I must think of a better name for this, link love just doesn’t sit right. But I’m drawing a blank, so let’s just get to the links, shall we? (Leave a comment if name that I can use comes to mind!)

First a couple of stories. As I’ve mentioned previously, I listen to a lot of podcasts. Often I get behind on them, as I go through phases in my work – lots of machine knitting (music for this, as the knitting machine is too loud to follow a story well, plus I have to keep on things like row numbers and stitch counts. Grooveshark and 8tracks are my go-to sites for music by the way – if you have a profile there, let me know in the comments, I love discovering new-to-me music by poking around people’s playlists.

Then there are the periods of computer work and wrangling text and numbers into a coherent pattern. This is accompanied by silence, or some Zion-style Dub (I am SO not down with the kids(!) when it comes to music terminology, but I don’t really care) to drown out any distracting background noise.

And then there are those long glorious periods of making by hand – knitting, crocheting, or seaming the machine knit pieces together. And then I get to listen to my stories! I’m often listening to the back catalogue of various casts, and sometimes, like today, themes converge – such as being an outsider, as in A Hole To China, by Catherynne M. Valente via LightSpeed Magazine; and Some Of Them Closer, by Marissa Lingen, via Escape Pod – both links have text and audio.

The first is a fantasy piece about a girl who belatedly starts to dig a hole to China, because she feels that’s what normal children do, and the second a sci-fi piece about a woman returning to Earth after working as a Terra-Former, and finds Earth the different, yet the same – not enough of either to be comfortable. Both stories touch on how we think that others feel we should be (i.e. putting words in others mouths, or rather, opinions in other people’s minds), and acting on those supposed opinions – conforming, or not. As some one living in a ‘foreign’ country, and as an introvert, both are lingering with me.

Nature Spun Sport

Because I don’t like posting without photos – look at this photo Kat took for me! I know one of the downfalls of my site is the lack of good photos, so slowly I’m rectifying that. I’ll post more in another post, I just wanted to inject some fabulous colour into this post. POW!

As you may know, I sell Nature Spun Sport (and all other Brown Sheep yarns such as Lamb’s Pride) by Special Order, and the next deadline for orders is this Monday, 20th May full info here. (It also comes in Fingering, ‘Worsted’ (which knits as a DK), and Chunky weights.)

But back to more link love.

Jana, over at justblock(gg)ed, has posted a tutorial about making tassel stitch markers from scrap yarn. They look gorgeous. I’d be a bit bothered about knitting them into my work though, so if I attempt making them, I may but the tassel on a split ring, rather than a loop of yarn.

Finally, Tom over at Tom of Holland, has posted about colour dominance in stranded colourwork, and comes to the conclusion (which I agree with), that the ‘rules’ of colour dominance, and yarn wrangling may not be as set in stone as previously believed. I’ll pontificate on this more when I have some swatches to show you