Did you crochet those snowflakes on your tree??

Yes. I've done them in several batches. I often invite holiday visitors to take one home with them, so replacement/supplement sets have been made. A couple of?the flakes?are my own invention, one or two are single motifs?intended for bedspreads or tablecloths,?but most are from these books:

Of the two, I like the patterns in the green Leisure Arts booklet better than the red American School of Needlework leaflet. The LA flakes are?smaller, lacier and a bit more delicate. Both books are pretty easy for experienced crocheters to follow, but ?I'd recommend the red one if you're relatively new to thread crochet. Warning - this?IS thread crochet, although it's pretty large scale for that style. These snowflakes all look better done with smaller threads and hooks. You can work them with relatively large threads, size 10 and?bigger, but you won't get?flakes of a pleasing scale for hanging on a tree (they'll look nice as door or window ornaments, though.) ?Mine were done with size 20 crochet cotton, although the next batch I'll make will be with size 30 cotton, comparable to the stuff I used on the dragon curtain.

There are also lots of patterns for snowflakes on line, although I haven't tried any of them yet. Noel Nevins maintains a nice index to them at her thread crochet?website.

How was the cassoulet?

Wonderful. Worth the year's wait. Beyond that, words fail me. And when that happens you know I've been conked royal.

Is cassoulet the most complicated thing you've ever cooked?

No. In what now seems like a previous life, The Resident Male and I were very active in the SCA (East Kingdom, Barony of Carolingia). Among the many things we did was host a Valentine's Day event for the local group.

It was a themed day, and included several activities as well as a sit-down three course dinner for 125 people. The feast?offered up?nine main dishes from historical sources?(of which I can only remember seven), plus three in-between-course sweets. The theme of the day?was Chaucer's Parliament of Fowles poem, in which the birds hold court to debate the nature of love. ?It's more than 25 years ago, but as close as I can remember the "Feast of Fowles" ran something like this:

First course

• Ostrich eggs on salad nests - many chicken eggs cracked and separated, then the yolks poured into round golf ball sized?molds and cooked to set. The whites were poured into huge half egg-shaped molds. When they were mostly cooked, the centers were set inside two half-whites.
• Not Chickens - a chicken skin with legs and wings intact, stuffed with a forcemeat style sausage, sewn back into chicken shape and roasted.
• A barley-thickened chicken soup with leeks (broth made from the bones and scraps from the Not Chickens)
• First sweet - spun sugar nests with tiny marzipan birds

Second course

• Ham dressed in pastry to resemble sleeping swans
• Chicken pies - the meat from the Not Chickens after the soup was made, cooked with onions, leeks and bread,?made into open face pies
• ?
• Second sweet - Feather shaped shortbread cookies (?)

Third course

• Roast duck stuffed with kasha and onions
• Beef birds - rollades of thinly sliced beef, wrapped around garlic and mushrooms, then braised
• ?
• Third sweet - Peacock in its pride - three magnificently shaped and painted gingerbread cakes, each sporting heads, wings, and a fan of real peacock feathers behind.

There were also sallets (vegetable side dishes), brewed mead and ale, and nibbles offered earlier in the day. Before your mind boggles, please note that we didn't offer these dishes in full-serving-per person portions. There was enough of each for everyone to have a fair taste, and to be full at the end of the meal, but not enough to stuff everyone silly (For example, for each table of ten we sent out one pie, one duck, one Not Chicken, etc.)

The Resident Male and I did not do all the cooking ourselves. Lots and lots?of friends helped. They did the marzipan birds, the splendid?peacock cakes, the beef roulades, the mead and ale, and half of the Not Chickens. Most?of the rest we were able to cook together ahead of time and warm at the hall; the remainder we did on-site. RM ran the day-of kitchen, I ran the hall,?the service,?and arranged the entertainments, which included copious dancing (and flirting); a Court of Love adjudicated according to the rules of Capellanus; a poetry competition; and other gentle activities suited to the day and theme.

Needless to say, life has interfered with other pursuits and we don't do this sort of thing much any more.

I had the opportunity to hit my local library during the holdiay week. It appears that they're either culling their knitbook collection, or many other people had the same idea at the same time. The shelves were picked over, and even the older, dowdier looking books were in short supply. More investigations are necessary.

In any case, I did find this one:? Neighbors, Jane F. Reversible Two-Color Knitting. New York:? Scribners, 1974.

Neighbors appears to be a disciple of Barbara Walker (the book mentions her in the acknowledgements). The Walker legacy is also evident in layout and subject matter, both of which are very familiar if you know the Walker stitch treasuries.

Layout is very Treasury-like, with large, clear black and white photos illustrating each stitch. There are 12 pages of color illustrations showing the projects that accompany the stitch pattern directions. With the exception of one chart associated with the most complex project in the book, all directions are in prose.

The reversible techniques covered include

• Simple garter and knit/purl combos? - lots of tweedy-looking seed stitch and ribbing variants);
• slip stitch patterns - mostly?linen stitch variants, and "chain patterns" -linen stitch or other tweedy textures overlaid by columns of slipped knits that end up looking like embroidered chain stitch
• "Reversible geometrics" - slip stitch patterns that form regular (but different) designs on the front and back. One example of this is a vertical two-tone stripe that reverses to a horizontal two-tone stripe. This section also includes some mosaic-style slip stitch patterns.
• Motifs - Also included under geometrics, these are simple motifs worked in true double knitting to produce a double-thick fabric that shows a stockinette surface on both sides of the work. By necessity, motifs done in this techique swap colors front and back, so a red motif on a white ground would reverse to a white motif on a red ground. The double knit hat I made was done this way. Neighbors also describes stuffing the area created between the two faces of double knit motifs. She calls it Trapunto Knitting, a nod to the venerable quilting technique of the same name and similar method.

Patterns are marked as "true reversible;" "unlike reversible;" "alternate reversible'" and "opposite reversible" depending on the appearance of their flip side. Some but not all of the patterns assigned to the ?latter types are photographed both front and back. These photos are very helpful in understanding what the differences are.

The book also includes several simple projects in reversible knitting. I have to admit I found them uninspiring, but they are well described and would be good learning pieces. The best of the lot are some mittens, a shadow rib pullover, and a very 1970s wall hanging of a labrynth. The labrynth (the only charted project in the book) would be exceptional?updated as?a motif on a sweater, pillow,?or throw. The book ends with some solid discussions of project planning, motif mathematics and placement, specialized bind-offs for reversible patterns, and the basics of designing your own reversibles.

Reversible Two-Color Knitting is still in demand. I note that hardcover copies can command quite a premium, and have recently?sold in the $80-90 US range. (One optimistic seller has a? hardback edition priced at $150.) Paperback copies seem to go for $20-50 US. ?

Is it worth the premium price?? It's hard to say. Much of the material is available elsewhere. For example, many but not all of the stitches?Neighbors shows are covered in the four Walker treasuries. They're not called out by type of the pattern created on the reverse side, but they're there. The recently issued Fourth Treasury includes a previously published piece on vertical reversing to horizontal striping. There have also been other books on slip stitch and mosaic knitting of late that?plow this ground, too. It's harder though to find a book that discusses double sided double knitting. There are a couple (most notably Beverly Royce's Notes on Double Knitting), but they're?also not exactly easy to find.

I don't own this book, but I think I'd like to add it to my collection. I'll probably keep an opportunistic eye out for it at local general merchandise used book stores (the appearance of the thing is frumpy enough to languish on the shelves in shops unfamiliar with knitting content). I wouldn't pay a premium for it though, because while very useful it doesn't cover enough ground untouched by books I already have to justify a big investment.

It's the last day of the year, and like everyone else I should be looking back over the year past, and ahead to the year future.

Lessons Learned for 2004

First and foremost - blogging is fun and (I hope) less of an imposition on people than is?writing interminable posts to the knitting-related mailing lists. At least the audience here is self-selected. Plus I've never kept a knitting-specific journal before. I find myself going back and looking up what I've written before to see how or why I did something in a specific way. Who knew?

I learned a lot this year about the periodicity and use of variegated or hand/dyed yarns. Although the projects on which I employed them aren't completed yet (Crazy Raglan, Entre deux Lacs Tee, and Birds Eye Shawl), I did spend lots of time figuring out how to get the color effects I wanted given the color cycle repeat lengths. This remains a fascinating topic for me, and as each skein of hand-dyed offers up new challenges, won't be an area that becomes boring any time soon.

Filet crochet. I've done piddly little things in crochet before. Even blankets count as "piddly little" because they are generally very simple in motif and technique. Snowflake ornaments, a table-topper round cloth of simple design, several blouse yokes in the '70s, a couple of ill-conceived faux Aran style kids' sweaters, but nothing as complex as the filet dragon curtain. It turned out to be an even bigger project than I thought, and consumed the better part of five months. Lessons learned include the fact that no two companies' crochet hooks are the same size (even if so marked); the effect that near imperceptible differences in hook size can make on gauge; how to do a near-invisible join on adjacent strips of filet crochet; and how well the old graphed patterns for Lacis and other Renaissance needle arts can look in filet.

Along the way to the filet crochet project I learned that none of the methods of filet knitting I tried worked particularly well, nor were they fine enough in gauge to handle the complexity of the dragon graph. I'm not through with this subject yet. I did do some experiments in alternate techniques that were less cumbersome than the methods I had read about. I'll probably revisit this in the future.

Entrelac is much faster if you can force your fingers to knit backwards. I'm still no speed demon at left-to-right knitting, but I'm faster at it than I am at knitting and flipping at the end of each mini-row. Especially when those rows are only six stitches across.

I also learned (via my Suede Tee) that novelty yarns can bring a world of interest to a simple, well-drafted pattern, but at the same time can be a *(#@ to knit. Side note:? I am also not that pleased on how the Suede is wearing. The microfibers do tend to be grabby, and catch on even the slightest roughness.

I learned several methods of knitting a lace edging directly onto a piece, rather than making it as a strip and sewing it on later. The most fiddly but most satisfying came via the Forest Path Stole. I used it again on my Spring Lightning Scarf:

Under "miscellaneous," I learned a nifty I-cord trick that applies a band of cord to both sides of a strip of knitting (apologies for the blurry photo):

I also used?a highly trendy but extremely boring to knit kiddie poncho to experiment with double width I-cord treatments to help tame edge curl in large stockinette pieces.

And finally, I learned an important lesson about something to avoid in the future. If any of you have ever looked at a loosely plied yarn like the Paternayan's normally sold for needlepoint, and thought about how nice only one or two of those plies might be for lace knitting - take heed. Spare yourself. The yarn for the Larger Kid's simple drop-stitch rectangle poncho took longer to de-ply than it did to knit up. For this one, I still bear the scars...

Next year?

Who knows. If you've been reading along, you'll have noted that I'm more of a whimsy knitter than a planner. Projects leap up and seize my interest. Sometimes that interest wanders before I finish, but I (almost always) go back and work to completion. Eventually.

I'm finishing up a couple more unanticipated last minute gifts right now - more socks, and a pair of quickie Coronet hats from Knitty (one hat = one evening). Then it's back to the Birds Eye shawl and the Crazy Raglan. While I don't as a rule knit to deadline, the Raglan is for The Small One, and the one thing certain about 6-year olds is that they're a moving target growthwise. The shawl is a present that I really should finish by the summer. Unless another killer project like the dragon curtain ambushes and drags me off first...

Another pair of quickie socks. Unfortunately technical difficulties preclude my posting pix, but this is another pair knit from Lion Magic Stripes. Again the same as before - o.k. sport weight sock yarn; very inexpensive; ho-hum striping pattern (although to be fair, the repeat for Stonewashed Blue is about 6.5 inches long as opposed to the 1 inch repeat for Lumberjack Black). Ripped through the whole pair in one afternoon while playing with the kids on their new PS2 unit.

So ends my foray into Lion's sock yarn line, as both skeins (received as a gift) have now been knit up and presented to happy recipients. Which brings me to a question. Is receiving a yarn gift, knitting it up and then giving the resulting item as a present considered "regifting?"

I note that some regard the idea of regifting as being somehow suspect.I can agree that receiving something truly awful and then foisting it off on someone else just to get the thing out of the house isn't the most generous gesture in the world. But there have also been lots of occasions on which I've?received something perfectly nice that wasn't either to my taste, or wasn't useful to me. At the same time I knew that those items would be both deeply appreciated and used by others. Regifting in those circumstances seems less egregious.

But getting a yarn gift... Does it imply that the donor wants you to make something for yourself?? I've used yarn gifts to make presents for the person who gave me the yarn (but only for people who clearly would not expect such a thing). I've used yarn gifts to make things for third parties, or for charitable donation. Do those uses devalue the original gift?? Or is yarn once given entirely free of obligations or nuance, and eligible for any use the receiving knitter might desire?

Sort of.

Holiday knitting is four rows away from being finished; all cookies have been baked, packed and distributed; holiday cards are sent; the presents are all wrapped; the holiday wine is selected; the remaining incoming boxes have been retrieved from the post office; the roast is resting prior to cooking; the tree is decorated; and the kids have just put the final touches on the gifts they'll be giving to each other. And the replacement for my dead monitor showed up a week early!

So, what's a family to do?

Play Killer Bunnies!

Now for those of you who say that doing so violates the pan-humanist side of the end of year holidays, please note that no actual bunnies were harmed in the creation of the game.

There will be a hit or miss pattern of new String posts?over the coming week because we will all be home. The resulting chaos will probably preclude any regularly scheduled pursuits.

I wish all a year filled with health, prosperity, and the hum of happy fiber-related activities.

I promised a while back that I'd post pix of finished projects done from the patterns here, on wiseNeedle, or adapted from The New Carolingian Modelbook. I'm tickled to say that I've gotten pix from a couple of people recently.

First there's Frieda, who worked up these little blues from the Tiny Sock pattern I posted here on String. She's got a red one artfully posed on a present, too. Very cool!



This kiddie-size Taco Coat was done by Dana. She took the general principles of the thing, then invented her own. Great job!



I hope I'm not breaking blog-etiquette by posting the following links, as I've been too lazy this afternoon to write and ask permissions from the various original posters. But I'm posting links to the sites themselves, not pirating bandwidth, so it should be o.k.

Works from TNCM patterns can be found in several spots.

• Two handkerchief borders in blackwork embroidery
  by the very accomplished Lady Ethelind of Darkwind Keep (an SCA member from Caid)
  
• A magnificent blackwork panel, worked by Linda. Very nice!
  

I'm also wildly impressed by these knit things:

• See Saw Socks, knit by Marilyn (a pattern I sold long ago to KnitNet, that has been reprinted by them twice)
• Jelly Bean Toe Ups, also knit by Marilyn - pattern here
• The Knitting Geek took the basic texture pattern from my See Saw Socks and adapted it for a beautiful lacy scarf
• Impossible Socks done at a human gauge, knit by Katherine (who in an amazing coincidence, happens to be the highly talented mom of an old friend) - pattern here
  

Since I'm in this for fun not money, my biggest thrill is seeing what my pattern "children" are up to out in the real world. If you've ever knit or stitched something inspired by a work I've published, please let me know (and make my day). If you'd like me to post a picture or a link, please let me know, or leave a comment below.

Too good not to share immediately. Not everything that can be knit should be knit. Proof positive of this.

Heading out to a friend's house and need a hostess gift? Is that friend someone who makes you feel like your own cooking skills are limited to opening a jar of peanut butter? You CAN make something edible that they'll love, and you CAN do it with minimal skill. (Purists may object to using frozen puff pastry. They can make their own. I do it when it really matters, but for this the frozen kind is a useful stand-in.)

Cinnamon Nut Ears

Here's what you need to make about four to five dozen cookies. Enough for a generous looking pile on a plate. If you need fewer, use only half the box of pastry, half the sugar and cinnamon, and half the nuts. Although you'll end up using only a bit for brushing, you'll still need to crack one whole egg, as at last report chickens have not yet learned to lay halves. (Note that precision on the ingredients here doesn't matter much, so don't worry if you're not spot on.)

One box of frozen puff pastry from the supermarket's frozen desserts aisle.
1/2 cup of sugar, plus a bit more set aside for sprinkling
About 1 cup of shelled nuts (pecans, walnuts, almonds - it doesn't matter), chopped up fine.
One egg, cracked in a little bowl and beaten
About 3 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

At least one cookie sheet or flat pan. Two if you've got them.
A spoon
Baking parchment (looks like waxed paper, but is meant to go in the oven. Supermarkets carry it.) If you can't find any DON'T use waxed paper, instead smear the cookie sheet with butter or shortening.
A rolling pin, large dowel stick, or cylindrical glass.
Medium size mixing bowl
A knife, preferably serated.
A flipper or spatula to turn the cookies over
A rack or heat-proof surface on which to cool the cookies

1. Take the box of pastry out of the freezer about a half-hour before you begin.
2. Turn on your oven to 400-deg F.
3. Make a spotlessly clean, large clear spot on a countertop or very large cutting board.
4. Sprinkle some sugar on your clean spot.
5. Take the first puff pastry sheet out of the box (there will be two, packaged together). Gently ease it open and flat. Try to keep it from cracking along the folds. Sprinkle some more sugar on top.
6. Roll it out until it's about 1/8 inch thick. Try to keep it roughly rectangular and untorn.
7. Take a bowl and mix together the nuts, a half cup of sugar, and the cinnamon.
8. Paint the dough rectangle with the egg.
9. The bowl of cinnamon/sugar/nut stuff is enough for both puff pastry sheets, so figure on using only half of it in total for this first sheet. Keeping this in mind, liberally sprinkle your dough with about half of the amount you're contemplating using on sheet #1.

10. Fold the bottom edge of the dough up to the center line. Fold the top edge of the dough down to the center line.
11. Sprinkle about 2/3 of the nut/sugar mix you're reserving for this dough sheet on the resulting long thin folded dough blob.


12. Repeat step #10 to make an even narrower log.
13. Sprinkle the remainder of the nut/sugar mix across the top of the log.
14. Fold the log in half and pat it a bit so it stays in a log shape.
15. Using sawing motions instead of squishing motions, cut the log into slices roughly 1/4 inch thick.

16. Put a some parchment paper on the cookie sheet and place the slices on it. (If you don't have parchment, grease your baking sheet by rubbing butter or shortening on it, then put the cookies directly on the pan.
17. Bake the first sheet of cookies in the 400 degree oven for about 4 minutes. At the end of 4 minutes flip the cookies over and bake them for another 4 to 5 minutes. At the end of that they should be lightly golden and stiff. They may still look a little bit soggy, but they'll crisp up provided they've lost that translucent, doughy look.
18. Slide the whole sheet of parchment to a rack or heat-proof surface to cool. (This is one reason to use the parchment, otherwise you need to pick up the cookies one by one to put them on the rack to cool, plus the baking sheet will need to be washed before you put batch #2 on it).

19. After the cookies are cool, you can sprinkle them with confectioners sugar (highly optional) then put them in a box or tin, or cover them with plastic wrap.

See where one's missing from the photo?? That's the odd shaped one from the very end of the roll. That's the taste test portion reserved for the cook. (It served its function.)

Variation:
A savory as opposed to sweet cousin of this is to do pretty much the same thing, but dust the board with flour, but instead of stuffing the dough log with cinnamon and nuts to use lots of grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese (or a mix). A sprinkling of some type of herb or garlic is good, too (but optional). I like to serve this unsweet cheesy type of toast with soup and a salad.

One last scarf to go. Since (at this point) I'm brain dead and desperate for something quick and easy, it's a great thing that Knitty's latest came with a fast-knitting piece that offers great bang for the time unit investment. Add me to the legion of folks doing up a Wavy Scarf.



I'm using that same sport-weight alpaca I used for the Kombu I finished last week. Because it's of finer gauge than the standard-issue worsted written up in the pattern, I've added an additional six-stitch pattern repeat to make up the width. Mine is done on 48 stitches instead of 42. I'm also visually lazy, so I graphed out the pattern so I don't have to rely on the prose write-up. Note that if you want to use a different weight yarn, modifying the thing is quick and easy - either add or remove multiples of six stitches.

In other knitting-related news, most of my knit presents are winging their way cross country right now, or are about to be distributed to those nearby. Once this scarf is done I'll be done, done, done. (Huzzah!)

Cookie Liberation Front

Today's cookie was an experiment - a coconut/oatmeal drop, based on a standard brown sugar drop cookie recipe, with toasted oatmeal and unsweetened coconut tossed in. Since I had some whole blanched almonds left over, each was topped with a nut. Younger Daughter said the rough-shaped cookies with almonds atop them looked like birds nests, so that is now their name.

Tomorrow's cookies - Chocolate rounds stuffed with marzipan. I haven't decided to do them flat or folded in half like little chocolate/almond gyoza yet. Also another experiment, but this one will be a shortcut cheat. I'll be taking a sheet of frozen puff pastry, painting it with a beaten egg, then spreading it with sugar, cinnamon, and chopped pecans, folding it a bit and cutting it into elephant ears. Pix for sure, as this is something impressive looking even the Cookie Challenged could do.

Genetic Component of Crafting?

Marilyn the Knitting Curmudgeon posted an interesting thought the other day (one of many for her, I might add). She mused about whether or not the urge to do something like knit or make other crafts might have a genetic component to it. That got me thinking...

I'd guess that there would be a large inborn aspect to the desire to do these things. But I think there's more than one influence at work here. To simplify, I'd guess that there are at least two:

• Some set of things governing the process that generates original ideas
• Some set of things that governs the "gotta-do-it" urge

I know people who have a strong concept-generation bent. They fairly sweat ideas, finding new viewpoints or perspectives, synthesizing disparate influences, or distilling previous exposures in innovative ways. The most affected of them sometimes have a hard time sticking to one idea long enough to bring it to full fruition, and may not have even mastered all of the skills necessary for optimal completion, but neither limitation strikes them as a problem. A person like that is off and running, captive to the next idea before the earlier one is completed.

I also know people who have the "gotta-do-it" urge, but the idea generation set in them is less strongly manifested. They are in constant motion, producing endless streams of items verbatim from directions or patterns. They often have extremely accomplished sets of technical skills, but can be stymied by roadblock problems. I have a friend who would seize upon an idea and explore it in hundreds of minute variations. She'd make wonderful little toys or identical baby sweaters by the dozens (in the case of toys - by the hundreds). All were beautifully crafted, yet it often seemed that once she started, "retooling" to make something else was difficult for her. She'd hum along happy to make even more of the item under current exploration rather than switching to a new thing. For her I think that fulfilling the "gotta-do-it" urge to keep busy was the true reward.

And then there are the folks who have both influences working on them in various proportions. Some feel particularly pressured or depressed because they have an inexhaustible source of new ideas and the urge to see each through to completion, but rarely have the time available to accomplish them all. Others are at constant war with themselves, reining in their urge to start something new before the item at hand is completed, and (sometimes) growing to hate the almost-finished item for blocking the beginning of the next.

Why do I think this might be genetic? Because I've seen these urges run through families. Not every person in the family need have the exact same hobby, but the mindsets do replicate through the generations. I know my father was a very compulsive "gotta-do-it" guy. Detail oriented in the extreme, he was a classic definition engineer. He never just sat still, he was always reading something, tinkering with something, or meticulously graphing something (he would have adored PCs and spreadsheets but died before they were sold). I know families where the parents or grandparents are method makers or idea shedders. Their households are sometimes chaotic places, but their kids also scatter innovation behind them and flit from project to project.

Why do I think these things are inborn rather than learned? Because in some cases I see these traits skipping generations; manifested in a household where the older influence was physically absent while the younger example was growing; or emerging later in life. Plus I know from experience it's very hard to teach either creativity or perseverance. These are bents that people are born with. You can encourage these characteristics, but you can't transplant them into someone who doesn't lean that way to begin with.

I've got a very strong "gotta-do-it" bent. Perhaps it's related to the milder forms of ADD, but I find HAVE to be making something, and I've been this way as long as I can remember. Even as a little kid I had all sorts projects underway (and heaven help the adult who put them away before I was done). I even fell into needlework at a very early age, and completed my first clumsy cross-stitch sampler before Kindergarten.

Just sitting has always been extremely difficult for me. Even just sitting and listening/watching something is hard. My hands have to be occupied. When my fingers are distracted, my mind is free and I concentrate better. Conversely, if my fingers are free, my mind is bound by the minutiae around me and zeroing in on some one thing in specific is harder. That fly buzzing around the lecturer's podium; the interesting detail on the curtains behind her; the texture of the cracked wood at the edge of my seat; the air currents around my ankles; an amusing joke the guy sitting across the room told me last week; where I might be meeting with friends after the lecture; the faint sound of sirens outside the lecture hall; what color combo would be best for the thing I'm planning to make the day after tomorrow - all of these at once descend upon me and compete with the content being delivered in the lecture itself. Mindless autopilot knitting has always been my best defense against them.

I have to believe that I was born this way because I certainly didn't learn this behavior from anyone. I can't help this, it's just the way I am and I'm glad to have found the coping mechanism of knitting. So I guess I agree with KC's basic thought. There's an enormous genetic component to many people's affinity for crafts of all types. Why fight it?