I’ve hung up my knitting needles for a while, but have not at all ignored the material girl within.  Instead, after a bit of work to get my sewing room established, I have been enamored of making the quilt tops, both hand and machine pieced.  The actual quilting part is a long way away.

I investigated the national quilt registry, looking for quilts that were similar to those of my childhood visits to relatives, and came across a very old seven sisters pattern.  I was so entranced with that worn and stained rag that I have begun a seven sisters quilt, using the technique of English paper piecing and employing a variety of civil war reproduction fabrics.  It has only taken me two weeks to create only one half of one block; it may be a while before a whole quilt top appears.

Meanwhile, I look forward to warmer days when I will finally get to see our new tree (planted in November) bud for the first time.  Her name is Annie Oakleaf; she is a tall slender beauty, about 15 feet high.  She was our answer to the brutal murder of the neighbor trees, though it will take many years before she provides the same grandeur and shade as the old walnut.

The economical news has been so depressing that I have taken the ostrich approach, reverting to my former tactics of not listening to the radio or reading the newspaper.  It still leaks out, though, the depressing news of foreclosures and bankruptcies and bailouts.  It permeates the workplace and is visited upon me in the form of friends and relatives being laid off; it shows itself in the lighter commuter traffic and the number of shops I visit only to find closed.

A co-worker returned from a three week visit to Ireland this week, and when I asked him had he visited Waterford (the factory) he informed me that it had closed.  Apparently our young people are not continuing the tradition of using real crystal, and the whole industry is in decline.  The artistry and knowledge that went into a legendary product will no doubt be gone in a few years, replaced by plastics and gauche glass masquerading as elegant tableware.

Sherlock was disturbed to hear this news.  He always enjoys the use of fine crystal.

I wandered over to Ravelry a few moments ago to delete my account… only I found that there is no way to do such a thing.  Let’s see, I believe you can delete your profile on almost every other “social” network, so why not on Ravelry? 

I gave it over a year.  I’ve checked on my friends’ activity, read their blog posts when notified through the friends’ pages, and conducted fruitless searches for patterns that were exceptional.  In short:  I’ve wasted enough time.  And my feeling is, that if you can’t support a thing you shouldn’t be part of it.  I don’t want to be a part of it any more, but apparently all I can do is send an email and be patient until some unknown person deletes my account, but of course, that person is preoccupied with other things, and my account is their lowest priority.  Honestly, you can’t’ tell me that someone who can program an entire social site (good or bad) can’t figure out how to allow users to delete their own accounts.  It would be to their advantage, after all, to rid the database of extraneous data that consumes space and bogs down performance.  Perhaps it’s the bragging rights that are at stake here… it’s much more impressive to your geek friends if you “own” a few terabytes of data rather than just a few gigs.  But that doesn’t compute when you run a “free” website.  Maybe advertisers bank on x number of accounts being present, and therefore the accounts should persist even though they are inactive?

The thing is, things never change.  Knitters are still knitting essentially the same things, over and over and over and over.  Would I wait breathlessly for the reviews of the very same books over and over again, even though I’d already read the ones which sparked an interest?  I think not.

If you really want my opinion (too late!), Ravelry was a handy excuse for a cowboy programmer to create his own social site.  I could be wrong here:  this programmer could have had thousands of destitute knitters begging him to create the site.  And admittedly,  thousands of knitters, like sheep, came to graze in his grass.  Millions of forum posts attest to the fact that people just don’t have a rich enough life in the real world; they must augment it with forays into the imaginary worlds of other people. Not only that, but they must crown the King and Queen (unlike real social networking sites) and their little dog, too.  [yes, I detest Boston Terriers, even though I have a sister who breeds them].  I don’t know these people, and can truthfully state that I have no opinion as to their goodness or badness; I can only form opinions based on their output.

So, sounds like I have a mouth full of sour grapes, does it?  Actually, I haven’t been happier in my entire life.  It’s a situation that highlights things like Ravelry, for which I have no need and which stand in the way (if used frequently) of doing the things I really enjoy, like spending time with my husband and children.

So, if you find yourself sitting in front of the computer glancing with glazed eyes over all the Ravelry …. um… content, just ask yourself if there’s something that people you love might want to be doing with you right now.  Because if the answer is yes, even just once, you should turn off the computer and be with real people.