stuff off your chest.

I really don’t get that much negative feedback – constructive or otherwise – compared to others. And I’ve, fortunately, never really been flamed here or anywhere else, that I know of (and please don’t feel you need to tell me about if I have been.) But I have friends who have been – and frankly – I don’t think that behavior is appropriate whether you’re my friend or not. It’s just not good blogging.

I would like to say that I welcome CONSTRUCTIVE criticism here, on this blog. And please don’t feel that if you have a contrary opinion from me, or anyone else that reads here, that you aren’t welcome to express it. If something should happen in the comments because of your comment, you can rest assured it will be addressed by me in the manner I deem appropriate – that may be a further blog post about my feelings, or the deletion of comments. Thank you again, as always, for taking the time to read my blog.

Whew! Now let’s get back to what’s REALLY important! The miters!


Square #18

This square is based on a ribbon sample I bought a while back. I like the squares and colors and I think it’s a good match for the blanket. I’ve got three more squares planned out – the next one I started is based on one of my photographs and I’m really excited about it. It’s kind of neutral so I hope it works out. I’m off AGAIN for the weekend, but I hope to have more miters on Tuesday. My goal is an even 20.

Have a great weekend!

Filed Under: Madness

Bad Moon Rising

April 12, 2007 By

This is a long post that has to do with blogging – not really knitting – and there are no pictures. You’ve been forewarned.

The other day, after receiving a not so nice comment, reading this article, and hearing from blogger friends who had been abused in comments and blog posts recently, I came up with a BRILLIANT IDEA! I sent out this email:

BRING IT ON! An Experiment in Blogging
Dear Friends and Fellow Bloggers,

I hope this email finds you happy and arms full of yarn. So – I’ve had a CRAZY idea. I know, you’re shaking your heads, but this one is even CRAZIER than usual and I’d love to hear your opinions.

I’m thinking of a BRING IT ON day on the blogs – or at least MY blog. Lately I’ve had some not so nice comments – both on the blog and behind the scenes – directed at me and my life and coupled with the article that appeared in the New York Times the other day, I thought that it would be really really interesting to just see the comments fly. I’m proposing a 24 hour period where people could leave, in the comments, the best criticsm they could come up with for me. I would set some ground rules – nothing about my family or religion or stuff like that – just about ME. I would ask them to stick to what they’ve seen or read on the blog – or if they’ve met me in person – but it’s okay if they don’t stick to it. And I would welcome anonymous comments.

What do you think would happen? Would I need to be in therapy for another fifteen years? Would friendships be lost? Or would all the negativity cancel itself out and eventually, reading all those awful comments, people would see how stupid it really is. That the adage – if you don’t have anything nice to say – don’t say anything at all – really DOES make the world a better place.

I just hatched this idea. But I think it could be extremely interesting, probably very hurtful, most likely entertaining and hopefully a learning experience for all involved – bloggers and commenters alike. I’d like to think I’d be putting my money where my mouth is – but maybe I really have knit one too many miters.

I look forward to hearing from you!
Have a fantastic day!
Best,
Cara

One by one, people responded back and were overwhelmingly negative about my proposal – with some very good reasons. It would probably devolve into silliness – like a sixth grade slam book with comments about how my feet were ugly and my breath bad. Or that I’d actually be overwhelmed with POSITIVE comments instead of negative. Or that it would truly get very, very ugly and I might not be able to recover from it. That when the 24 hr period ended, I’d get even more badness for closing it down. I thought, the worst that could happen is that I would take down the blog. And I don’t want to take down the blog.

I needed to further examine what I wanted from this experiment. Did I want constructive criticism? Not really. I’m plenty critical of my life and I have a VERY honest husband and family who tell it to me like it is, not to mention an excellent friend who’s ready to call me on all aspects of my life. I often call Ann and ask her if I’m being ridiculous about something – and she always lets me know how she really feels. Honesty is a fantastic gift in my life, even if the criticism is sometimes hard to hear. But there’s a difference between criticism delivered safely, lovingly, RESPECTFULLY as opposed to just dumped in your lap without regard. You catch more flies with honey than you do with shit.

Speaking of shit, I was working with an analogy when I came up with this experiment. I thought, if I fill the room with shit – here I’m talking about the comments – and people really really let me have it – let out all the petty jealousies, the legitimate gripes, the suggestions on how to make my world better, i.e. more like THEIR world – well then, in the end all the badness might cancel itself out. Like if you fill the room with shit – eventually you’re not going to smell it anymore. You know what I mean?

If your blog has more than one reader (who’s not your mom – or maybe it is your mom?) chances are someone’s thought ill of you. Either they thought your knitting skills sucked. Your design was a rip off. They could DEFINITELY do better than you. I would assume that the more readers you have, the more that negative number rises. I’m no saint here – of course I’ve thought (and even said) not so nice things about other people – even other bloggers – but I’ve never deliberately gone out of my way to make someone feel bad in public. Whether on my site or someone else’s site or on their own site. In fact, I try to adhere to a strict policy of never saying anything negative about anyone in emails, let alone blogs. Does this make me a hypocrite? Sure! I can think it! But do I have the balls to put it out there?!? I’m not sure it has anything to do with balls. I think it has to do with thought and action. We can think many many negative things all day long, but it’s acting on those thoughts that really says who we are. At least that’s how I think about it. I’m not above petty jealousies. I’m not above lashing out if I think someone I love has been hurt. I’m not above idle gossip. Please. I’m a human being. But I don’t think those are the types of things I want lasting forever – like emails or blog posts. They’re not constructive. They don’t help anyone (but maybe me for like five minutes and then oftentimes I feel guilty.) And they don’t do anything to change a situation.

While I was thinking about this grand sociological experiment and how it could or could not work, I started thinking about what motivates people to be so mean. I’m sure you’ve all heard about the Kathy Sierra incident – a blogger started getting death threats and horrid pictures of her were photoshopped – for instance, a photo of her with a noose nearby – and posted on a blog that seemed to exist only to bash other bloggers. What could she possibly have written to garner such meaness? What makes people be so mean? [Read the NYTs article above and this link I found through MJ. Thanks MJ!]

I can only speak to knitblogs because that’s really all I read – so let’s talk about them. We’ve all seen blogs that seem to exist to denigrate other knitters. They’re equal opportunity haters too – designers, bloggers, new knitters, old knitters, knitters who knit with one hand, two hands, their feet – whatever – everything’s game! I guess a blog like this serves a purpose – on those days that you just hate the world and want to revel in that hate, it’s sometimes nice to go over to a blog like this and join in on all the fun. Although at the end of the day, even when I’m languishing in the hate, it just makes me sad. I still don’t understand what people get out of bashing other people. Most of all, I’m left wondering, why do people care so much? It’s my experience that people don’t do things unless they’re getting something out of it for themselves – it’s rare to find a truly altrustic action. I blog because I want to show off my knits and I love to write and I like to be funny – I get a lot back from it: lots of nice comments, inspiration, new friends. But what do I get back if I trash someone? Do I get to feel superior? Is it going to make my knitting better? Or make me feel better ABOUT my knitting? Anything negative I say about someone else is a reflection on me. What am I so unhappy or upset or unsatisfied with? What can I change ABOUT ME to make my life better?

Let’s set a few things
straight about what I think about criticism: if you want to criticise a knitting book or pattern or blog, that’s perfectly acceptable to me. A designer puts those designs out there and once they’re in the world, you can’t control how people see that design. You have to hope they either love it or hate it – some kind of REAL reaction. If you write a pattern and people start knitting it and it’s full of mistakes and the schematics are all wrong and the actual finished garment is so ridiculously put together that you can’t tell the neck from the elbow, well, then THE PATTERN deserves to be ripped a new one. But not the designer. Wouldn’t it be great if we could talk about the problems with a pattern that would actually HELP the designer write a better one next time? Like some kind of collaboration? Why bring the personal into it?

I’m no stranger to criticism. I graduated from an MFA program in Creative Writing which means for two years I got to sit in a workshop where every week another writer was raked across the coals. I would spend hours and hours writing a story only to have my classmates sit around and talk about all the things that were wrong and bad and awful about that story. If you’ve never been through a critique it’s a wonderful thing! Most of the time, the criticism that was valid was immediately apparent to me and I got really good at throwing out the rest of it, but it’s still hard to hear negative-ness about your babies.

I’ll give you two examples of criticism I recently encountered. One had to do with a knitting project. A comment was left on my blog that basically said, “Well, I’m glad you’re happy with the project. I think I’ll keep my opinion to myself.” (Which in and of itself is kind of ridiculous because duh – the opinion was RIGHT OUT THERE.) I emailed the commenter and said – come on! Let me have it! Tell me what you really think! And she did. What ensued was a very nice conversation about what makes us tick as knitters and what we like and don’t like and it was civilized and THAT’S the kind of criticism I welcome. That same day I got another comment that basically said I was crazy and that all my knitting was a waste of time and I should be out helping people instead of being dirty and sitting on my ass all day making this waste of money blanket. (Incidentally, this commenter later apologized for her comment.)

That one I didn’t like. That one was personal. That one JUDGED ME. When you read someone’s blog, you’re really only getting a teeny tiny glimpse of their life. I share with you what I want to share with you. So maybe I’m out slopping soup at homeless shelters all day long or maybe I’m kicking puppies up and down the street – YOU DON’T KNOW. I would hope that you would judge me by what you read on the page and the way I behave through the rest of blogland without jumping to conclusions about the life you DON’T read about. I know this is a very tall order. We can’t help but draw conclusions – imagine realities that don’t necessarily exist – and pass judgment based on the little knowledge we have. I do it all the time. Once again, I believe it’s part of being human. But we DO have the ability to STOP ourselves and take a step back. In the five minutes you might take to write that scathing comment, take another minute to read it over and really think about what it says. Would you want to receive a comment like that on your blog? What if your friend got a comment like that? What would be your reaction?

And of course, we’re useless when we try to defend ourselves. I put it out there that I don’t shower on a daily basis. So if someone wants to judge me on that fact alone, well there’s nothing I can do. On the flip side, I know all about the arguments of free speech. It’s my blog and I can say whatever the hell I want! Then why are we so upset if someone comes and disagrees with us? Why then does it all fall apart into a “you are censoring me because you don’t agree with me even though I said these awful things about you on my blog!?” I can count many instances where legitimate discussions have collapsed in blog comments because someone, inevitably, writes “IT’S THEIR BLOG – THEY CAN SAY WHAT THEY WANT!” But what you say and put out in the world in your name has consequences. There are real live people sitting at home behind computers reading blogs.

There’s been lots of talk about codes of conduct on blogs and how we should act and decorum and decency and I’ve given a lot of thought to it in the past few days. I know, that were a code of conduct to come about, that I would have a VERY hard time adopting one for my blog. If I did, it would have to be the most lenient code available. Because, honestly, I do believe in free speech. And I do believe in the free exchange of ideas. And I do believe that I deserve to get back what I put out into the world.

And I believe that criticism can be healthy and constructive and very welcome.

If you threaten me, or my family, or steal from me, or destroy my reputation in some way – that’s no longer free speech. Then it becomes a matter of law.

So I’ve written a really long post, but have I really said anything? I’m not sure. But I wanted to put this out there in the knitblog world because I think it’s important. I really do believe that this is a COMMUNITY in the best sense of the word (and world – which is the first word I typed.) I have been fortunate enough to meet A LOT of knitbloggers and I hope to continue to meet more. One of the reasons I keep my blog as intimate and honest as I do is that when I meet a knitblogger I want them to feel as comfortable with me in person as they do when reading the blog. I’m anxious and crazy and I want you to be prepared when you meet me. No surprises. What you read is what you get. 😉

Do I think that anything will change because I wrote this epic essay? That would be pretty narcissistic of me, for sure. Hopefully. Maybe a little. I’ve already seen some nice healing just from the email I sent out. Do I think we should all get along? ABSOLUTELY NOT. There are bloggers (and people) that just aren’t going to be your cup of tea. And that is perfectly acceptable to me. And if you have an opinion – by all means SHARE IT! But use a little common sense and common courtesy. Is it really that hard? Really?

In conclusion (thank god!) I would like to see a wonderful discussion in the comments – like the one that went on the other day at Steph’s. Dig deep and tell me why you think you were mean that time. Were you threatened by something? Jealous of something? (I would think that my petty outbursts are the direct response of envy. I want whatever it is that someone else has – as hard as it is to admit it.) What do you think about a code of conduct? Do we really need rules? Isn’t the Golden One good enough? What do you think would have happened if I HAD openend up the blog to all the negativity I could handle for 24 hours?

I leave you with this quote, found serendipitously while reading the NYT’s obituary for Kurt Vonnegut:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

From God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.

Filed Under: Blog, Life
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