Which colour?

I can’t sew, knit or crochet.

Although I would love to be able to knit. :mrgreen:

The Truth About Knitting and Crochet….They are Good for You!
How knitting can improve your mood, mind and body

"Is knitting therapeutic? Heck yes. It’s a proven scientific fact, just like we know chocolate and red wine are good for us. Since turning my life over to yarn, I’ve talked to thousands of knitters who claim it’s cured everything from gout to their weight problems. I can’t speak to all cures, but it can certainly improve one’s mental health. I know it helps mine.”

Don’t get me wrong. I want to learn how to knit and I think I will make it a priority before winter.

Thanks Mags. I’m seeing some pretty high-end stuff there!

That’s because your mind is continuously preoccupied with counting stitches. This is especially so if you’re doing a variable multi-colored design (think Norway sweaters), and a little bit less so if you’re doing cables. If your cable design is uniform and straight (up) then once you get your design started you can follow the stitches by feel more or less (knit/purl), so the mind is more relaxed and the work becomes more or less automatic because the cables usually repeat themselves; but if your cables are diagonal, or travel sideways or crisscross a lot, you’ll still need to keep count, but less so, because the design usually travels/changes vertically (in any case, I find cables easier to do). With multi-color designs you really need to account for every stitch. If you miscount a stitch, or miss it, or it slips and you lose the stitch in the previous row (happens if you knit too loosely), your whole design will get messed up and you’ll have to go back to the last place and redo it. The good thing is that usually, you’d know by the end of the row or beginning of the next row when things don’t seem to add up anymore. This is why it takes longer and you have to double check your work continuously. Anyway, my point is that knitting (especially multi colored designs) involves a lot of counting, so you can’t really let the mind wander; so your mind is mostly focused on one thing, counting. I don’t remember doing a lot of counting when crocheting. :-k Though today, most of the work is done by computerized machines.
With sewing, the most important thing, I think, is proper measurement, but it’s also an art I believe that comes with experience. You’d need to account of how the fabric will shrink after washings (or stretch) and give an extra leeway in your measurements. That, I think, you can know only with experience (by knowing the fabric you’re working with). Also, you’d need to consider individual preferences; some people like their clothes more loose than others. There are some parts of the world where you can still get personalized alteration with your purchased garment, so it fits you perfectly. These are the places that still make and sell their own clothes.
I remember someone mention once that knitting was actually invented by men, and I think it may actually be true, or I won’t be surprised if it were. Men are usually in charge for making fish nets, and it could possibly be considered as a kind of proto-knitting/crocheting, maybe. And I wouldn’t be surprised if early man was already making fishing nets when he was still wrapped in skins/furs.
I am thinking that most women in many cultures have spent a lot of their free time counting, historically. Carpet or tapestry weaving, with intricate designs, for example, takes whole months to complete, and I’m sure it requires a lot of careful counting, and with every row (and there are a lot of rows in a carpet!).
I’ve always wondered what goes through the minds of women who are doing bobbin lace. Do they follow a drawn pattern visually, or do they actually count? A precise design would require a lot of counting, and with that kind of work, you lose your place you’re fucked, unless you can count in multiple dimensions simultaneously! :stuck_out_tongue:

Beautiful handmade work:

Belgian Lace is very beautiful!

Ok, I’m gonna stop now. :laughing:

I remember tinkering with my grandmother’s sewing machine (Singer too). It was one of those where you control the speed with a foot pedal. My thread kept getting stuck inside the machine and I think it was because of the speed; once you start going, you can’t really slow down or the thread will loop on itself or something inside the machine and gets stuck, and you had to get it out from inside (which was dangerous too). So I usually ended up sewing my piece to the sewing machine and spending most of my day re-threading the needle over and over again. I really hated that machine, and I don’t think it liked me back. Nowadays, the sewing machines are programmable, you just press a button and it sews itself with the stitch and speed you want; it will even do embroidery for you.

Pandora,

Nice pics.

A lot of sewing fabrics are supposed to be washed before pattern use. The cutting on the bias always screwed me up. The pre-sewing prep work is taxing.

My Viking does embroidery, but not the actual sewing, still foot pedal biz and trying not to have a lead foot. :laughing:

Um, on second thoughts… I am out of my league here.

SM,

No, get back here! Crocheting is easier than knitting with less procedures to follow in the beginning and only one hook instead of two needles.

:confused:

Perfect ambivalence SM. :mrgreen:

I’m getting a boner thinking about this. I used to visit sewing shops a lot the year I was in college, was into captive columns.

Plus, I really like lace around a woman’s throat. I’m very strange.

Honestly, if I’m dictator, I would largely be Laissez Faire in all things but one:

All women have to wear lace neck chockers, and get one free hair styling per week from the state free of charge, and must wear nice shirts to compliment the hair and chocker.

Furthermore, one week a month, ponytails are mandatory, and absolutely no bitching about these rules are to be tolerated.

You have no idea how pissed I am these aren’t in fashion. If I was to point at one essential article of clothing a woman should always have, it would be that. Fuck the stupid heels and bizarre hats and absurd makeup color schemes, just wear this. Pop it on, open the blouse up a bit, hair in a ponytail, guys won’t notice you didn’t doll up. Takes one minute.

Except for women on this forum, full Islamic hijabs for you. You can have lace covering your eyeholes.

No this is the way, the historical way to go, especially for your imaginary lady friend, almost beardesque. Go ahead and get your rocks off, don’t let us stop you. :laughing:

Checking the Spiegel website out now… I bet it’s very zeitgeist. Taking very long to load.

…if anyone else would like the link to the website I mentioned, I’ll be happy to send. They sell menswear too Turd, and lots of hiking apparel brands… amongst other things.

They are in fashion… just worn differently/with edge.

Not on the leg, I don’t care about that.

See the image I added to my post… that stylist dresses diff’rently. This is one of her more tamer looks… the others aren’t necessarily more revealing than different.

Too many levels to it, should just be a ribbon.

If jewels must be added, no more complicated than this:

What you showed me is a ewuivelent of 80’s and early 90’s calf high socks with no elasticity, shit kept falling down into piles of rings around the ankle. That ain’t any more sexy revealed on the neck than when wearing shorts.

How very precise of you, Turd.

These pieces are almost pieces of art in their own right… to be worn over clothing, obviously. I only tend to wear lace on Halloween or fancy dress, but the Victoriana look has been around for a few years now and doesn’t seem to be going away, heck people wear whatever look they want now… to the detriment of designers everywhere.

Not a fan. Some people can look quite attractive in Victorian Dress, but it is less because of the dress than in spite of it. Like I said, minimal is better, as part of a dress shirt is nice. If I had a office full of women and immunity from sexual harassment, my pic above of the girl in the white shirt with black choker would be the dress code. I would get no work done, and would walk around with a permanent tent in my pants.

I don’t get all the extra necklaces she has, one works, just stupid when a woman runs around with three, four rings, multiple necklaces on at once, around her waist and ankles, in her belly button and ears. Best of luck in the airport.

(snigger) Is that what male heaven is like?

May I ask where the liking for the choker comes from? is it a new phenomenon?

More can sometimes be done very well… multi rings and multi chains look good with a simple outfit, just like a fussy outfit is better with minimal accessories… I guess it’s all about balance.

Yeah…what’s up with that?

Yeah, somebody really should tell me too.
.seriously, I gave that a lot of thought over the years. I got this weird fetish for

Petite Women
Brunettes (also black hair)
Lacy Neck Chokers
Accents
Women in Business Clothes
Pony Tails
Bi-Women

Why? No damn woman in my past aligns with all of those, and I’ve searched my memory hard asfuck looking for a archetype. Can’t find any. My first girlfriend was blond, as well as longest was blond, quite content without brunettes, naturally I would never tell her “you be better as a brunette” cause I don’t thing she would look well as one honestly, and I would know it wasn’t real. She was petite though, but I liked that prior. She had a accent, but liked that prior so it wasn’t her. I even bought her business clothes so I could bang her in her office after hours, so that wasn’t her, the idea was already around.

I don’t know. Fucking stumped. All I know is, the ideal woman is a petite brunette in business clothes, a dress shirt, and she has a little clevage showing, and a choker a pony tail, and she invites me back to her office with her accent, and when I get there, she starts making out with her secretary and afterwards we get married and have 30 kids.

Maybe it is like Total Recall, and I’m married to such a woman and government wiped it from my memory? Past life? Something I saw as a kid?

Fuck if I know. I just know I’m not too different from a male horse, who collect similar looking mares for their harem. I had was Attila the Hun, building up my own harem, I already know all the women would be look at one another asking "again, have we met? " Naturally be a few exceptions, but mist would look like that, and all would be waving Freud’s picture around. I can point back to Earl brunettes I liked, but that’s the issue, I liked them first. Sometimes I will see one walk around that causes the air in me to suck out involuntarily, dumbest haircut does it for me too. Just seeing hair roughly this length

Like that or parted across and down one side of the forhead makes me dizzy. Again… Why? Who, When? No clue. I agree, I must of learned it, but I apparently didn’t, just identified it automatically as correct and preferred.

I even remember once I had deep emotional distress because of a hairstyle change I got used to. Girlfriend came out if that stinky chemical weapons shop you ladies call a Salon with luxurious, long curls. That shit didn’t work for me, she kept shaking her head back and forth, I put on my fakest smile and acted excited, I so hated that shit, ad couldn’t exactly demand her to go get her hair straight again. So distracting I was having performance issues later, felt like I was cheating on her. I wanted my girlfriend back. Yes, she had a right to her own hair, blah blah blah… but there was a growing emptyness inside, and I… Just wanted things as they were. Simpler and just better.

And not all women who abide by those rules pass either, I can find lots of work who fit those standards above, and I’m like “meh”.

Some obvious things is too much makeup. I want to squirt you in the face with a squirt gun. Too fake and bloaty sucks. Eyes don’t stand out sucks… but also other features I can’t pinpoint as well. I just instantly know at a glance it won’t work for me. They don’t suck the air out of me when I look at them, but I do linger trying to pinpoint exactly what it is, and that’s ironically when I give the most eye contact to a woman, and that sends mixed signals. If she is too attractive, I just can’t look at her, and if I stumbled around like a blind man not looking in her face trying to give stuff if asked, missing and shaking a but, fumbling, yeah- you look great. If I’m looking you dead in the face, I see nothing, cause your not of interest. Very cruel of me, unfair, I’m a horrible shit and three wiccan feminists are in the woods making a voodoo doll of me having read this right now,I get it. Bad shaneful me. My fetish is a cheap lacy choker on the neck if a straight hair brunette… the injustice to all such women, all that time and labor spent in putting one on,having to walk around in public on display like that. Must be hell for women, to the dungeons with the likes of me.