Worked some on the Airy Cardigan last night. Not in love with hairy yarn right now.

I also added another stripe to the Vintage Vertical Stripe blanket. This is good "frustrated" crafting - as in "I don't like you right now, Airy Cardigan, you are in Time Out so I'm going to work on this nice well-behaved double crochet."

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Nearly every thread I've been following on Ravelry (well, except the ones in the Scientific Knitters and Ivory Tower Fiber Freaks, which update rarely) seem to now be populated by people who either:
1. Think the in-jokes that only they and two other members of Ravelry get need to be shared with the whole board.
2. Are doing the old "mote/beam" thing ("You horrible stinky-waffle lint-licker! How dare you insult that other person by using that term [which any reasonable person would consider to be less insulting than stinky-waffle lint-licker])

The old "mote/beam" thing is one of the things that frustrates me greatly about dealing with my fellow humans.

or
3. Saying "I should be able to be as rude and insulting to the relative strangers sharing this board as I want to be; it's who I am and expecting me to have any shred of politeness forces me to deny my true nature as a Special, Wonderful, and Unique person!'

So in other words: it's going through the typical cycling that every message board I've ever belonged to, got tired of, and wound up leaving, had. (I'm just glad the Science Knitters and the Academic Knitters still seem reasonably sane.)

I guess the good news is I'll be spending less time on there for now.

*****

So, since nothing and no one around me is behaving the way I'd prefer it to (with the possible exception of the Clapotis and the Vintage Vertical Stripe blanket), here's a book review:

I ordered the new book "Knitting New Mittens and Gloves" by Robin Melanson. It came the other day.

Now, normally I tend to avoid craft books with "New" somewhere in the title; all too often "new" is code for "if you're over 25 or more than 10 pounds over the insurance-company height-weight tables, there's probably nothing in here you'll want to make, unless it's for your younger slimmer hipper sister."

But I wanted this book, for two reasons:

I have "Knitting New Scarves" which is sort of a companion volume - bought that one based on "good buzz" I read on several blogs.

and it's by Robin Melanson, who has interesting ideas and whose patterns I often like.

I liked "Knitting New Scarves." It's a fascinating book to consult - all kinds of different ways of doing things I hadn't thought of before, lots of scarves that are more art pieces than traditional scarves. I might never make anything out of the book (though I might, still), but I like having it just for the ideas.

I like "Knitting New Mittens and Gloves" even better, for two reasons:

there's more stuff in here that's actually wearable in a practical sense. (And yeah, I admit it: I have no pretensions as an artist. Most of the stuff I make - well, with the exception of all the toys - is useful in some way. A big part of my fascination with making stuff is that I can create something USEFUL with my own two hands. I don't get to do that in my career - I may do useful things, but I don't make useful things, and when I'm too busy to work on stuff, or when it's all long term projects where I'm not finishing anything, I do feel that lack of being able to point to something and say, "I made that.")

I also like the book because many of the mittens, gloves, wristwarmers, and sleevelets have evocative names and even little backstories. I'm a sucker for a good name. That may be why I prefer the Interweave magazines to all others - I'd rather knit a sweater that has a name that evokes a spring day in Japan, or references a character in a book I read, than one that is "25" or "18." In other words - the design has to be awfully wonderful for the sweater to appeal to me without a name. That's just how my brain works.

Well, Melanson does name all of her projects. And she does something else I like - she recalls/pays homage to other cultures - either cultures that are "foreign" to North America, or cultures of the past. A lot of her projects have a slight Celtic flavor and have Celtic names (often named for figures from mythology). There's Ceangaltas, which are a heavy pair of mittens adorned with i-cord that is wrapped to resemble Celtic knotwork. And Glaistig, a pair of lacy fingerless mitts named for a faunlike creature from Celtic mythology (it is one of my favorite patterns in the book and I think I will make it sometime). There's also an interesting pair of open mittens based on old Norwegian Kirkevott, where there's a flap that covers the back of the fingers, leaving the underside of the fingers free (They're also called "wedding mittens" which kind of makes sense for the exchanging-of-rings. I remember reading in an old, old etiquette book that if a bride wanted to wear long gloves with her gown, she either needed to take them off - or have the left glove made with a slit in the ring finger - so the ring could be properly placed on her finger).

There's also a nifty little pair of driving gloves - fingerless, tight-fitting, with little openings for your knuckles when you grip the steering wheel. I might make those, too, because these cold mornings it's kind of nice to have something on your hands for driving, but conventional fingerless gloves sometimes make it hard to grip the steering wheel safely. (And given how some of the folks here drive first thing in the morning, it's good to be able to drive as defensively as possible).

There are more conventional gloves and mittens in here - a couple patterns that can be made to fit children, as well.

My one complaint is that a few of the more "eccentric" designs (like Gothic) are not shown on hands; they are just photographed lying flat and empty and it's a little hard to tell exactly how they fit. But other than that, I liked it.

(Note to Erika of RedShirt Knitting, if she reads this: There IS an index but it's only indexed by yarn weight. Okay, maybe another drawback to the book is that it would be nice to have the patterns indexed by type - whether glove, mitten, fingerless glove, or armwarmer. Because it's a little hard to tell from the names unless you remember specifically what project a name represents).

Still, it's a very pretty little book, and it has some ideas for various types of hand/arm coverings I had not thought of before. It's an "inspirational" book, good to look at even if I never knit anything from it. (But I think I probably will...there are several good "practical" patterns in there, and some that may be less practical but are fun.)

****

And an addition to the general "it's chaos around me now": someone is drilling masonry and pounding nails into it down the hall. I am telling myself that it's someone working installing the new water-still I will need; that's what's keeping me from running screaming out of my office. I HATE the sound of drilling, especially on masonry.