To frog or not to frog, that is the question

Today I marked a project on Ravelry -- the Unseamly Sweater from SnB: The Happy Hooker -- "hibernating." I don't think I've worked on it since last August, and technically it's wearable; I think I weaved in the ends and all that's left to do is the lacy edging, which I could leave off anyway.

But you know that feeling you get when you realize that something is just never going to happen? Yeah. While theoretically I could knock out that lace edging in one evening, I just don't think I ever will.

I was so excited when I started that sweater. I picked it out of The Happy Hooker as my first "real" garment, as opposed to hats and scarves. And that was right around the time I started going to Knitch, and I was so excited because they had the recommended yarn, Cascade Sierra, in dozens of gorgeous colors. And it was the most I'd ever spent for one project, but that was okay because it kinda felt like my first real project, with sleeves and everything! I was so proud when I brought that yarn home. I felt like I was finally becoming a real crocheter.

And I learned a whole lot from that sweater. The initial chain stitch was way too small, and I did the seed stitch in the middle section all wrong and had to take the sweater to Needle Nook and ask Beth for help. I had to frog that thing so many times.

And back then, I thought I just couldn't figure it out and it was my problem, but now that I'm on Ravelry and can look at other versions of the sweater other crocheters have made and posted, I can see that a lot of people had some of the same issues I did. So later on this sweater helped me learn about design flaws, and trusting myself and finding workarounds (or, actually, begging on the internet for workarounds).

So the Unseamly Sweater is a bit of a nostalgia item for me, but it's also a sweater that I doubt I'll ever wear because I don't think the tight-fitting seed stitch middle is particularly flattering on me. And now that I've admitted I'll probably never finish it, I find myself thinking about what I could do with 1300 yards of Cascade Sierra in ruby.

It'll probably take a while for me to take the leap and actually frog the sweater, but I'm something of a packrat (actually, a huge packrat would be more accurate) and the fact that I'm willing to tear up something with sentimental meaning to get at the yarn really speaks to the depths of my yarn addiction.

Whose sisterhood is it anyway?

In my last post, I mentioned coming across a rather negative online discussion of a crochet pattern. I said I had no problem with that, and I want to elaborate on why, because I think it's an important issue. And because I feel like ranting.

I've said in the past that there seems to be an attitude in the yarnosphere of "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." To a certain extent, I think that's a lovely idea. After all, what can really be gained from snarking on a brand-new crocheter's first lumpy finished object? Nothing. It just leads to hurt feelings, and I can see how in a worst-case scenario it could turn someone off the fiber arts and/or blogging. We all have made projects that didn't turn out like they were supposed to -- that's why Ravelry has UGHs! Saying someone is smelly and fat just for shits and giggles may fly on some parts of teh intarwubz -- that's the main reason I've never started an NBA blog. But it isn't acceptable in the yarnosphere, and I think that's a good thing.

However, I am extremely skeptical of people -- who often also happen to be designers -- who carry on about how fiber artists shouldn't say anything bad about anyone or anything because fiber arts are a "sisterhood." If you are going to put a pattern out there and charge people money for it, then you should know that people will discuss it, up to and including "OMG this pattern sucks I cannot believe anyone would have the gall to charge money for this." If designers cannot deal with this, then IMNSHO, designers should not charge for their patterns. Or at least should not go looking for criticism and then get bent out of shape about it (I know, easier said than done, but there's a reason they tell the American Idol contestants not to go on the message boards). As for designers who rely on the "sisterhood" claim to avoid criticism, all I want to know is, if fiber arts are such a sisterhood, then why are you trying to make a buck off your sisters?

New Yarn's Resolutions

The good hookers over at the Crochet Liberation Front have been discussing their New Year's resolutions in relation to crochet. Luckily, I've been thinking about mine for a while (as they are ever so much more interesting than the usual resolutions that I break by January 5 when I realize yet again that living on spinach makes me crazy. I mean crazier).

The Mad Crocheter's Crochet Resolutions for 2008:

• When purchasing yarn, there are certain questions I will ask myself, such as "what will I use this for?", "do I like the color?", "am I already making something like this?", "do I have room for this?", and most importantly, "can I afford it?" I will consider the answers to these questions before buying because the answers are all more important than "WOOOHOOOOO!!! This is ON SALE!!"
• When I am gifting someone with a piece of crochet, I will wait until I have actually finished said piece before telling them about it, lest I be greeted every time I see them with "where's my tarot bag, bitch?" (this resolution dedicated to Donna)
  
• I will continue to work on designing original crochet patterns and finding publication options for them, even if it's just posting them here.
• I will continue to do as many nifty things with crochet as possible, in interests of promoting the art and showing knitters that crochet doesn't have to suck.
• If I crochet a gift for someone, I will keep perspective and not hover over them going "so, do you like it? Say yes you love it or I'm never making you anything again."
• I will use up yarn in my stash, even if it is cheap acrylic crap I bought before I knew any better. After all, you can't make shelter cat beds out of cashmere. (Well, you could, but you would deserve a swift kick in the butt for it.)
• I will actually finish the projects I've been working on forever, if only to mark them finished on Ravelry.
  
• I will use Ravelry as the excellent organizational tool it is for matching up yarns and patterns so I won't have moments like the one tonight where I looked into a plastic bin full of yarn and said "I don't know what to crochet."
• I will felt something. On purpose.
• I will crochet some socks. Just to see what happens.
  
• I will do something cool with lace, even if it kills me.
• I will take pictures of my stash so I can stare at it lovingly when I'm bored instead of meandering onto yarn sites where I will tempt myself into breaking other resolutions.
• I will do whatever my overlords at the Crochet Liberation Front tell me to do.
  
• I will continue to seek out all the awesome there is to be found in crochet and share it here.
• I will remember that this is crochet, not life or death. I will be unafraid to try new things, because in the end, it's all just yarn. What's the worst that could happen?
  

YARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRN!!!!

This is actually related to a deeper thought, but why save it for the deeper thoughts when you've got a really awful (I mean awesome) one-liner?

For a long while now, StringTheory2 and I have been discussing the massive amount of planning involved in one of her knitting projects (go look at 'em, they'll blow your mind, her work blows my mind on a regular basis) versus the sheer spirit of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants that goes into mine ("Hey, that's not as long as the schematic says it's supposed to be. Guess I shoulda done a gauge swatch. Oh well, no worries, I'll just add on a few rows and figure out what to do with them later!"). After these conversations, I suspect that knitting appeals to the more orderly minds among us, the ISTJs, those whose brains, if brains were houses, would be neat small rooms connected by geometric halls, while someone like me, an ENFP whose brain resembles my desk, which is to say cluttered, with everything I own thrown in one big pile -- "and that reminds me of this! Which reminds me of THIS!" -- naturally prefers crochet, and clings to it stubbornly no matter how many cool things I'm told I could be knitting. (Might also explain why I sometimes confuse knitters -- while I'm merrily prattling away about what's going on in my tangential brain, the knitters are having to rush down that hall in and out of the different rooms of their brains to keep up with me, and who has time to do that while futzing with needles and charts? Yeah, I'll keep telling myself that's why I freak out the knitters. Yeah.)

So (and this is an awful lot of buildup for a joke that's not even that good), all of this came to mind while I was replying to a comment on Ravelry about how some fiber artists are dead-set on yarn usage -- i.e., if it's sock yarn, you must use it to make socks -- and the concept of rules in art, and what came out of my keyboard was:

Maybe it’s the same principle at work here – knitters seek rules, while crocheters say “really they’re more like guidelines”?

And then all I could hear in my head was Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush et al explaining that "really they're more like guidelines" and all I could think was "hey! We crocheters are the yarn pirates!! YAARRRRRRRRRRN!!"

I know. None of the knitters I know have ever insisted that sock yarn must be used for socks only and my entire orderly knitting vs. freewheeling crochet theory might not hold even a teaspoonful of water here, but let me have my delusions that I'm a pirate. If you need me, I'll be running around screaming YAAARRRRRN!!

Not for nothing does ST2 call me the Pirate Hooker...

Merry Christmas to all...

Christmas is here, though I still must travel to my family to give them their gifts, and I've been thinking a lot about a comment cadnkat left on my last post:

I've just about decided that even though I take my family into consideration as to their likes and dislikes etc. That if they don't like the gift that I crocheted/knitted them, then oh well. At the very least it provided me with a few hours of entertainment. That and I try to only craft for people who really do "get" it.

The more I think about this, the more I think that perhaps I'm getting more out of crocheting these gifts than my family will get out of having them. Sure, my mom will have a pretty scarf she can wear a few weeks out of the year (Tennessee doesn't really get that amazingly cold), but from that same scarf, I learned how to make cables. Which one of us really gets more out of this?

This is one of those Christmas lessons, isn't it? Up there with "you'll put your eye out, kid!"

I wish you and yours a lovely Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, here's your present and you'd better like it

This is the first year I've crocheted most of my family's Christmas gifts, and as the holidays get closer, I'm starting to get nervous, and it's not just because I haven't finished my dad's hat yet. (Maybe I should start being more nervous about that, but that's not much fun to blog about.)

It's hard enough trying to come up with suitable gifts, especially for family members who 1). already have most everything they want and 2). really don't need more crap. (Apparently everyone who knows my mom gave her a suncatcher for her birthday... seriously, she's going to run out of windows.) I hit upon the handmade-just-for-you idea a while back and tested it on my family back in August. To my pleasant surprise, my brother was the first one to say he liked the idea. I figured he'd be the one trying to hold out for a "real" present. Then again, he knows I can't afford to get him any really cool toys. When you have a GTO, I guess everything else is gravy?

Someone recently on a board pointed out that knitted gifts (of course they don't even show crochet!) get mocked in all the commercials around this time of year. Of course they do; commercials are trying to sell things. But because there's so much of me in these gifts, I really want them to be appreciated and valued.

And isn't that the rub? We yarners spend so much time and love on our projects, and the rest of society shrugs and wonders why we didn't just buy a sweater at Target. Not that I need society's approval, but this is why it's so important that we knitters, crocheters, and crafters in general stick together -- because we know. We understand.

My dad is a woodworker. I have a feeling he will be the one who likes his present the most, because he understands too. He'll sit there and watch me crochet and say things like "I could as soon walk on the moon as do that." And I could as soon walk on the moon as I could make his beautiful wooden bowls. It's nice that in an abstract way, we share this.

So all this is just a long-winded way of saying, if the Mad Family doesn't gush properly, they're getting crappy gifts next year. Like, I'm talking Chia Pets here! :P