{"id":482,"date":"2006-01-24T18:12:25","date_gmt":"2006-01-24T08:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.randomknits.net\/?p=482"},"modified":"2006-01-24T18:12:25","modified_gmt":"2006-01-24T08:12:25","slug":"482","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/?p=482","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Drumroll, please.
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\nThe shawl is blocked, and I can finally say it is finished.
\nThe finished measurements are 115cm (45″) square. It’s in fingering weight yarn on 3.5mm needles, and used 1400 metres (1530 yards) of yarn.
\nI do intend to eventually make the pattern available, just as soon as I work out how to write an understandable pattern and how to use the knitting font to make charts.
\nA few days ago, Ailsa<\/a> made a post about why she blogs, and today the Yarn Harlot<\/a> made her blogiversary post, and she also mentioned the virtues of blogging (and knitting) friends. Isn’t it funny how one thing will get you thinking, then all of a sudden, whatever you were thinking about is everywhere?
\nAnyway, today I received a belated Christmas gift from Jill<\/a>, who was my first real online knitting friend, and this really topped off my thinking.
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\nGlass knitting needles. (Sorry for the crappy pictures) Aren’t they gorgeous? I will probably not use them, I’d be terrified of breaking them (and also of cutting my knitting if I did break them!) They will be displayed somewhere prominently, but I love<\/em> them.
\nI don’t have a great many “real” friends. Emily started a new school last year, and as it’s High school, all I do is pick her up, I don’t have much to do with the other parents. As for dancing, the bitchiness and competiton and bad mouthing doesn’t interest me. I used to listen to it, and believe it and let it get me down, now I just avoid them.
\nNone of my friends are knitters. The only people I know in so-called real life who knit make novelty scarves and not much else. To each his own, but for a long time I wondered where the other people who like to knit garments and use wool and alpaca and order copious amounts of yarn from the internet were. For a long time I didn’t knit, I have no local yarn store, and the crap that was available didn’t interest me.
\nThree years or so ago, I started knitting again and looked for knitting on the internet. Yarn! Tools! Patterns! Accessories!
\nKnitters!<\/em>
\nNo-one I know in real life would ever think to give me glass knitting needles. (No offence, DH!) DH is happy to buy me knitting related gifts, but I have to point out what I would like bought for me. Mind you, I would be exactly the same if I wanted to buy him a computer game.
\nIt is such a pleasure to know people now with whom I can discuss yarn and patterns and gorgeous knitting accessories. People who understand my obsession with yarn, and don’t ask “Why?” when I’m knitting a sock. People who don’t look at me like I’m insane when I buy another knitting book or order yet more yarn from the internet. It’s truly a pleasure to go to Stitch and Bitch and spend an afternoon with knitters.
\nOn the whole, the vast majority of people I have met (both online and in the flesh) through this blog have been wonderful people, who I’m glad to call friends.
\nAnd who can admire glass knitting needles without asking why.
\nOkay, I’m over the sappy shit now \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drumroll, please. The shawl is blocked, and I can finally say it is finished. The finished measurements are 115cm (45″) square. It’s in fingering weight yarn on 3.5mm needles, and used 1400 metres (1530 yards) of yarn. I do intend to eventually make the pattern available, just as soon as I work out how to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}