Plug Ugly?

Last week, I was casting about for something easy and portable to knit. I found a skein of sock yarn that I purchased in St. John's on sale in the fall of '09. The first hint should have been the large bin of the yarn on huge discount. There is usually a reason for that. The second hint might of been that I felt slightly ashamed to pull it out at knit night last week. I didn't want to have to explain it.

Despite these warning signs, I cast on and started knitting. Maybe it will be "interesting". Who needs all those fancy yarns with their subtle colours? I am not a yarn snob! Plus, sometimes it is fun to knit something out of the ordinary, from a colour perspective. I quickly started thinking "Flags of the World".

But which one?


South Africa?

No, there is no green in this yarn. It turns out that many, many countries have a bit of green in their flag. So my search for a country for which I could feel I was engaging in some patriotic sock knitting failed. In my search, however, I did find this flag, which turns out to be the Buddhist World Flag. I had no idea such a thing existed until I visited the blog of the Sri Lankan community in Saskatoon (As an aside, don't you think they are very, very homesick?).


The Buddhist World Flag.


The formerly plug ugly socks. Now I feel a sense of pride with my Buddhist brothers and sisters worldwide when I knit them. No more slinking about at knit night! I proudly hold up my sock yarn in solidarity with those following the dharma. Ashamed? Never!

The experience did cause me to dig deep into my stash and find two other balls of sock yarn that, for a brief moment, looked far more inviting.


Yes, I had succumbed to the Zuckerball craze somewhere along the way. It is awfully pretty, you have to admit.


And, yum, look at those great colours.

But no. I shall stand strong and knit on. Om mani padme hum.

We leave (in theory) for St. John's tomorrow. At the moment it looks like this out our window:


But things change quickly around here so I am not panicking yet about the nine-hour drive. The forecast is ok, so I assume all will be well and the curtain of whiteness will be somewhat cleared by tomorrow morning. While we are there, I will be teaching two spindle spinning workshops at A Good Yarn (they are full but you can be put on a waiting list). And Dan will be meeting us. We will be celebrating our 20th anniversary. So the motivation is strong to make our way across this large island.


Alright, alright. One more cute cat pic. A box of raw fleece arrived yesterday (icelandic!) in this box. Finn immediately set about to make a little shelter for Minky to cover her fine selection of cat scratch pads. We think she likes it. It does suit her rather well.