8/13/2023 the facts are in
Recently, a knitting designer whose work I've got my eye on posted a few calls for testing the patterns of some fresh designs she's come up with. I don't test other designers' works anymore, mainly because I don't want to aid someone who actively works against me, but also because it just takes a great deal of my brain-power and time away from my own design-work. Still, I like to see peoples' fresh designs, and I suppose I won't say, "I'll never test for another designer again," but I don't see it happening in the foreseeable future. These new designs though, I was somewhat tempted by one of them. Actually, it was more like, "ooh, that's nice. If I wanted to do a test, I'd do this one!" I played through in my mind how it might have gone if I had offered to test, and I didn't even get past "Well, I know it calls for aran weight yarn, but I've only got enough on hand of sport weight." Sometimes a designer doesn't mind if you use a different yarn weight, but again, I didn't even really want to test anyway, even though the design was really interesting and nice-looking. Oddly enough, it is the only of the three tests that hasn't garnered any interest, but it is the only one I would have wanted to do...if I was into that type of thing.
I have a few of the designers patterns that I acquired through the use of coupon codes when she occasionally offers up a free pattern using a code. She's got nice designs. So to pass the time while I was lying there, I started to peruse the rest of her catalogue. The patterns were presented by "Best Match," so I'm not sure how one named Algonquin came up as the best match when the search parameters are simply "all patterns by Joan Forgione," but there you have it. Now--I have a natural curiosity, and if I do say so, skepticism, when it comes to titles. I know someone personally who has a photography side-hustle, and the name of that hustle is "Person's Name Studios." I know for a fact that this person does not have a studio--not in the sense that there's a dark-room where film is developed--ignoring the fact that this person uses a digital camera. The arrangement may have changed, but when I lived with the person, it was their PC in their bedroom. That was the studio. So if you broaden the sense of the word "studio," then yes, I would say they have "studios." I do it all the time, in fact. I have a tarp rigged up with some ropes where our panniers and other belongings stay when we're not using them, and I call it the garage. It's not an aluminum building with a large door that raises and lowers, but it's still "a garage." So I'm not knocking the "Person's Name Studios" idea. What I am saying, however, is that I don't think that "Person" wants you to realize it's just the PC in the bedroom while they're half-clothed smoking a cigarette. "Person" would probably much prefer it if you thought it was some nice, well-lit room in an office-park somewhere, or maybe a cottage in a wooded area of town. The food industry is especially guilty of misrepresentation. How is it that from the top-shelf to the well-brands, they all use "the best ingredients." Someone's lying, and I think it might actually be all of them. So when I came across "Algonquin" by a person whose profile picture is of a white lady and whose profile says she's often got "knitting needles in [her] hand, coffee in [her] cup, and a spreadsheet open on [her] Mac," I didn't get the sense that she had any great connection to the Algonquin people after whom she named the pattern. This is not to say that a person of Algonquin descent would not have knitting, coffee, and a Mac, but between that and the profile picture which, to the best of my knowledge, is a real picture of the lady, I got the sense that it was another case of a privileged euro-descendant using an indigenous name to present a sense of higher-knowing, intelligence, sensitivity, and general goodness that is utterly and completely lacking on all counts. This judgement wasn't personal. I see it everywhere I go, but only while my eyes are open. Name your patterns however you please, hold them for whatever ransom you desire. The phrase, "sell them for whatever price you like," is the more socially acceptable one, I know, but just doesn't quite say it, in my opinion.
So I wondered aloud in a comment. From the response, I glean that it is the name of a group of people who the designer says she respects, goes about her life in the same region as, and knows a lot about. Other than all that, there is no relation. Yet I cannot ignore and would like to point out the irony that she expects her friends--those Algonquin--to fork over 8 bucks if they (or anyone else) want to knit the shirt so she can actually pay her own protection racket which is itself a continuation of the same racket that brought her friends down in the first place.
8/2/2023 sadism...
Parents, they pray all the time for the miracle of a child, they sometimes go to great and strange lengths to bear or otherwise acquire a child, but then you look at how they treat that person, the one they call their child, and you see how the person must adapt if not fully relinquish their personality and lifestyle to suit that of the parent or else suffer the arbitrarily determined (by the parent) consequences. You'd think they're praying not for the miracle of birth but for a slave that they can legally punish, physically and psychologically, anytime they want for any reason they want.
How sadistic can you get? |
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