A Plea for Reason

Hi friends.

I have thus far made a point of keeping this blog completely apolitical, because crafters fall into all walks of life and I don’t want to run people off by imposing my own views when you came here for crochet, cooking, or cartoons.

However, today (and I dearly hope today only), I have to get political.  Today Congress is considering two bills that would put the existence of this blog and most other social media in jeopardy.  This isn’t about net neutrality, and it’s really not about piracy either.  This is about the ability of any private actor to decide they want to wipe out any blog, and claim they are justified in doing so because the author may or may not have stepped on someone else’s intellectual property.  This is about censorship.

Please take a moment to read about SOPA and PROTECT IP, and consider writing your representatives in Congress.  I just did.

Thank you for reading,

Page

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/house-takes-senates-bad-internet-censorship-bill-makes-it-worse.ars

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/show

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s968/show

http://www.mozilla.org/sopa

http://americancensorship.org/

http://americancensorship.org/infographic.html

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Two Shawls!

By the time my fellow tech-monkeys and I started attending rehearsals for Charles Dickens Unleashed, the cast was mostly done assembling their costumes.  I asked if there was anything else they needed, and a call came back for accessories.  Specifically, there was a shortage of shawls.

Well, do I ever need more than a half-baked excuse to crochet something?

A few short weeks later (I have a day job, people), I give you two shawls!

(Please forgive the awful photo editing.  Turns out it’s tricky taking good pictures of large things that blend in with all my usual backdrops.  Go figure.)

Both are made with I Love This Yarn sport weight that I just happened to have in my stash.  The black shawl is made using an increasing treble stitch pattern.  Needless to say, it took both skeins of my sport weight, half a ball of a medium weight (also I Love This Yarn), and at least three times as long to complete as the white shawl.

I’m not entirely sure what the proper name is for the method I used to make Whitey.  It is basically a netting technique used most commonly in market bags.  It took only a skein and a half, and maybe a whole three hours to complete.

This the kind of project I live for.  It’s quick and easy, and when it’s done I have something pretty to show off.