All we are saying, Is Give Fleece a Chance

There was a big to-do this past week in the local papers over a lot of Yarnbombing in the Boston area.
If you don't know what that is (and if you don't, why on earth are you reading a crochet-centric blog?) it's the practice of knitting or crocheting a cozy or piece of clothing for an inanimate object. Like putting a stocking cap on a statue or wrapping a scarf around a telephone pole. Immediately some questions spring to my diseased little mind..

A) unless this is Red Heart, this is a waste of perfectly good yarn
B) Were the people involved in this sober at the time?
C) How in the name of all things sacred and profane do you do something like this?

Now the newscasters were sort of joking along, until one of them said "well this is a felony, it's graffiti"

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAA??? I almost did a spit take with my morning coffee.. except..well, it's coffee. I'm not spitting out coffee.  Especially in the morning, when I need it, to do things like: remain upright and form polysyllabic words and perform higher brain functions like remembering my name and where I work.

Ok, yes, this is technically graffiti, I suppose. However unlike spray-paint graffiti, you can fix this in under a minute with a pair of scissors. This is also not a gang-tag, or offensive to any one in any way.
Think of it as an art installation.

Surpri--ARRRRGH

Hi all, thanks for checking out the blog again.
This post was supposed to be about the new sweater I'm working on, a Tunisian crochet variation on the Firefly/Wash sweater by Don Yarman. Original knitting pattern available here .

But NO, instead, this is going to be a little rant about babies and surprises. I like babies..a little. They usually like me. I'm big, warm, and fluffy, basically an ambulatory teddy bear, so the minute I pick up most babies they fall right asleep. Of course there are the evil ones that try to either take off my glasses ( almost all of them), bite me on the nose (my nephew) or both ( also, my nephew).

However, on the nature of Surprises... We HATES them, Preciousss. I can't stand suprises. At all. I'm JUST CDO enough (CDO is like OCD, but all the letters are in correct, alphabetical order) that when I plan and plot my day, I like it to go as close to plan as possible. I even show up places fifteen to twenty minutes early to allow a mental switching of gears for say "caffeine deprived neanderthal Josh" to "Happy shiny Office Monkey Josh" or " Opera Josh". I have been known to use every tool short of Force Powers to determine what people are getting me for my birthday. My exes are convinced I'm telepathic If the FBI were to call me and say that Fugitive Number One had a surprise Christmas present for me, I would have him located in under a week, and grill him until I found out the feds had planted a Keurig on him with my name on it.

Now how, you may be wondering, does this tie in to Babies? They are lovely miracles and it's certainly a pleasant surprise when I find out one of my relative or friends is enceinte. I'm genuinely thrilled for them, as long as I'm not expected to babysit or change a diaper. But then I ask the question most people ask :
"What are you having, boy or girl?"
and some people have the audacity to respond..:
"Oh we're not going to find out beforehand, we want to be surprised!".
.................
......................

Yeah. That's completely and totally unacceptable. It's heinously wrong. On SO many levels.
I have a folder of baby patterns I regularly use. I have all of the patterns on Ravelry,Caron,Lion Brand, et al at my fingertips. There are several trillion patterns suitable for baby girls.. there are ten suitable for baby boys.
Ten.

Now I know some of you are saying there are some gender neutral patterns. There are. They are to be made in pastel colors that make my eyes itch and my heart cry, or they're to be made in white. White. With a newborn. I don't have a LOT of experience with newborns (and thank all the gods that ever were I won't have firsthand experience with them EVER) but I'm pretty sure that for the first two years of their lives, babies exist basically to outdo BP in terms of toxic sewage output. Buying or making them anything in white is basically begging for the child to poo on it.

So, with these percentages stipulated, I have a vested interest in finding out the gender of your child. You can tell me, you can have your doctor tell me, or I can go Mission Impossible on your ass, and pull off a data-mining mission that puts Wikileaks to shame. And you don't want to see me in a wire harness, hanging from your OB-GYN's ceiling, wearing night vision goggles while you are getting your ultra sound now do you?

My Inaugural Post

5 things a male yarn crafter wants you to know…

1)      Knitting is Knitting, Crocheting Is Crocheting. You can do both, you can do both on the same project (I don’t know why you would). You cannot do both at once. Knitting involves both hands, each holding a needle, you transfer stitches from one needle to the next. Crocheting involves a hook in one hand, and hold the piece in the other, you transfer stitches directly onto the piece you are crocheting. The index finger on the hand holding the piece tensions the yarn. They are not alike, they are most definitely not the same thing, and the fastest way to tick a yarncrafter off is to keep telling them they are doing one when they are in fact, doing the other.  I don’t know if knitters are constantly told they are crocheting, but I am CONSTANTLY asked “what are you knitting?” The first time it happens, it goes something like this:

             

              Innocent bystander: “what are you knitting”

              Me: “I’m crocheting a <fill in the blank>”

              No-longer innocent bystander: “Oh my grandmother used to knit”

              Me: Did she? That’s swell, but I’m crocheting..see ? (holding up hook, and 

              displaying both my free left hand and a distinct lack of needles)

              Bystander who has obviously been sent from the depths of hell to torment me:

               “well I think it’s so cute to see men knitting!”

              Me: IYEH! IYEH! CTHULHU FTHAGN!!

        

At this point I’m picturing mummifying  her in baby melting acrylic and setting her on fire.
My eyes are glowing red, and I’m pretty sure there’s a scary pseudo latin choir chanting “Sephiroth” that only I can hear.

                     

Let’s recap shall we? In English it’s CROCHET & KNIT 

in French it’s CROCHETER &TRICOTER, 

in German it’s  HäKELN and STRICKEN.

Two separate words.. do you know why? 

BECAUSE IT’S TWO FRAKKIN SEPARATE THINGS!!!!!!!

2)      I play with yarn. Do not presume anything about me other than I play with yarn.  Do not think that just because I am playing with yarn and making pretty things that I am a) a homosexual (although I am); B) effeminate ( I am not), or any other ridiculous stereotype merely because I am doing something you do not traditionally associate with “manly” behavior. I don’t life live by your definition of manly behavior. My Grandfather knit when he was a young man, his father knit, and HIS father knit. These are dyed in the wool (pardon the pun) Salt-of-the-earth Irish hooligans. Call them girly..go ahead.. I’ll wait. I’ll even dial 911 for you..maybe.  If you choose to laugh at me merely because I’m crocheting and don’t fit in to your preconceived notion of what a man should do..please keep two things in mind. First thing.. I’m 6’1” and 275lbs.. chances are pretty good I am bigger than you and outweigh you. Secondly.. I have pointy objects in my hands that I can stab you with, and I have yarn I can garrote you with.. any questions? 

3)      If I am crocheting something, my head is down, my lips are moving silently, and I have stopped blinking, I am not having a psychotic break, I am not turning into rain man. The patterns I tend to like to make are somewhat complicated. I am just counting the stitches I am doing so I know where I am and what I’m doing next. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME. As soon as I look up, I’ll be back in the real world, but if you make me lose my place, May whatever God you worship have Mercy on your Immortal soul. I will not.

4)      When you find out I crochet, I will not automatically make socks, hats, scarves or anything else for you. Especially using nice yarn. Especially if you ask me any time from the last Thursday of November through to the first of January. If you ask me to make you anything during that time, I will laugh at you.  A lot. If you press the issue, I will give you a ball of yarn, and a hook, and make you do it yourself. Yes, I mean it.

5)      F**K Rosie Greer – If I had a dime for every time some no-doubt well meaning person has mentioned “oh you know that famous footballer..what’s his name..Rosie Greer.. he does cross stitch and needlepoint..” I would be a billionaire living on my own private island with a herd of Quiviut and a fleet of shirtless eastern European shepherd boys to spin the fleece into yarn for me. The fact that some man who faded from the national spotlight before I was born knew how to sew really doesn’t register with me. I’m a man. I Crochet.. a lot. I CAN knit (but I don’t like to). I don’t need anyone’s permission to do so, and I don’t need permission for it to be okay for a man to play with yarn and hooks and/or a pair of needles.  Men can knit. Men are very good at knitting. Men can crochet. Men are very good at crocheting.