It’s Furious Balancing

Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.¹

I’ve had those two lines of poetry rattling around in my head because I’m feeling quite smug about two new knitting tools I’ve discovered.  “New to me” anyway; they’ve been around a while.

The first will warm the cockles of anyone’s heart — anyone who has ever felt discouraged or apprehensive about those ubiquitous finishing instructions, “Pick up and knit 124² stitches around the neckline.”

That’s an Addi Turbo Cro-Needle — a 32-inch circular needle with a US size 2 crochet hook on one end and a US size 3 needle tip on the other.  I believe that the person who came up with this one should be beatified; I certainly think it’s a miracle.  In my Innernet surfing research, it appears that there was a Sticks & String podcast some 6 months or so ago that mentioned the Cro-Needle, but I found out about it on Ravelry.

Ravelry is also to blame for my next purchase, which arrived on my doorstep yesterday.  I’ve been looking for an organizational solution to the circular needle mess that is currently breeding in a shoebox in my study.  Perhaps if I contain the prurient little buggers in individual self-sealing PVC sleeves (sorted by size) things will settle down.³

This was an inexpensive purchase.  A short Innernet shopping search found an equivalent knitting needle organizer for $34.99.  I paid $17.99 for this.  The explanation for the price difference?

Yes, cats and kittens, it’s a fishing tackle organizer.  I am the proud owner of a Bass Pro Shop Extreme Worm Binder. Since it came, I’ve been dying to write a faux review on the Bass Pro Web site⁴ raving about how the circular knitting needle mess on my boat is a thing of the past, how well it stands up to a salt-water knitting environment, and does it come in pink?

1. With my apologies to Anne Sexton; these lines come from her poem Wanting to Die.  Well, not the part about knitters.  The actual line in the poem reads “But suicides have a special language.”  Don’t worry.  Despite my chronic pain and dysthymia, I am JUST FINE THANK YOU. I think in my entire life, I’ve had approximately 5 seconds of what they call suicidal ideation.  I realized it wouldn’t work for me because there would be no one around to feed my cats.  I’m such the pragmatist. [↩]
2. Or 78, or 182, or whatever. [↩]
3. I intend to sort, categorize and label all my circular needles this weekend, and I’ll try to remember to take a picture once I get the pages loaded. [↩]
4. Using a name like “Billy Bob.” [↩]

This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 7:50 pm and is filed under Depression, Knitting, Quotes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.