A Little Yarn On The Side

*  Publish a free pattern on Ravelry, and the next time someone asks you for a chart, make one using Roman numerals..... *  Walk into your local knit night and announce that with Global Warming, soon no one will need knitwear at all. *  Take a small ball of yarn with you when you go out for sushi, and start knitting with your chopsticks while waiting *  This: * or this: * Call your local police station to report a tip on a local yarn uni-bomber, but specify that he does occasionally dabble with acrylic 4-ply *   Confront the local quilter's guild for encroaching on your craft-store turf--if possible, with a catchy background score by Bernstein. *  Take your knitting out in public, and the next time someone says, "I would never have the patience for that," tell them the doctor says it will keep you off the medications and maybe the shock treatments....

*  File a police report saying someone has stolen your knitting mojo. *  Start an online petition to make Continental the only acceptable form of knitting *  Send a letter to the editor denouncing the Cold Sheeping movement as an anti-ovine conspiracy theory *  Knit with wooden needles in public, and when anyone comments on your knitting, reply that it's great fun, but you have to be careful not to knit too fast or your needles will ignite *  Email every designer who has shared a free pattern on Ravelry and demand to know why the pattern doesn't include charts for every tiny bit of the pattern, translations into 47 languages, free coffee, and front row tickets to the next Jimmy Buffett concert *  Expose the financial details of thousands and thousands of knitters to credit card fraud without telling them, then deny responsibility.  Oh, wait............that's already been done.........................

*  Form a Knitter's SuperPAC and start questioning presidential candidates on their stand on circular versus double-pointed needles *  Take a new yarn to your knitting group and announce that it's from a lesser-known cousin of alpaca.....Loupaca *  Create a Facebook page for your stash and provide regular updates on its breeding details *  Find a published garter stitch scarf pattern and write to the designer asking where she gets her inspiration. *  Record a podcast about the new discovery you've made on how to rip back mohair yarn easily.  Cut the recording right after saying, "The key to frogging mohair easily is...." *  The next time someone tells you, "Oh, I could never learn to knit," tell them it's the not the knitting that's actually hard--it was the 4 year apprenticeship in the mountains of Tibet that really made it challenging.

*  Announce in a sock knitting forum that kitchenering the toes is passe , and that you prefer to dining room yours. *  Tell everyone that you aren't actually knitting, but doing a lesser-known two-handed method of crochet. *  Email your favorite lace designer and ask if there are any instructions for adding a few pom poms to her most popular shawl design. *  Announce to your local stitch and bitch that you don't really have much of a problem with Second Sock Syndrome, but that third sock really gets to you sometimes. *  When you hear a fellow knitter say, "Oh, I could never do that," agree with her wholeheartedly and suggest that she stick to garter stitch scarves. *  Start a group on Ravelry solely devoted to INCREASING one's yarn stash.  Adopt such slogans as "Global Warming affects sheep too," "Sharing is Stupid," and "Get it before someone else does."

*  Take the label off a ball of merino wool and tell everyone you spun it from your husband's chest hair which you shaved off at night while he was sleeping *   Go to your local Stitch 'n' Bitch and declare that circular needles are stupid *  Send anonymous threatening letters to the local quilting guild, telling them they're stepping on your crafting turf and they have 48 hours to get out of town *  Find a new employee at a large craft store and ask them if they can special order left-handed knitting needles for you *  Walk up to someone wearing a Fun Fur scarf and demand if they know how many "Funs" had to be killed to make that scarf *  Take your knitting out in public, and if anyone compliments you on your knitting, tell them it's a new type of knitting called "crochet."  See who gets it

1. Circulate a medical report linking prolonged wool exposure to a strange tropical disease known as Ovinus, which causes a bizarre eye twitch and a passion for hot pink eyelash yarn. 2. Take your knitting out in public and agree with everyone when they comment on your lovely crocheting. 3. At tonight's Stitch-n-Bitch, suggest forming a Knitting Mafia to take care of things, because those acrylic-only knitters are just getting out of hand. 4. Take a dead moth to your local yarn shop and plant it in the most expensive merino. 5. Write a blog entry saying that Elizabeth Zimmermann really didn't know that much about knitting, and you don't see what all the fuss was about. 6. Find someone with a garter-stitch fun-fur scarf and loudly accuse them of stealing your copyrighted design. 7. Sit down with your grandmother and browse the "naughty" patterns on Ravelry. 8. Dig out your nicest alpaca yarn to knit with and tell everyone it's spun raccoon...