nipperknits

Non-Matching

Here are the Rosedale United sleeves, or, at least, one and a half Rosedale United sleeves. I had a bit of a quandry about these guys. See... I knew I would have plenty of yarn to make the sweater, but I also thought I would have enough to make sure both the sleeves matched. Not quite. So, I had a decision to make. The sleeves each take about 1 1/3 skeins to get to the right length. I could either start them in the same place in the stripe pattern and have the last little bit of each sleeve before attaching to the yoke be different. Or I could start each sleeve in very different places and have them not match the whole way up. As you can see, I chose the non-matching. I figured it would just look weird to have the sweater match, match, match, *insert sound of needle being pulled off the album*. It would not have been good. I think they look pretty good in their non-matchy-ness. It seems very nipper.

Dearest Cousin Norma,

Thank you for your congratulations (and to everyone else who popped by to say congrats, thank you as well) on my graduation. I'm so glad to finally be finished with school. I've been in school off and on for nine years and finally this chapter of my life has closed. I'm thinking about going back and getting my MFA in a couple years, but that was just something I started pondering while sitting in the local Civic Center for the three hour ceremony (knitting, of course).

I agree that we have been confusing people with the Cousin thing lately. Part of me was seriously enoying the confusion, but maybe it will be nice to share with everyone else. That way everyone can join in on the fun.

Yes, we share a (not very common) last name. We do look a little bit alike. Hell, "we walk alike, we talk alike, sometimes we even think alike." I've got cousins your age. We come from rather poor, illiterate, desperate folk. We might as well be cousins.

You know a lot more about your heritage than I do. I don't really have anything to do with my father or his side of the family, so all I know is that they come from West Virginia. I do wish I could know more about my heritage, but that would involve speaking to my father and I just don't have any interest in that. Perhaps somewhere along the line my crazy people split with your crazy people and they went off to start their own little farm in West Virginia. Who knows?

In reality, if we are related it would have to be some sort of second cousin situation rather than anything like Aunt/Niece relationship. If you take a look at Royal family trees (or even the Black family tree in The Order of the Phoenix) everyone seems to be cousins with everyone else. So, I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that we could be cousins in some wayward fashion.

Living in NY with this long, unknown family background is pretty weird. Everyone always asks where I'm from and I, misunderstanding, say, "The South." When they then broaden their question to, "no, no, where is your family from?" I don't really have an answer for them. I answer that I'm a bit of a mutt. One of these days I'll tell you about the guy who got really in my face about that comment, but that's a story for another day. My ultimate answer is always that I come from an old, poor Southern family and I don't really know where I'm from. This always seems so strange to New Yorkers. This is a city filled with people who know exactly where they're from because it was their Great-grandparents, grandparents, or even parents who came from there. Then here are my people who have been here for at least 200 years (must be), but have no written history and no real way of even knowing where the name comes from. Your idea that it comes from the French, "Gervais," is the closest I've seen to any sort of theory.

All of this is meant to say that I am glad to have you as my cousin. And I hope this clears up all the confusion we seemed to be causing. See you in Rhinebeck, if I don't see you before. You know, you might need to make a trip down to see me and the Drafty Ladies. We'd love to have you!

Your Cousin Jenn

Also, while I'm writing letters, I'd like to get another out there.

To the guy who decided that just because we call our group a Stitch n' Bitch that he can walk up and say "Hey, Bitches" without offending us: You were wrong.