The Shtick I Do

Sorry this blog post is coming a day late! I spent the week with my gorgeous mother, and then got home late last night. At any rate, if you didn't guess by the title, I wanted to give my oh so humble opinion on circular knitting needles as opposed to straight knitting needles. Just to show the difference between the two for newer knitters or those of you maybe thinking about knitting and debating on which needles to buy: Image borrowed from thinkcrafts.com via Google Images Straight on the left, and circular on the right. Now, functionally, they're essentially the same. With straight needles you would typically knit flat (like a scarf), and with circular needles you would knit things like socks and hats. You can't do that with flat needles. Reason numero uno why I prefer circular over straight! Straight needles are fairly limiting.(Learn to knit flat with circular needles here .) Reason number two? With some circular needles, you can adjust the length of the ...

Hookers? Well that's a term . . . umm . . . let me quote an expert here: " . . . the first printed crochet pattern appeared in a Dutch magazine early in the nineteenth century . . . As the appalling conditions of lace makers became known to the American women, they started to get interested in creating the work themselves rather than supporting the abusive practices of the lace making industry. In a book published at the time, a lace manufacturer admitted that he expected his workers to turn a few tricks on the side to make up for his not paying them a living wage. As Donna Kooler suggests in The Encyclopedia of Crochet , this may even explain how the word "hooker" came to have such wayward connotations. " ~ Debbie Stoller   Stitch 'n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker Now since crochet has only been around for a little over 200 years ( * ) and no one really knows where it started we can pretty much only rely on what's been written. Knitting has bee...