Since Comcast’s dns server went down this afternoon (until about five minutes ago) and Cody was up at 4 pm anyway for a phone meeting we decided this was a good day to visit the dog park. We went to the Rio Rancho one which is nice but Winter hates the tiny rocks they use all over the ground there. Teeny tiny shale pieces get between her big princessy foot pads and she doesn’t like that one damn bit. But it does file her nails down which she really needs because we are terribly slack when it comes to nail care in this house. Her nails and the cat’s litter are the only two things I get self-conscious about in the pet care department. Otherwise they live better lives and eat better food than a lot of humans.

The good part about this dog park is it’s spankin new and has great picnic tables so I sat and worked on my sister’s shawl while talking with other owners and the puppies all played together. There was a teenincy long-haired teacup chihuahua that kept jumping up on the table and curling up on my knitting. It was very cute and I didn’t mind - hell with the number of cats in this house how could I - but the owner was worried she would hurt the knitting and kept picking her up. Sad to say but the little perfumed dog was smelling better than I was after a warm afternoon working with mohair so I really wasn’t all that worried.

Speaking of cleanliness we went to Joann fabrics and bought a bunch of cheap cotton yarn so I can start making washcloths. I’ve decided washcloths are going to become my standard present thing. Knit a few up, fold and stack em, tie a ribbon around them and add a nice bar of soap..that’s a nice present! For anyone really. And if I want to get really fancy I’ll hit the nambe outlet and get a small bowl to put them in. Don’t hate me because I have access to outlet stores for such fabulous artisan crafted stuff…I also can’t get anything delivered to my house other than pizza and haven’t been able to find a decent skill-appropriate job that doesn’t involve a goddamned call center.

I’m going to try the chenille flower-shaped washcloths from last minute knitted gifts as well but I don’t have any chenille yarn yet. Right now I’m going with knitting two washcloths from one two dollar skein of cotton ombre yarn. Finally something I want to knit up that’s cheap!

Like everyone else I’m very excited about the new knitty but with Comcast’s crippling cable connection (a little alliteration) I haven’t really been able to enjoy it. But I know that I’m going to be knitting this before the summer’s over! That’s the first pattern for a sweater I’ve seen that I think I’d look good in. And I’m really happy that the pattern is by the woman behind femiknitz.

I remember my brother-in-law asking me what exactly feminist knitting was over Christmas and I wasn’t able to define it at the time. I honestly can never tell if he actually cares when he asks questions like that or is just trying to quiz me so I didn’t try that hard to answer. My definition of things like that change fairly often and I really like knowing that the folks at femiknitz have different interpretations of the term as well.

There are lots of interesting sites out there that combine activism or other interests with their knitting.

The first website with such acticraftism (yeah I totally just made that up) I was aware of (thanks to Mac) long before I started this knitting thing was Knitters Against Bush (since the site it no longer active I’m linking to an article about it). Hell, that site made me want to learn to knit.

Since learning to knit I’ve discovered there are a lot out there. Like the Revolutionary Knitting Circle, or the infamous Wombs on Washington group that has people knitting the womb pattern from knitty with plans to cover the steps of the capitol with them on April 25th. If you’re interested there’s a great livejournal group for this too. Livejournal has TONS of politically-related knitting groups… knitters for change and Ethical Crafters to name just two.

Women knitting items for charities goes at least as far back as the American Revolution so of course there are countless projects out there with plenty of things I could knit for them if I felt the urge to knit and didn’t have a project in mind (which seems unlikely even this early in my knitting experience but I’d like to make stuff for these charities anyway). Like blankets and beds for the Critter Knitters’ Coalition (which is for animals in New York but I’m sure any local shelter would be happy with a donation.. or Hugs for Homeless Animals can help you with an idea), a blanket for a child or teen for Binky Patrol or a blanket for terminally ill children for Project Linus, a red scarf for the Red Scarf Project, or any kind of wearable item for a homeless war veteran. Or just pick one from the crafting for a cause livejournal group or the list at crafty bitch’s site.

As far as interests in seemingly unrelated subjects and finding a way to relate them to knitting there are sites like punk knitters, and the knitting tarot.

Don’t even get me started on the delight I get in the various knitblogs out there. So fun to get these glimpses of people and their knitting and lives. A few of them I could even meet in person if I could get my agoraphobic ass to leave the house and drive myself on the nights Cody’s working.

Imagine my surprise when after all this delightful knitsurfing I’ve been doing I stumbled onto my first right-wing knitblog. Going from such great patterns to diatribes about the evils of tax-paid welfare systems and the UN. Yikes. I don’t think I want to knit that great purse now, all I’d think about is how this person referenced an article about “the culture of life vs the culture of death” on the notoriously republican townhall website.

So it seems that the pattern means more to me than the just the resulting project. How I feel about the person who came up with it seems to affect how I feel about making it. Interesting.

Yeah, apparently I suck like that. The other day I started watching some random-ass movie with Goldie Hawn and Mel Gibson but was unable to watch it for long - and while the plot sucked I’ve definitely watched and enjoyed worse more than once. I never fell into the pool of women who found him attractive in the first place but now I just hear his icky Americanized Australian accent and think about how he made the world’s most popular snuff film. Sorry but, come on. All the pain and torture and suffering in that film shows the Christian concept of Christ’s love about as much as a mother showing graphic videos and talking endlessly about months of nausea and hours of excruciating labor and bloody birth shows the love for her child. Give me a friggin break.

It’s all knitting all the time these days. Sorry for those who don’t really care about it but I tend to jump into things like this with both feet running.

It’ll balance out but I got a bit burned out on the site after all the women in history writing. I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it and I got some great feedback - thankfully none that criticized my crazy writing style, lack of depth, choice of profiles, or outright factual errors - all of which could’ve been justified at one point or another. But boy that was a lot of work to do every day. I’d like to post a few more - maybe one a week or something. But I really don’t want to regard writing in this thing like a it’s a job. Or think much about who’s reading it (Hi Mom). Because I think the posts really suffer when that happens. Unfortunately my best writing lately has been in the comments on other peoples’ sites - despite my dislike of hijacking people’s comment sections. So go read Mikey, Mac, and Luka’s sites. I’ve made some fun comments there this week.