HEAVEN AND HELL AND KNITTING

I will leave the question of whether there is a heaven or a hell to those who are better equipped to argue such a delicate matter.  Theologians, philosophers, astrophysicists and others who have a professional interest in something so weighty.  But I will go out on a limb here and say that if heaven and hell do exist, then knitting will be allowed in both places.  Not just allowed, but actually mandatory in one of the two. 

When I was young, I devoured books on Norse and Greco-Roman mythology. These fascinating stories had a magical appeal for a boy who needed literary fuel to power up the fiery furnace that was his imagination.  I’ve forgotten most of those stories so I’ve promised myself that one day I will reread as many of those tales as I can find.  While there are loads of forgotten stories, it’s rather curious that I  have no problem remembering those that dealt with eternal punishment.  Those ancient cultures had a wacky sense of justice.  Consider Loki, the Norse God of mischief. Because of one terrible sin, he was tied up to a rock.  A serpent hovered over him, letting its vile venom drip from its open mouth.  Loki’s faithful wife held a bowl underneath the serpent’s mouth so that the painful poison could not reach her husband’s skin.  But every now and then, she had to empty the bowl.  While she did this, the poison, something akin to sulfuric acid, would fall onto Loki.  He would writhe in extreme agony until his devoted wife returned with the empty bowl.  This cycle went on and on and on and on.  Then there was the Greek Prometheus who was similarly bound to a rock.  During the day, an eagle would slowly munch on his liver until it was all gone.  Prometheus was immortal so the liver would regenerate itself during the night.  The next day, the eagle would return and start all over again.  This cycle also went on and on and on and on.  As a final example, I offer Sisyphus.  Granted, the guy was a jerk during his human life (This is a G rated blog so I can’t go into details.), but what a frustrating and horrible punishment he was given.  When he arrived in Hades, the Greek equivalent of hell, Sisyphus was ordered to push a big boulder up an imposing hill.  Just as he was on the verge of reaching the top, the boulder would slip out of his hands and roll down the hill.  Again, this cycle would go on and on and on and on.  We’re talking eternal punishment, after all.  I’m not sure about Loki, but Prometheus was eventually rescued from his cruel fate.  Meanwhile, poor Sisyphus, to this very day, is still trying to get that boulder up the hill. 

I can envision a hell where knitting is one’s eternal punishment.  Picture this:  You must knit a blanket using cheap, synthetic, super-bulky yarn but with size 1 needles.  Every stitch is a purl and every row has ten thousand stitches.  You are doomed to count every stitch after finishing each row.  Now and then, you will count only 9,999 stitches or sometimes you will maddeningly end up with 10,001 stitches.  You will have to go back and try to find the mistake and then correct it.  Occasionally, you have to rip out rows because you suddenly notice that ten rows back, you inadvertently knit a row rather than purled it.  And finally, the blanket has to be long enough to extend from one end of the universe to the other.  Yikes!!  But as bad as this may seem, were I to end up in hell, there are worse knitting punishments that I could be tormented with.  Knitting a yellow sweater for myself, for instance.  And then another, and another, and another, and another, and so on, until the end of time.  (I promise to one day write a blog entry on my aversion to yellow sweaters.)

And then there is heaven.  That place where everything is the pinnacle of perfection.  Here, all your knitting dreams come true.  There is no such thing as a difficult pattern.  Dropped stitches never occur.  All scarves lie perfectly flat.  Everyone knits at a hundred stitches per minute.  I think you get the picture.  I have to wonder, though.  Would endless perfection not eventually lead to boredom?  Here on earth there is a little bit of perverse pleasure in finding a mistake and then fixing it before it gets out of hand.  And undoubtedly, there is a much higher level of satisfaction when finishing a difficult lace shawl that took you a year to knit than when quickly finishing an easy scarf in three days.  Where is the pride of the hard work put into something if all projects are equally easy?  Because of the interminable perfection, might heaven not turn into a different kind of hell?  That’s why these mystical definitions of the afterlife are better left to the experts.  Trying to rationalize the existence of either of those hypothetical places just gives me a headache.  And if I want a headache, I’d rather go knit myself a pair of socks.    

DISQUALIFIED!

Perhaps "disqualified" is not the proper term.  Yes, I suppose “ineligible” is the more appropriate word.  I am referring, of course, to Cathy’s First Annual Design Competition.  The specific details for this contest can be found on Cathy’s website: montoyafiberstudio.com, but I’ll share with you the general story behind the whole thing.

Cathy just started carrying this wonderful new yarn by a Swedish company that I myself was not familiar with (So many yarn companies.  So little time.).  The yarn is called Kashmir Alpakka.  As the name suggests, it is an alpaca-cashmere blend.  For this contest you have to come up with an original design using three skeins or less of this lovely wool.  There are other rules, and they're all on the website, but those are the two most important ones: Original design, three skeins or less.

I was thrilled when I first heard Cathy’s idea not too long ago.  I was going to temporarily abandon my other ongoing knitting projects and devote all my energies to the contest.  But then, Cathy nonchalantly informed me that I would not be allowed to participate.  I explained to her that there wouldn’t be any conflict of interest as the people voting would have no idea that I was married to the person running the contest.  Alas, Cathy did not budge.  Well, if I can’t win the contest, there is nothing wrong with my divulging the strategies I was going to use to win the $100 gift certificate.

Before I was given the bad news, I had already narrowed the possibilities of my designs to two options.  Because each skein is only fifty grams, one is limited to a hat or a baby sweater or a neck warmer or anything that doesn’t require much yarn.  A baby blanket would have been my first design option but three skeins is really cutting it close.  So instead, I opted for a hat. 

I will freely confess that I am not much of an artist, so coming up with a beautiful design based solely on artistic ability was out of the question.  But one can also be creative in a totally haphazard manner.  The drawing-outside-of-the-lines philosophy, if you will.  My idea was to write out the instructions for different rows from different patterns on separate strips of paper, and then put about a hundred of these different instructions for different rows in a box.  I would pull out one set of instructions for my first row and I would knit as the directions stated.  The second row and all even rows would be purled.  Even total chaos demands a teaspoon of organization.  I would continue pulling out different instructions for every odd row until the hat was finished.  On a small scale I’ve actually goofed around with this concept.  Narrow scarves for about a foot or so.   Here is a hypothesis I’ve developed from doing this random knitting technique:  Ninety one times out of a hundred the finished project will look like garbage.  Actually, even worse than garbage.  Eight times out of a hundred you will look at the project and say, “Hmm.  Now that’s kind of interesting.”  And one time out of a hundred you will have a masterpiece in your hands.  I mean an absolute masterpiece.  There will be beauty and harmony and cohesion and balance and all that other good stuff artists aim for.  This approach is risky, however.  I believe that there is a late July  deadline for having the contest entry in the store.  With this random approach to art, the 100 to 1 longshot masterpiece might occur early or it might occur late or it might occur not at all.  One of those high risk-high reward type of deals.

My other option is a sure winner but I’m still ironing out some of the kinks in it.  Engineering kinks, if you will.  The knitting aspect is not too hard.  A profile of Pinocchio done in garter stitch over a stockinette background.  Here’s what happens when one wears this hat.  Like I said, it has the standard Disney Pinocchio in profile and with his normal nose.  When one wears the hat and one tells a lie, right before your very eyes, the nose on the hat will grow.  If the lie is a real whopper, the nose will extend around the entire hat.  How is this done?  Well, on the advice of a patent lawyer, that is something I cannot share.  As soon as I perfect the mechanics of the whole thing, I will be mass producing these hats and all politicians will be obligated to wear one whenever he or she makes a public appearance.  Right now, when the hat wearer tells a lie, the nose grows, but it grows in a most crooked manner.  I just have to figure out how to get that nose to follow a straight line.  I’ll tell you one thing, though.  My Pinocchio hat would have won the contest.  Guaranteed.  But since I am not being allowed to enter, then that means that anyone, maybe even you, can win this contest.

Creativity abounds in all of us.  I urge all of you to flex your creative muscles and come up with something both bold and beautiful.  I realize the term “original design” might scare some of you, but consider this: There are no more original stitches or combination of stitches left to be discovered.  An original design is merely a person’s unique way of combining and arranging already established stitches or small repetitive patterns.  Throw in the concept of color and the possibilities are endless.  It’s like being a songwriter.  Every composer uses the same notes.  They just use them in different orders.  I look forward to casting my vote for the best finished product.                   

TYKKÄÄN NEULOA

There is a very, very, very elite club that I wish to join.   The members of this club are people who have set foot in every country in the world.  As you might imagine, there aren’t many people who have done this.  Two major obstacles stand in the way of anyone who is seriously contemplating accomplishing this goal.  Time and Money.  I’ll address the money issue a little later.  Having joined the ranks of the retired last year, the time element is not a problem for me.  If someone were to hand me an unlimited free pass for every airline in the world right now, then tomorrow you just might find me in Timbuktu (though I’m not really sure where that is).

I’ll have you know that I’ve already begun preparing for this whopper event.  How?  Well, to start I have been purchasing as many of those foreign language phrasebooks as I can.  You know the type.  They have the basic phrases that every tourist needs to know.  Phrases like:   “Good morning,”, or “How much does this cost?”, or “What is that you are eating?”, or “Quickly, where is the nearest bathroom?”, or even “Excuse me, Mr. Cabdriver, but where exactly are you taking me?”  But do you know what essential phrases are not in any tourist language book I’ve ever seen?  We are all knitters here so I hope you are as outraged as I am because they have omitted the following:  1.) “I like to knit.”  2.) “Are there any yarn stores here?”  Would it have killed the publishers to add these two simple sentences?  Because, let’s face it, if I’m going to go to any foreign country, then I am definitely going to explore their yarn stores.

So now we come to the mysterious title of today’s blog.  “Tykkään Neuloa” is how the people of Finland say, “I like to knit.”  If I am going to visit every country in the world then I’m going to learn how to say, “I like to knit.” and “Are there any yarn stores here?” in as many languages as I can.  Not every language in the world, mind you.  Even I will acknowledge that that is too daunting a task.  Besides, in some languages, terms like “knitting” and “yarn over” and “circular needles” and “mohair” might not even exist.  I seriously doubt that any of the people of those primitive tribes in the sweltering jungles of the Amazon wear sweaters.  Though you never know about yarn stores.  Every little village has one or two crazy entrepeneurs.  But even in what most would consider standard languages, this translating is not going to be easy.  I am fluent in Spanish, so that won’t be a problem.  Indeed, it takes care of a lot of countries.  But that’s it as far as my foreign language knowledge goes.  Ahh, but we live in the age of the computer.  Anything is possible with such a contraption.  Also, I have a secret weapon. 

About a year ago, I began tutoring ESL (English as a Second Language) students at a Community Center in Chicago.  I’ve had the privilege of working not only with Spanish-speaking pupils but also with gentlemen and ladies from Asia and Africa.  Currently, I tutor a woman from Mexico, a man from Ecuador and a young lady from India.  The most exotic language I’ve had the pleasure of hearing in my ESL work was spoken by a former student of mine, a woman from Sierra Leone.  Her native tongue was a fascinating language called Susu.  So here I have access to this Community Center where I am surrounded by people from countries from all over the world.  This will be interesting.  Students at the Community Center are going to be looking at me and wondering, “Why is this crazy man asking me about knitting stores in my country?”

I’d like to share with you the few languages where I have already accomplished my phrasebook goal.  Who knows?  Maybe some of you might soon be visiting one of these very countries.  Feel free to use my research.  Though one word of caution, you’re on your own as far as pronunciation goes.  If any of you are fluent in the languages I include today and you spot a mistake or you can improve my work, then I would be very pleased to hear from you with your corrections and/or suggestions.  And if any of you are fluent in a language not included in today’s list, then please feel free to contribute.  Here goes.

Oh.  I almost forgot.  I said I would talk about the money issue.  Buying airplane tickets to every country in the world can’t be cheap.  But not too worry.  Cathy and I are just going to have to sell a lot more yarn.

SPANISH  -  Me gusta tejer.  Hay tiendas de lana por aqui?

FRENCH  -  J’aime a tricoter.  Est-ce qu’il y a un magasin de tricot pres d’ici?

ITALIAN  -  Mi piace lavorare a maglia.  Ci sono negozi di filati qui?

GERMAN  -  Ich mag zu stricken.  Gibt es einen strick shop hier? 

PORTUGUESE  -  Gosto de tricotar.  Existem lojas de trico aqui?

RUSSIAN  -  Ya lyubyu vyazat.  Yest vyazaniye magazini zdyess?

CHINESE  -  Wo xihuan bianzhi.  Yo meiyu zheli de sha dian ma?

NORWEGIAN  -  Jeg liker a strikke.  Er det et garn butikk her?

POLISH  -  Lubie dzianina.  Czy istnieja dziania sklepy tutaj?

HUNGARIAN  -  Szeretek kotni.  Vannak uzletek kottes itt?

JAPANESE  -  Watashi wa nitto ni sukidesu.  Koko de itodana wa arimasu ka?

KLINGON  -  Ggrzzt aqkh morv pzzanagrakh.  Ddreckh zerph lerkkizt tygvillfr nazg?

FINNISH  -  Tykkään neuloa.  Onko lankakauppoja täällä?

HINDI  -  Maim bunan karane ki li pasand hai.  Vaham dukanom yaham bunai?

SWEDISH  -  Jag gillar att sticka.  Finns det stickning buttiker har?


Fifteen languages down, seven thousand nine hundred and eighty five languages to go.

THE ALPACAS

Those of you with a keen eye will have noticed that there are alpacas of various sizes on display in the window of Montoya Fiber Studio.  They are stuffed animals made in Peru and covered in authentic alpaca fleece.  They are a wonder to behold and a delight to touch.

Some time ago, the middle of last December to be exact, I found myself with nothing to do at the store.  Up till then my responsibilities had consisted of ringing up sales, unpacking newly arrived yarn, putting the correct prices on that yarn, arranging the yarn on the shelves so they always looked neat and tidy, and taking out the garbage.  On this particular day all these things had already been done and there were no customers in the store so I started wandering around.  I noticed that the alpacas looked rather forlorn.  They needed a splash of color in their lives.  I found some unwanted yarn remnants, I grabbed a pair of needles and I began to knit one of the alpacas a scarf.  Nothing complicated.  All garter stitch.  In less than an hour there was a warm decorative scarf wrapped around the alpaca’s neck.  He seemed happier, as if I, with one simple creative stroke, had transformed his life.  His existence was no longer drab and empty.  “Hmm,” I said to myself.  I knew that it was too late for Christmas, but I vowed that I would knit something for all the alpacas for Valentine’s Day.  There were five of them at the time.  Whenever I found myself with some spare time at the store I’d start a scarf or a hat or a blanket to drape over their backs.  Shortly before the 14^th of February my new line, all red of course, was ready.  The alpacas were pleased.  And now that they had personalities, I sensed that they would also like names.  They were christened Zachary, Millard, Rutherford, Grover and Harry, in honor of five of my favorite U.S. Presidents.  St. Patrick’s Day was right around the corner so I found it necessary to inform Cathy that I would be appropriating some of her green yarn.  The alpacas would now be female so the new line would be a little more sophisticated.  Different stitches, different shades of green, that sort of thing.  After all, you can’t just go and dress lady alpacas in all garter stitch outfits and have them all clad in the same boring green.  Naturally, their names also changed.  They were now called Margaret, Abigail, Lucy, Frances and Bess, the names of the respective wives of the aforementioned Presidents.  Frances was sold in late March.  A sad day at Montoya Fiber Studio, but business is business.

Last week while I was in charge of the store while Cathy was away, I declared myself the Official Alpaca Holiday Dresser.  That same day I also issued a proclamation naming me the Poet Laureate of the store.  The Yarn Bard, if you will.  The duties of this office are to write poems for special store events.  Like for whenever the alpacas change outfits.  The way I figure it, the more responsibilities I have in the store, the greater the possibility of Cathy naming me Vice-President of Operations for Montoya Fiber Studio.  Once somebody becomes a Vice-President, then profit sharing is just around the corner.  Anyway, the Independence Day designs naturally involve red, white and blue.  This increase in the amount of color easily allowed for a bolder design element.  The new outfits also demanded some new names.  The four alpacas were now called Ed, Dwight, Sue and Hamilton.  An official poem was begun, though not completed.  And then tragedy struck!  Without my authority and on a day that I was not in the store, someone had sold Dwight.  No names will be mentioned.  The outfits, so carefully designed for each alpaca, were now all wrong as Dwight’s outfit had been split up between Ed and Sue.  The balance, so necessary in all haute couture, was now destroyed.  Worst of all, the poem commemorating the four alpacas was now useless as the alpaca population went from four to three.  I share with you the unfinished poem.  I pray that I have the strength to tackle a new one.

A quick word about my poetry style.  I have always fancied myself a hybrid of Ogden Nash and Sylvia Plath, two poets who have had a profound literary impact on me.  So, without any further ado ….

                               THE ALPACAS ON THE FOURTH OF JULY

                                           Ed, Dwight and Sue

                                          Wore red white and blue.

                                          And Hamilton sported the same.

                                          They went to the zoo

                                          To see Eunice the Ewe

                                          And found her all bloody and lame.

                                          Her wool had turned orange,

This is where I was in the poem when I heard that Dwight had been sold.  Back to the poetry drawing  board, I guess.  Oh yes.  One quick question while I have everyone’s attention.  Does anyone know of a word that rhymes with orange?  You wouldn’t believe the number of unfinished poems I have in my poetry drawer, all because of that troublesome word.

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Congratulations to the nine people who successfully completed the crossword puzzle.  You have my respect and admiration as the puzzle was burdened with a few clunky entries and clues.  Alas, only eight of the nine of the entries were eligible for prizes.  Though everything was above board, I felt it best to disqualify my father-in-law’s entry.  Can’t have a family member winning, after all.  And besides, what’s he going to do with a pair of knitting needles?  If I know him, he’d use them for shish-kabobs.  Cathy and I pulled three names out of a hat on May 17 with Cecilia G. winning the Knitters Pride Cubics Needles and Ann L. and Margene L. winning the other prizes, two cute little knitting pouches.  For those who were stumped, here is the completed puzzle.

THE YARNMAN COMETH

The Goodman Theater in downtown Chicago is currently mounting a production of Eugene O’ Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh”.  I’ll let others write about why this is one absolutely remarkable play.  I’d definitely go see it if it weren’t for the fact that it’s over four hours long.  Once you’re in your fifties, certain body parts don’t react well to sitting for such an extended amount of time.  Wagner operas are also out of the question for the same reason.  Anyway, the main character (played by the incomparable Nathan Lane in the current Goodman production) is your classic salesman.  A great talker, full of charm and bluster and who will entertain you for as long as you let him or until he’s ready to make his pitch.  In the play he’s a hardware salesman.  The meaning of Iceman in the title is something else entirely.  Read or see the play and the metaphor will become evident.  So my mind was wandering one day (as the minds of retired people often do), and I was wondering how the play would change if O’Neill had named it “The Yarnman Cometh”.  If Hickey, the hardware salesman, had been a yarn salesman instead.  Well, let me tell you something.  It wouldn’t work.  You think of the classic negative stereotype of a salesman and you might automatically envision a used car guy (or girl).  Now this vision might be justified and it might not.  I’m sure that somewhere in America there are some very nice used car salespeople.  But people who sell yarn definitely don’t fit the stereotype.  I will attempt to explain why.

Make no mistake, yarn salespeople, or as they are more commonly known, yarn reps, still have to sell a product.  Like any other salesperson, sometimes they have to be aggressive. Occasionally, the qualities of certain yarns might even be gently exaggerated.  Being a most accomplished fly on the wall, I have seen some reps in action.  There are all sorts of different types.  Some are better at it than others.  But the nice thing about being a yarn rep is the actual product they are selling.  I like to think that all yarn has merit.  Even the cheapest (price-wise and quality-wise) of yarns has a purpose.  Because of this, because of the fact that yarn practically sells itself, the bravado of a yarn rep is very mild when compared to the demeanor of other types of salespeople.  Thank God for that.  One day, I was momentarily picturing myself as a yarn rep.  But the picture faded away very, very quickly.  Even though yarn reps are generally low key, I myself couldn’t handle that type of a job or any job that involves sales.  The reason goes all the way back to a childhood event.  In retrospect, I suppose, it is quite humorous.  Back then it was anything but.

I was raised a Catholic and one year there was an unremembered cause for which I and my Catholic school classmates were forced to sell Christmas cards.  Here comes the funny part.  The block I lived on was predominantly Jewish.  I was nine years old.  At that age, how was I supposed to know that Jewish people had no need for Christmas cards?  I don’t think I fully understood the nuances that distinguish the Hebrew faith from the Christian faith till I was in high school.  So picture this innocent young Catholic lad going to the homes of all his neighborhood Jewish friends and asking their Jewish mothers if they would be interested in purchasing some Christmas cards.  Disaster!  I still cringe when I remember the strange looks on their faces as they politely informed me that no, they would not be interested.  That traumatic childhood event cemented one thing in my mind.  I would never, ever sell anything again.  I have stayed true to this oath.  Working in Cathy’s store doesn’t count.   That’s more of a keeper of the cash register type position.  I believe I’ll leave the selling of yarn to the nice reps that visit Cathy’s store.

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Cathy will be in Denver for a few days in mid-May so the day I’ve dreamed of will soon be here.  While Cathy is gone, I will be manning the fort otherwise known as Montoya Fiber Studio.  All by my lonesome.  From May 11 through May 15 (except for Saturday, May 12, when our good friend, Ann will be in charge).  Now I can finally implement some of my more radical business ideas.  For example, spend a thousand dollars and I will sing you my world famous Vicuña Song plus wash your car.  Or spend two thousand dollars and I will buy you a pair of tickets for “The Iceman Cometh”.  What a bargain!  So please feel free to stop in and say hello and buy all the yarn you like.  Just don’t ask for any complicated knitting help.  If anything, maybe someone can come in and help me.  I’m currently having a dickens of a time trying to graft together two separate parts of a scarf with something called a Kitchener stitch.

Also, there’s still time to submit your crossword puzzle.  What crossword puzzle you might ask?  Check out my blog entry of April 15.  All the details are there.  The names of the winning contestants will be drawn out of a hat on May 17.          

KNITTING FOR CELEBRITIES OR EVEN ZSA ZSA GABOR

The phone rings.  You answer it. An unknown yet slightly familiar voice speaks.

“Hi.  This is __________ (A-list celebrity).  I was at an airport and I saw this ___________ (scarf, sweater, shawl, etc.) that I absolutely fell in love with.  I approached the person wearing it and asked them where they purchased it and they informed me that you knit it for them.  I was wondering if you would be able to knit the same thing for me.  Money is no object.”

So after you verify that it truly is George Clooney or Queen Elizabeth II or Riccardo Muti, you pick your jaw off the floor and you make arrangements to actually knit something for Brad Pitt or Oprah Winfrey or Paul McCartney.  Then when the check arrives from Meryl Streep or Bill Clinton or Tiger Woods, you never cash it but frame it and hang it proudly on the wall opposite from where you usually knit so it will forever remind you that you are officially a knitter for the stars.

Well not me!  Nosiree!  Too many things can go wrong.  Dealing with celebrities has to be a royal pain.  And I’m not just referring to Queen Elizabeth II.  These A-listers, I just envision them being really picky and fussy and demanding and the pressure of getting the project just right gets to you and the next thing you know, your hands begin to shake, and once your hands begin to shake, there’s no more knitting and then you can’t feed yourself anymore and you begin to shrink to a shadow of your former self.  No thanks!

And then there’s Zsa Zsa Gabor.  I’m not quite sure when it started, but for most of my life I have been endlessly fascinated by this woman.  I must have been five or six years old when I first heard her name and that was it!  I was hooked.  It was the sheer sound of her name that got to me first.  Zsa Zsa.  What a name!.  Zsa Zsa!  So simple yet so exotic.  The Gabor part was just icing on the cake.  Zsa Zsa Gabor.  What poetry!  And then when I was older and I became aware of her life story, …  well, … how can one not be slightly bewildered by this woman.  Her film career is negligible but her real life story?  Wow!  I mean nine husbands?  Really?  Nine husbands?  Nine divorce settlements?  This woman was a force of nature in her day.  She was beautiful (Miss Hungary 1936) and she was smart and she was blessed with remarkable charm and a biting wit.  Who is comparable to her in this day and age?  The Kardashians?  Please.  Paris Hilton?  Be serious.  Though how curious that Zsa Zsa was once married to Paris Hilton’s great-grandfather, Conrad Hilton. 

For many years I paid homage to Zsa Zsa in a most unusual way.  I used to make up stories for my children when they were growing up.  These stories had recurring characters so it was an ongoing series of rather unusual adventures.  One of the characters was Zsa Zsa Gabor.  I regret now that I never wrote these episodes down.  The many chapters in that ongoing saga are too faint now for me to try and reconstruct.  A shame.

Zsa Zsa is still alive.  She is 95 but she has had terrible luck with her health, the one thing money cannot buy.  So if I were to get a call saying that Zsa Zsa Gabor would like me to knit something for her, I would not hesitate to say yes.  Whatever she wanted.  She could ask for socks and I would gladly do it, even though double pointed needles and I do not get along.  And no, I would not cash her check and yes, I would indeed have it framed and have it hanging in a most visible and cherished place.

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A handful of correctly completed crossword puzzles from my previous blog have already been turned in.  There is still a lot of time.  So get those pencils out and get those puzzles in before May 17.  First Prize is already set.  A pair of Knitter’s Pride Cubics Needles, a brand Cathy has just recently started carrying.  Second and third place prizes are still to be determined, but they will be doozies, I’m sure.  Maybe for a fourth place prize an 8x10 photgraph of Zsa Zsa Gabor?

FIRST ANNUAL PUZZLE CONTEST

So here’s the conversation I envisioned happening:

Fred – I constructed a knitting themed crossword puzzle for my blog.

Cathy – Good for you.

Fred – A prize will be awarded.

Cathy – Oh?  What kind of prize?

Fred – Not sure yet.  Some knitting related prize from the store perhaps?

Cathy – And who would pay for this knitting related prize?

Fred – I thought you could take it out of my salary.

Cathy – But I don’t pay you anything.

Fred – Then maybe it’s time you doubled my salary.

But I was pleasantly surprised to have the conversation actually go like this:

Fred – I constructed a knitting themed crossword puzzle for my blog.

Cathy – Great.  As a Grand Prize I could give away one of these new needles I just started carrying..

That’s the thing about yarn store owners.  Even when you’re married to one, you can never really predict how they’ll react to something out of the ordinary. 

So anyway, here is my First Annual Puzzle Contest.  It might be my last.  I was not aware of how hard it is to construct a traditional daily newspaper crossword puzzle.  I could have knit a giant sweater in the time it took me to create this puzzle.  Even then, I had to cheat a little and make up two entries.  You’ll know them when you see them.  Cathy is generously donating a pair of Knitter’s Pride Cubix Needles as the Grand Prize.  If you’re not familiar with these then all I can say is that you have to see them.  They are square.  Now if that doesn’t pique your interest….  Winner gets to pick the size.  And you never know, if Cathy is in a good mood, she might give away a second place prize or even a third place prize.  And who exactly is the winner?  Well, if only one person submits the completed puzzle with all the correct answers, then obviously that person is the winner.  But if we have multiple correct entries then we’ll put all those names in a hat and pull out one lucky name for the Grand Prize and a few more names if there are other prizes to be awarded.

Just a few rules.  One entry per person.  You can submit the finished puzzle personally at the store or you can mail it in.  The contest will be open for one month.  This will allow my many fans in the Shetland Islands and in Mongolia to also participate.  We’ll be pulling the lucky name on May 17.  If you’re mailing it in, send it to:

Montoya Fiber Studio

2566 Prairie Ave.

Evanston, IL 60201

So how hard is this puzzle?  Well, I had two guinea pigs tackle the puzzle simultaneously. Cathy is an avid Crossword puzzle fan and it took her around 18 minutes to finish it.  Our daughter Beth is not a puzzle aficionado and she was close to finishing it when she finally put down her pen.  My thanks to both of them for improving some of my clues.  As I mentioned before, it is knitting themed, so I’m sure a lot of the answers will be a breeze.  If you have a problem printing it off the blog, you have two options.  You can pick up a copy at the store or Cathy can email you a copy.  The business email is montoyafs@yahoo.com    Good luck to one and all.  

 

ACROSS

1.    Scruff                                                                               

5.    Exaggerated in style                                                         

9.    Expectorated                                                                      

13.  Continent where ChiaoGoo needles are made                                                                                             

14.  Target practice necessity                                                   

15.  Sign of holiness                                                                  

16.  Critiques severely                                                            

17.  Slope                                                                                  

18.  Terrible czar                                                                                                                          

19.  Flashy sock                                                                         

21.  Product under the jurisdiction of 26 Down                        

24.  Bunch of Australian sheep                                                

26.  Film Noir, for example                                                   

28.  Solutions for boring yarn                                                

30.  Advertisement for house lacking clothing storage                       

33.  Solemn promise                                                                  

37.  Feverishly opposed to the 16^th letter                                 

38.  On the _____                                                      

40.  Formal address for Baseball Preacher                               

41.  Character in the Book of Ruth                                           

42.  Vinegar’s comment after the breakup with oil

44.  Ubiquitous Smart phone software

48.  A New Yorker is either Yankeeish or _____

49.  Worm fiber compared to sheep fiber

51.  Knitted garment with buttons

55.  Haystack resident

60.  Black and white dunker

61.  Unconcerned fiddler

63.  Cambodia neighbor

64.  Cried

65.  “Giggling gaggle of geese” is loaded with them

66.  Purl’s partner

67.  Young lady from Scotland

68.  Ingredient in a gin liqueur

69.  Neither good nor bad

DOWN

1.    Western Wine Valley

2.    To roast in Spain

3.    Turandot character

4.    Garter stitch level

5.    Job options

6.    _____ de casa: Lady of the house

7.    Caesar’s 3,101

8.    With mom, chauvinistic small business

9.    Used to make a part fit

10.  Cover with concrete

11.  Winged

12.  Quality of sound

20.  Very fast letters in the Alphabet song

22.  Unusual yarn source

23.  Apt. alternative

25.  Irish dance

26.  Possible Stock Exchange symbol for the Goat & Camel Textile Association

27.  Miss Doolittle

29.  Separates yarn by color

30.  Catch a criminal

31.  Mrs. Lennon

32.  Mai ____

34.  Showy in a pretentious manner

35.  Essential part of a hand knit sock

36.  Feminine possessive

39.  Kubrick film plus a thousand

40.  Type of saw

43.  This insect would need one if it didn’t have antennae

45.  Greek letter

46.  Sty inhabitant

47.  Informal languages

50.  Genuflect

51.  Type of neck

52.  Length x width

53. Yarn salespeople

54.  Design element rarely seen in knitwear

56.  Fraternal organization

57.  Actor Royal _______

58.  Superman’s gal

59.  “This” in Spanish

62.  _____ Speedwagon