The problem with Ravelry

Me: This is awful! I'm spending so much time goofing off on Ravelry that I'm not getting any crocheting done!

Natalia: You and everyone else on Ravelry.

Step away from the yarn, and put down the credit card

I have never observed Lent; I grew up Southern Baptist and Southern Baptists are into depriving yourself of everything fun all the time, so Lent is sort of beside the point. I didn't discover until just a few years ago that some Protestant denominations do observe Lent, and this year I feel moved to join them.

So I'm giving up buying yarn for Lent.

(Natalia: "Oh honey, are you going to be okay?"
Me: "I thought about giving up booze, but I didn't want to totally set myself up for failure.")

There are spiritual reasons I'm doing this, but I'm not going to bore you with them. Unlike American presidential candidates, I think there's something to be said for keeping one's faith a private matter. But I have practical reasons too (are you allowed to have practical reasons for what you give up during Lent, or does that negate it?):

• I have made no progress on the Stash Knit Down 2008. In fact, I've bought more yarn in the new year, so I've actually made less than no progress.
• I'm running out of places to put yarn. Also, I'm running out of the not-really-places I put yarn when I've run out of places to put yarn. It's either this or storing yarn in the sink.
• Likewise, I do not need to be spending money on yarn. Or anything else, for that matter. I'm going to have to watch myself carefully to make sure I don't fill the yarn-shaped void with BPAL.

But truly, the big one was last week when both the Mad Husband and StringTheory2.0 told me in less than a 24-hour period that I was a slave to instant gratification, I was embarrassed. Not mortally, but enough that it bothered me. I want to prove to myself that I can do this.

I had myself a mini-Mardi Gras of sorts on Monday, when I dropped by Knitch for one last purchase. Tempting though it was to drape myself in beads and go wild, I only got four skeins though, all for projects I'm going to need to finish in the near future. Believe me, I thought about the wild spree, but then thought if I did so I would be quite probably missing the point.

I'll probably chronicle a little bit of this here, and yes, if I fail I will admit it. And I fully acknowledge the irony of the co-mod of lazy, stupid and godless giving up something for Lent. I've already gotten laughed at quite roundly, so I don't mind if you laugh too. It builds character.

Perhaps I'm not so resolute after all

Since we're nearly done with January, I thought I'd review my list of New Year's Resolutions and see how I'm doing.

• Restraining myself on yarn purchases -- Well, there was the one day I went to Knitch (during a sale, no less) and managed not to buy anything. I get points for that, right? Enough points to make up for indulging in Webs alpaca closeouts?
• Designing my own patterns -- Was making progress on my scarf, till I realized I was one stitch off and though I could have just ignored it like I do when I'm working from other people's patterns and worked around it and no one would have noticed, I frogged the whole thing because it's my pattern, so it's different.
• Using up stash yarn -- Ha. Bwahahahahahahaaaa.
• Crocheting socks -- I've got two cuffs and half an ankle. Compared to my other resolutions, this qualifies as positively impressive.

If I didn't mention a resolution, assume I haven't even tried to keep it yet. But I'm not worried, I still have eleven months to procrastinate, I mean keep my resolutions.

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...