My librarian Metadata Coordinator friend Paul passed along a link to this blog post.

Blogger The Rabid Paladin did some excellent sleuthing, and managed to track down the origin of that list of 100 random-ish books that’s been making the rounds lately.

“Well, at this point I abandoned the Big Read as a likely red herring and went for list composition. The ordering of the list is specific and that should be something I can search against, right? After all, how many lists start off with Pride and Prejudice, right?”

Long story short: the list was the result of a poll, which explains some of the oddities. (Like the inclusion of both “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” AND “The Chronicles of Narnia.”

Tags: I heart people who do their own research, Who doesn't love a good meme?

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I’ve been doing a lot of swatching this week:

Upper left: two swatches of the Noro sock yarn held together with Knit Picks essential, one on #2 and one on #3 needles. Upper right: Reynolds Whiskey, which I’ll probably use in my next pattern-for-sale project. Lower left: Jo Sharp’s Silkroad DK. Lower right: Louet Gems Riverstone.

I bought the Jo Sharp Silkroad DK to use for a Celtic Cabled Scarf [Ravelry link] Non-Ravelry link [pdf].

Isn’t that scarf beautiful? I want it. I want it so bad.

I didn’t think I needed a swatch of the Silkroad. In fact, I was all prepared to launch right into the scarf. But I like to keep a swatch of new yarns in my “swatch library” for future reference. So I dutifully knit up a swatch.

Good thing I did.

The Silkroad is so, SO beautiful and soft. But once you block your swatch, it both relaxes and halo-ficates such that any – ANY – stitch definition is lost.

Compare it to the Riverstone swatch. Both swatches have seed stitch at the edges. Look how much sharper those stitches are in the swatch on the right.

I was dismayed, to say the least. I went down a needle size, and swatched the Silkroad with some random cables.

OMGWTFBLECCH! I can hardly even tell which side is up! Can you?

Compare this to the amazing stitch definition of Cascade 220. Even after a few years of wear, and several washings, the cables on my Stulpens still really “pop.”

So… I don’t know. I’d return the Silkroad to the yarn store, but I love it so much. I just need to find a project that doesn’t require any stitch definition or body. Maybe some flip-top mittens, knit at a super-tight gauge in the round.

In other news, today was a really big day!

Earth finally tilted with the seasonal progression such that I had to shut the curtain at my office window in the late afternoon. Every year I mark the First Curtain day with a happy sigh.

Tags: cabled scarf, Celtic Cabled Scarf, Jo Sharp Silkroad DK, Louet Gems Riverstone, Reynolds Whiskey, Stulpen

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I don’t like the looks of the clouds that just rolled in.

Tags: weather panic

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Here’s the scene that greeted me from my office window this morning:

Things are white, which yesterday were green. This displeases me.

That being said, this doesn’t look like it’s going to be as bad as the December snow-mageddon. The one where I was stuck at home for 17 days, and without running water for 8 days, (although the pipes thawed just in time for Christmas), and my dad drove up from Portland to take me grocery shopping, and I stuck my car in a ditch* trying to get out of the driveway, and I slipped on the ice and gave myself a concussion.

That was a bad snow. Very bad. No biscuit!

Last night I rummaged through my bin of sock yarn and came up with two skeins that will go together passably well. I swatched a few times, then cast on for a pair of socks. One strand of Noro Kureyon sock yarn, and one strand of Knit Picks Essential.

Usually I like to choose two colors which are nearly identical, or at least similar in color value. But in this case, there’s nothing that’s going to match a skein of Noro. Except I guess another skein of Noro. (I did briefly think about buying a new skein of Noro in order to knit the one I have. But I decided that the madness stops here.)

* I dithered over that sentence for a long time. The conventional phrase is, “my car got stuck in a ditch.” But I have developed a severe allergic reaction to the passive tense. I’m sure you understand.

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With permission, I’m posting a pic from a family friend’s recent trip to NYC. He and his traveling companion decided to stage a mini-protest on Wall Street.

(Click for big)

Tags: Sharpie + posterboard = win!

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