for our pals down under

i have the Knit Bits calendar, which is a 365 day calendar, and while i've decided that to share that one every day is going to drive me into carpal tunnel, i thought, on Anzac day, April 25, that thought should be shared.


This is a day when Australians and New Zealanders remember World War I and their servicemen. Recently, a veteran of that war told this story: "You know when one of my mates was dying out there in the trenches, he gave me the socks his sister had made for him. They were great socks, not those flimsy things you buy in the shops. When I came back I went looking for that girl - and i married her. You know it was all because of that pair of socks. I've never had any other sort of socks." He was married to his sock knitter for fifty-one years.

Kathryn Gunn quoted in KnitLit, edited by Linda Roghaar and Molly Wolf.


wow.

and here's something else for you to ponder. while i was cleaning the living room yesterday, and going through all the packages i've just set aside rather than throw them out, i found my receipt from when i bought the Peacock shawl pattern. it had a poem on it, that i'd like to share as well.

The Prayse of the Needle

To all dispersed sorts of Arts and Trades,
I write the Needles praise (that never fades)
So long as children shall be got or borne,
So long as garments shall be made, or worne,
So long as Hemp or Flax, or Sheep shall bear
Their linnen wollen fleeces yeare by yeare;
So long as Silk-worms, with exhausted spoyle
Of their owne Entrailes, for mans gaine shal toyle:
Yea, till the world be quite dissolu'd and past;
So long at least, the Needles use shall last;

By John Taylor (1580 - 1653)

nuff said.