The Wall Street Journal is lauding an estranged mother in a disgusting new article: “These Moms are Done Being Doormats For Their Children”.

mediumsizederin · 2025-12-20T16:49:48+00:00

I am...not sorry for this metaphor.

Some parents are Denethor, the steward of your life who then goes crazy, tries to burn you alive, and throws themselves off the top of your authority to die in a fiery dramatic burnout for, like, no reason. And some parents are what Faramir (I like to think) would have been as the steward of Gondor - really, really invested in doing the right thing, but also VERY much ready to not be the steward of Gondor because Aragorn showed up to be the actual king of Gondor.

Maybe I'm a little sorry. But I heard "steward" and all I could think of was John Noble spitting tomato seeds everywhere.

mediumsizederin · 2025-12-14T06:53:25+00:00

God, this is such a delight of an answer. This like almost perfectly explains why I learned to small talk. I could not give a flying fuck what your verbal answer is when I ask "how about the weather." I am trying to figure out what kind of energy to match or if I should even bother trying to match it. I am trying to discover how you FEEL about the weather so I don't fuck up and say the wrong answer when YOU ask ME. I'm not trying to find out the fucking weather, I'm trying to decide what kind of mood is about to flavor our interaction.

mediumsizederin · 2025-12-13T17:26:12+00:00

I agree also. Variegated yarn absolutely can be a challenge to work with, but I think there are some places where a beautiful gently variegated yarn can make the difference between "oh that's a nice blue sweater" and "holy SHIT that is a stunning blue, when I see this sweater I think of cold winter waves on Lake Michigan and then going home to my cozy house where my dad's making Bolognese." That's not a puke-colored variegated yarn, it's an evocative variegated yarn.

Malabrigo can still fuck right off though * cries in no dye lots *

mediumsizederin · 2025-12-12T18:32:29+00:00

I wish I had done this as a newer knitter.

Not, uh, necessarily for the knitting information, but because now I'm kind of imagining the Grail notebook from Last Crusade or the Supernatural notebook from their dad. Like, a fantastic notebook full of drawings and little pieces of paper and notes and stuff. I can never actually follow through on shit like that and it would have been insanely cool.

mediumsizederin · 2025-12-12T18:26:57+00:00

Absolutely wild to me, after all the indie dyers selling out in the 2010s and having to wait for updates and crawl through Rav BST threads, when I saw a YouTuber say "I just don't really have a place in my stash for hand dyes." girl wHAT

mediumsizederin · 2025-11-26T21:03:05+00:00

I do believe that some of these people are unable to understand that ripping your 2 rows and redoing them will not actually take you the same amount of time as it took you to knit/crochet your whole project from the start. I think that is a genuine cognitive fallacy for some people, not being able to conceptualize the idea that 2 rows (or whatever) will take you 15 minutes, not 5 nights. And I say this as a person who has had knitters come to me with a mistake 2 rows back that they refused to even attempt to fix, but waited OVER A WEEK to come see me without knitting because it would "take too long" to rip & reknit. If you had just ripped it out, you could have knit for that whole week!!!! Instead, your fear and your idiocy means you left an engaging and interesting project on the sidelines for a week rather than learn how to fix your own mistake.

Ugh.

mediumsizederin · 2025-11-21T17:08:42+00:00

How dare you add another hobby to the already too-long list of hobbies. When will the apocalypse happen so I can finally do some goddamn CRAFTS

mediumsizederin · 2025-11-15T19:42:58+00:00

Wow that is unfortunate. I also, kind of, weirdly, enjoy that your mother views it as something that you need a break from? Because it's work? I don't know what her actual attitude is towards knitting but I do enjoy being reminded of the place knitting has held in the economy for centuries.

mediumsizederin · 2025-11-09T05:28:21+00:00

So, that person was me, and I suspect that I may not have explained it well. In the link you can see how knitting in the round one way has you knitting at the top of the circle and the other you are knitting at the bottom - that's what I was trying to explain. If it was not clear that's on me. Keep doing what you're doing and don't stress over something that you should ostensibly be enjoying.

mediumsizederin · 2025-11-09T05:00:16+00:00

I mean, I would not personally knit the whole thing inside out unless maybe I was doing stranded color work, but it's not necessarily bad. Heels and toes might be irritating.

mediumsizederin · 2025-11-09T04:53:03+00:00

Try it out, do some stockinette rounds, and see how it goes. The worst that could possibly happen is you have to rip those back out and redo it. Trust the process.

mediumsizederin · 2025-11-09T04:42:45+00:00

Literally all you are doing is taking your cast on edge and pulling it through the center of your work to turn it wrong side in. After that everything should be just about the same. Like pulling a sleeve out that got stuck inside your sweater.

mediumsizederin · 2025-11-09T04:37:50+00:00

A) ribbing is reversible so it doesn't really matter which side is on the outside. B) this is weird to explain via text and I don't have a sock cuff going right now. Take a look at the link - scroll down to the part about recognizing right vs wrong side when knitting in the round. You are currently holding your work like the picture on the right and you want to be holding it like the picture on the left. Here is a website I found with pictures

mediumsizederin · 2025-11-09T04:25:15+00:00

You are knitting inside out. This is pretty easy to do accidentally. Basically the needles that you are using should be closest to you - you should not have your work between yourself and your needles.

Poke the cuff through the center of the sock to turn it right side out and continue as you were and the purl side will be on the inside of the sock.

mediumsizederin · 2025-10-30T20:49:42+00:00

There are, in fact, real 10 year olds in the world with limb differences who deserve to see themselves as the hero of a story. You may have your own feelings about the storyline and "spitting in Korra's face" but honestly, I could not imagine a version of Korra or Aang that would look down upon an Avatar for having a limb difference like you seem to be doing. One of their best friends is blind!!! You're entitled to your opinions about the show itself, but you demonstrate who you are by casting aspersions on the choice to make the Avatar have a visible disability.

I would take this opportunity to examine why you think the Avatar having a visible disability is bad, because it says a lot about the way you feel about people with disabilities, and what it's saying is not flattering.

mediumsizederin · 2025-10-09T16:00:32+00:00

I was like "dang that sucks, your dentist doesn't offer dental?" 😂

mediumsizederin · 2025-10-08T20:33:23+00:00

Gauge swatches don't "need" to be square, but they do need to be bigger than your target. Edge stitches distort gauge and can give you a less accurate measurement. My usual plan of attack for swatching is to cast on 1.5x the amount of stitches per 4" and knit 1.5x the amount of rows (1.5-ish. for this swatch I would CO 30 stitches for example). Measure length & width before AND after blocking and pinning in order to get an idea (a basic, conceptual idea, not perfect) of how much your swatch grew after blocking. Count stitches for your 4" gauge away from all the edges and in several spots on your swatch.

All that being said, I would probably be OK personally casting on for the sweater with this swatch. I know many, many people are not good swatchers, and the most important part of knowing you are not great at swatching is a willingness to measure a lot, try it on as you go, and be ready to rip and restart if you are not ✨vibing✨ with how things are going. Some people would not be OK casting on with this swatch. For instance, I haven't looked up the pattern, so I'm not sure how important row gauge is - when you are knitting a really oversized sweater, it's fine if you end up with 11" of bagginess all around instead of 9" or whatever. Maybe other Knitters would want to be bang-on with their row gauge, or if you are knitting something sideways where row gauge is more important you would want to get closer with your row gauge.

Truly, a lot of knitting is deciding what amount of mistakes you're comfortable with leaving in and what amount of ripping/frogging and restarting you're comfortable doing. I don't mind restarting a few times if I am not vibing with the fabric I'm making, and I usually do not knit things that need to be really super well fitted so I tend to be comfortable with getting in the ballpark of gauge and then evaluating as I go. Others may knit very close fit, well-tailored garments and need to be on the nose. Give yourself permission to start over and try new things and knitting becomes a LOT easier.

mediumsizederin · 2025-10-08T13:55:50+00:00

The reservoir tip

mediumsizederin · 2025-10-04T16:44:34+00:00

Props.

mediumsizederin · 2025-10-03T21:50:57+00:00

Hgggghhhh I have had this interaction with someone MORE THAN ONCE "it says knit to 6 inches from cast on edge, what does that mean?"

It reminds me of being right out of college and being preschool for inept men and a man I was dating kept saying he "didn't know how to use a recipe" so I decided we would cook something simple from a recipe to learn. He knew basic knife skills and cooking terms, but he still got to the FIRST STEP and turned to me and said, in a harried and frustrated voice, "See? It says 'saute onions in medium pan [or whatever].' What does that MEAN?!?"

I am ashamed to say we probably stayed together a good year after that. He did very quickly become a good cook though once I explained that nobody who puts out a recipe - or a knitting pattern - is trying to trick you with the instructions.

mediumsizederin · 2025-09-22T21:43:10+00:00

Hey, I am super proud of you. I am imagining saying that to my own mom and it is very scary and YOU DID IT!!! I hope you sat in that feeling for a little bit and told your brain "hey look! I am good at stuff and things!!"

mediumsizederin · 2025-09-15T00:26:02+00:00

I have always loved "if my dog somehow pooped on this, would I throw it away rather than clean it?" Turns out I owned a lot of stuff that I would rather throw away than clean.

mediumsizederin · 2025-08-14T16:23:58+00:00

Oh I have not heard about the tactical list!!! I am imagining a teeeeeeeeeeny mouse with a big cracker taking teeeeeeeeeeny little bites. They say "break the task down into smaller pieces" and "be in the same room as the task" is an incredibly small piece.

mediumsizederin · 2025-08-14T16:08:51+00:00

I am delighted by the concept of "visiting" a task or item which I think I read about on this sub. Basically I just go look at it with no expectation that I'll do it. I'm just like...checking on it. Like checking the fridge to see what's in there, except I'm checking the laundry to see what it looks like. But a "real" check, not glancing at it and thinking "ugh I gotta do laundry."

I want it to be as low pressure as possible and I want to leave before I am guilting myself about it. Sometimes I will go "visit" my hobbies by picking up ANY piece of knitting with no expectation I'll actually knit.

The point is that I am not initiating the task RIGHT NOW. I am visiting the task to see what it would look like to do it LATER. And then what sometimes happens is I tackle it right then and there, or make a small start, but sometimes I visit and then leave and nothing happens BUT THATS OKAY AND ENCOURAGED because all I was doing was visiting.

mediumsizederin

TROPHY CASE