knitting blind?

so here's a question with potentially unkind overtones.

i know a lot of talented knitters. seriously skilled ladies who can do things with yarn and needles that would make athena blush, and tailor the hell out of any piece of clothing you can think of. the kind of people that make those homey, female-type activities true art forms.

i've also met some knitters who... well, don't. the kind that make me wonder why, despite their enormous amount of patience for detail and painstaking care with every stitch, many knitters completely forget to make sure that their handmade clothes fit them? it doesn't seem as though it would be difficult to see that your sweater is 4 inches too short, 3 inches too big around the arms, and a completely awful color for your skin tone. and horizontal stripes, while easy to add to knitting, are none too flattering for us knitters, who spend most of our time on couches. pink fluffy yarn, while fun and delicious for kitties everywhere, merely expands motherly bosoms and makes it impossible to look at anything else.

this is not to say that i am an expert sweater-maker. my first sweater, while a tasteful black, immediately decided to fall apart due to its cheap synthetic material, and i also had to add several inches to the pattern to make it fit. by the time i made my second sweater, i still had not learned about the dangers of cheap acrylic yarn, and the strands are now so frazzled and fluffy it looks like it comes with a feather boa. the difference, however, is that i do not wear either garment in public. or indeed, in private.

perhaps the fault is with the pattern makers. i've found that these ladies, while well-meaning, are generally unable to see beyond their petite 4'3" frame, bless them, and have decided that the only adjustments needed are for width. this would explain the plethora of ultra-wide, midriff-bearing winter sweaters one can find on the internet. seriously. don't their tummies get cold? how hard is it to keep knitting for that extra hour or so to make sure that your wrists don't get frostbite? also... don't they have mirrors? or spouses? or people in grocery stores who look at them funny?

i just... can't stop judging. *headdesk*

more kitchen adventures, and a musical mystery!

so my family really loves garlic mashed potatoes. i mean, we love potatoes in any variety, really. baked, mashed, deep fried, boiled, microwaved, spiced up, cooled down, on top of eggs, in potato salad, raw, whatever. we love potatoes. but adding garlic makes them extra special and fancy, just like in the restaurants! and i wanted to try it.

and so, as i do whenever i want to learn something completely foreign and new, i googled.

and i got recipes. ooooh i got recipes. from alton brown, from emeril, from users like you. each one had its own brand of fanciness, its own particular sparkle power involving some herb or cream or special whipping process. and every single one required about ten too many steps than i was willing to take to make some freakin potatoes. so, a couple of weeks ago, i threw everything into a pot in a grand experiment. i peeled the garlic and the potatoes, boiled them together with a little sea salt, and mixed them with the mixer. and voila! garlic mashed potatoes. i repeated the process tonight. call me crazy, but...

that was really easy. and AWESOME.

meanwhile, back at the ranch, itunes has been left to its own devices on shuffle. it seems that my computer has an affinity for the dance of the sugarplum fairy, which it plays about every five songs. i believe this to be an attempt at mockery in my general direction, but i'm not sure how or why. it's particularly disturbing when i try to think of when i would have put any sugarplums or fairies on my hard drive, and can't remember ever doing so. clearly there is something more sinister at work.