Fridays are officially out

I was in bed this morning waiting for my mother to call, as she does every Saturday, and it occurred to me that I'd forgotten to post yesterday! And I almost gave up altogether. But you know what? Fridays are hard! Spanky always wants to go out, so I either give in, and then have too many margaritas, or I fend off her pleas to eat out and go home, which means I inevitably end up working late and then scrounging in the fridge for week-old vegetables to make some sort of dinner from. And then it's close to ten pm, and the dog needs walking and so forth. And as I was laying there in the bed, I figured FUCK IT. Fridays are out! I'm giving myself permission to skip Fridays.

So that brings us to today. Which was relatively quiet. Spanky watched Spain advance in the endless World Cup, and I watched the rest of a very charming indie movie called Dakota Skye on Netflix Instant on my computer. It's about a girl in HS that can tell when people lie to her and what they really mean, so she's discounted all human interactions as being inauthentic, and then she meets the one boy who doesn't ever lie to her...or does he? It's a cute movie, and a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon when you can't stand those damn soccer horns anymore.

Anyhow, I thought as a Saturday treat, and since I'm not prepared with photos of partially knitted items, I thought I'd talk about podcasts for a sec. I know if you are a knitter, chances are you listen to at least a few. I like podcasts a lot, because I commute on the train, and although I sometimes listen to music or the occasional audiobook, a lot of times I'll just put on a podcast. They are engaging on one level, and just boring enough that if something happens, and you have to dodge a car or something, you don't feel like you have to rewind because really, mostly they're just people blathering on about their own knitting, right? So if you miss a few minutes of that because you've tuned it out, no harm done. I'm going to go with my top seven, out of the many available:

1. Stash and Burn has got to be my favorite. I love Jenny and Nicole, and I never really get annoyed with them. They play good music, they're honest about what they like and dislike without being too judgmental or mean about it, and they just seem like girls I'd like to be friends with. I also like that it started out as a podcast about working through their stash, and after a year or so of that, they relaxed that into a more realistic view of yarn acquisition. Sometimes I wish they were dealing with it more directly again, but the do bring it up. Also, they have a pretty awesome group on Ravelry.

2. Cast On is also really always worth it. Brenda Dayne has probably the most professional sounding podcast, with actual segments and musical breaks, and so forth. I do find parts tedious, like the songs, which are usually all the same type, and rather boring, I think. But they're easy enough to fast forward through, and I appreciate her story-telling ability, her intelligence, and the fact that she's a sister. Oh, also the fact that she's not a twenty-something woman. I like having varied perspectives on knitting. Not everyone is into the same thing, and sometimes it's cool to hear from people who know more than you about something.

3. Sticks and String, which I'm sure you all listen to as well. David Reidy is an Australian guy who knits, and he's got pretty entertaining stories as well. Plus, it's interesting having been to Australia, to hear him talk about places I visited in Sydney. Also, I like the way he organizes the podcast. He's got general chit chat, an essay, ONE song, and then more chit chat. And the music he picks is instrumental most of the time, and sort of new-agey, but in a non-annoying way. Most of the time, I find that I'm half way through the song before I realize that the music is playing, so it's very soothing.

4. The Savvy Girls Podcast is a relatively new one for me. I didn't think I would like this one, but I really, really do. I think it's pretty underrated. The podcast is put together by two sisters, one of whom lives in South America (but apparently travels a lot for work), and the other is a classically trained opera singer living in NYC. They must work really hard on the podcast, because it is well-done, and they have really smart segments as well. Plus, the most hilarious singing gerbils. You'll just have to listen to see what I mean, but the first time I heard them, I was laughing out loud walking down the street on my way to work. SO FUNNY.

5. Knit Science is a great podcast put together by Miriam Quinn, a Puerto Rican lawyer living in Arizona. She's awesome, and she does manage to put together a "Knitting Scientific" section each podcast. I like that she's a working woman, with a family, but obviously also with a really professional job that demands a lot of her time, and she still manages not only to knit, but to podcast about knitting! Plus, her little son comes on at the end to tell these great little stories. He's so cute and earnest!

6. Knitcents is a podcast about knitting on a budget. Roue, the girl who hosts the podcast, has green tips and does manage to talk about what she's knitting and things she's been up to in her life. This is a pretty new find for me, so I'm not all the way caught up yet, but so far, I'm really digging it. She's much less polished than any of these other top five, but she's so earnest and honest about what she does to save money that you can't help but like her.

7. The Doubleknit Podcast is also a relatively new find for me, and I'm not totally caught up yet. I REALLY LOVE how they talk about books and movies/tv because again, they sound like people I could hang out with and be really comfortable around for the most part. They seem really smart.

Just this past Tuesday, coming back from my drums lesson, I got to the episode where Jessica, one of the hosts, has this pissy little rant about "coldsheeping" (like going "cold turkey" only with the wool--just completely stopping buying yarn for a distinct amount of time) and how people get so nuts about it, and how those people should just get over themselves and relax and buy yarn if they want to. I remember how this blew up a little bit on the Stash and Burn fans group board on Ravelry, and how I was a little confused (not having listened to the Doubleknit podcast yet) and thinking that it couldn't be that bad, but I feel like both sides kind of misunderstood each other now that I've listened to the actual rant. I went back and forth about this and whether or not I was just taking it personally, but I think that yarn buying and whether to stop or stockpile is a very personal decision, and I think the 'coldsheeping' thread on the Stash & Burn board is about many people with similar goals coming together to support each other in paring down and using some of the yarn they've bought before buying more in a more mindful fashion. My motivation for cutting back my yarn buying was to actually use some of the yarn I have. I live in a 1 bdrm apartment, which is literally two rooms, a closet, and a bathroom. I have all Spanky's shit in here, plus my library of books, plus bins and bins of yarn that I bought to use on projects that I've since forgotten. It's good yarn, and I intended to use it when I bought it, but because I work at a full time job and have other interests, my knitting time is limited. I need to reclaim some of that space.

Anyway, I felt like she was scoffing at someone's decision to stop buying yarn without really trying to understand why someone might want to do that, and I don't think Erin really tried to defend the other side to make it a more even argument, even though I've seen her post on the S&B page and I think she could have articulated the argument of those people had she been able to get a word in edge-wise until the end. I know there is room for disagreement around the issue, but there are legitimate reasons for wanting to take a break from consumption, and I just felt like they ended up too far over to the other side of the issue. Harsh, man. And ever since that episode, I have just noticed that sometimes Jessica can come across as dismissive of other opinions in other situations on the podcast too, which is disappointing, because I think it has impacted what I think of the podcast as a whole. But 98% of it is wonderful, and I like how focused they are on sweaters. I also like that they finish so much stuff, despite having kids and other interests. I aspire to knit like that. Plus, they read and watch the same sorts of stuff I do. I hope that cold-sheeping thing was just someone having a bad day and that if everyone met up to have an actual conversation, that we'd all learn from one another. So far, restraining myself from buying yarn has really made me question what is important to me and when I'm tempted, why I want to buy whatever it is. It's an interesting experiment, and I can't wait to see what else I'll learn on the road to paring down the stash.

Whew, got a little off-topic there at the end, but the one thing you can gather from the ones I've picked, is that I really don't enjoy those podcasts that go on and on about what's available online, or what great yarn they've just bought, or talking at length about roving or colorways or how gorgeous such and such yarn is. The only time I like hearing about that stuff is when it is in relation to a project that someone is actually working on. For example, if they're working on a sweater in a particular yarn, I appreciate hearing what they think of working with it, but I don't care about yarn for yarn's sake anymore. Or maybe I never did. I love a great color or a great texture as much as the next person, but I don't want my stash to be a collection of art pieces. I want it to be a rotating store of tools that I can use to do particular jobs.

I also like it when podcasters talk about their lives outside of their knitting. I like hearing about peoples' jobs or their families, or other interests they have. It makes them more easy to relate to, and I like that peek at someone else's life, especially if it is different from mine.