The Alternative Advent: Day 6
And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any number of other useful objects—
Haven’t yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food?
Bill Bryson
Is it any way to capture food?
Of course not, but despite the indelible blow they struck for hapless babysitters in Halloween, their appeal was on the wane— until fairly recently. The information age have made them sexy again. Forget about knitting being the new ‘going out’; because that Roman-Candle just never sticks. Last week, ‘staying in’ was having a revival; before that it was black and it won’t be long before the new black is once again an absence of colour.
It is for some though, the new sex and while there are octogenarians who’d argue that this was always the case— and not just because it strengthened hand muscles and their ability to grip things— but because it catches the imagination in ways I’m only just beginning to understand.
Even I cast a few loops from time to time and rip away for a while error free. I leave plenty ‘signatures’, quite substantial some of them— but any past-time where the word ‘mistake’ is semantically questionable gets the thumbs up from me. They’ve been doing it with every single subject in English schools for a long time.
And is it really surprising it’s thought of as sexy, with stitches called the stockinette or the garter? If they’re for the flirty knitter, perhaps the ribbed stitch is arguably exclusive for her.
That said, I say not. As impressive as these double-knitted, slip-stitches look, they’re just a little bit unmanly. Instead of ‘stitch one, purl one’, why not alternate to the ever diminishing decimal places of pi: ‘stitch one, purl four, stitch one, purl five, stitch nine’ and on and on, ad infinitum?
Combine that with the geometric elements of Cavandoli macramé and you’ve got yourself some yarn-candy for the geeks. For the super geeks though, you’d need something much better…
You see, some materials create more static electricity than others because of their tendency to either give up electrons and become positive in charge or attract electrons and become negative in charge.
Wool for example, just throws its electrons away willy-nilly— so it stands to reason that if you made needles that wolfed them down, you’d have the potential for potential energy. That and electric shocks for whomever was brave enough to use them.
I’d probably try a spiny, teflon-coated-copper-core, with a Styrofoam moulding to bring it flush with exposed spines, and finish it off with a non-conducting gripper, so as not to earth any of the latent charge before it had time to get frenzied; or just ask someone who knows the difference between beans to make some for me.
Add to them a miniaturised version of the pedometer to record the number of stitches stitched in a sitting and you’ve got yourself the makings of a game: equation based of course.
There would be two sums involved:
-
The duration of the session divided by the number of stitches recorded; and
-
dropped stitches divided by shocks received
And by dividing the the product of those two sums, you get your index.
Of course, the real fun would be to give a couple of these new fangled sticks to season hardened biddies who have a stitch count you can measure in the balls [of yarn] per minute, or BPMs…
And then just sit back and see what happens…
They’d do it for the status amongst the other biddies—
And respect of course. Who’d wanna mess with a juiced up granny?
- Purl & Knit (bethsviscom.wordpress.com)
- Knit one, purl one… (cecilewendlandt.wordpress.com)
- A disturbance in the force (daftthoughts.wordpress.com)
- knitting in the round (thing) (everything2.com)
- The post to begin it ALL (lovelythreads.wordpress.com)
- stitch marker (thing) (everything2.com)
- That Darn Scarf! (thebendyknitter.wordpress.com)
Just a Little Background Noise 2.0 
no one. everyone who has a mind knows better than that.
That’s right *nodnod* and not just because they’re armed!
You are hilarious and brilliant =)
Thank you very much 😀 it’s just my spin on certain themes I’ve been reading about – like every other post for that matter.
Kind words make a big impact, so woohoo! 😀
No one says it like you, you are wickedly amusing =)
Well that makes it all the more worth-while. I’d have happily settled with wicked! 🙂 I’d just hate my writing to smell of tweed! There’s far too much of that about 😀
What is your preferred fabric smell exactly lol
Summer meadows, although I’m quite partial to that irony smell too :p
hehe =)
*smiles*
When I eat chinese food, I use a fork. Leave the sticks to the juiced up old cronies, lol.
Ha, it’s the verb which makes the statement. I love the idea of capturing food 😀
Yes…come here little chocolate chip cookie, let me capture you. hehe
It puts a whole new spin on looking at food. Go hunt and gather your treats!
I can’t imagine how the people of the olden days did all that hunting and killing..I think I would have given up meat and just ate plants…perhaps some berries for my sweet tooth..
They, first they chopped sticks then prety much everything started from there – fire, clubs, eating utensils for the better-dressed savages…
It’s an interesting point. There are those who promote the paeleo-diet, but they don’t take into consideration the meat we eat today, is very, very different to the meat they ate then. On the other hand, chocolate is chocolate. I’m sure you’d have survived :p
I also use a fork! But amazingly my children all know how to use chop sticks very, very well! LOL
🙂 get ’em while they’re young. I’m so glad I took up golf when I was a kid. I’d hate to have to learn now. It’s bad enough after a short break! Silly game.
Knitting and static shock… two things I can live without. If I was the last man on earth, and no woman would knit my clothes, I would probably live in a cave in the nude, rather then knit. I would make a shirt out of wool and duct-tape, if I was going to have company over at my cave, so I would be a good host and not a creepy caveman! well, wearing duct tape clothes and living in a cave, would technically still make me a creepy caveman. I have honestly never considered this hypothetical. I would have to hope that someone would knit clothes for me, or that the Apocalypse wouldn’t involve giant alien moths harvesting the world’s clothing supply for food…
it is late, I got 5 hours of sleep last night, and I think I am a bit slaphappy…
Ha – very strange stuff! 😀
Yes, I am a dork, and extra-dorky when slaphappy lol
Ha! The whole duct-tape thing was really funny! 😀
Yes, duct-tape is truly a mulch-purpose tool!
Well, they say: if it moves and you don’t want it to – duct tape! Never heard it used to make jumpers though! 😀
I think I saw someone use it as a band-aid once… definitely wasn’t Ph.D material, if you know what I mean 😉
I’ve used electrical tape many a time for cuts and what you – particularly on construction jobs – a bit of spit, tissue and wrap the bejesus out of it!
I think you should develop your idea before I do it for you :p