I Quit! (And then I bought a bus)

Mini Yarn Giveaway!

I’m moving across the country (temporarily) next spring and need to make space in my closets for our sublettor. One of the ways I’m doing this is getting rid of yarn I will never, ever use.

Three skeins of my superfluous yarn are pictured above: two skeins of red Baby Alpaca Lace (lace weight) from Plymouth Yarn and one skein of black Ultra Pima (worsted weight; 100% cotton) from Cascade Yarns. Purchased on impulse eons ago, languishing in my closet ever since.

Would you like this yarn? If so, and if you are following me, like and/or reblog this post between now and 8pm EST, Saturday, October 18. Doing both doubles your chances but multiple reblogs won’t. ;). I’ll pick one winner next Saturday night using a random number generator.

  ABC’s upcoming Selfie draws on the perennial fantasy of “fixing” female disobedience with modesty

The selfie is a modern folk-devil. Constructed within popular discourse as a trivial type of image, the selfie is predominately associated with a set of negative female stereotypes relating to narcissism, vapidity, and sexual impropriety. To see how this discourse works and to uncover its implications for social control, we need only consider the trailer for ABC’s upcoming new sitcom Selfie.

The show will focus on Eliza Dooley, an updated version of the lead character of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and its musical theater remake, My Fair Lady.  Whereas Shaw’s Eliza was marked by certain working-class clichés — such as her strong accent and unrefined manners — today’s equivalent embodies the “problem” of modern femininity, in that Eliza’s confident entry into the virtual public sphere is presented as emblematic of her lack of restraint in other areas of her life. It is this absence of feminine discipline that is seen as the problem: She lacks the social graces and controlled appetite (relating to food, sex, or self-representation as signified by selfies) that continue to be expected of young women.

The story of Pygmalion is an apt template for exploring the discourse of the selfie. Both express a marked disdain for women and a desire to control them, replacing their inappropriate untutored modes of self-expression with compliance to a system of male-issued rules. The fable of the errant subject’s correction consolidates gendered power relations, offering tidy narrative satisfactions and conventional rewards for the women who submit to discipline.

A Hungarian artist who goes by the name Babukatorium spent three months creating this awesomely intricate piece of guerilla knitting aka yarnbombing. The colouful crocheted piece is composed of 247 round spiderwebs in 13 colours. It took the artist three days to affix her beautiful creation to this tree, which is located somewhere in Veszprém, Hungary.

Babukatorium was inspired to create the piece after watching a performance of Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

She said: ‘I’m obsessed with spiderwebs and rainbows and so when I saw this tree after the performance I thought it would be perfect for yarnbombing.

'I used a lot of yarn and attached it with rainbow ribbons. At the end I was exhausted and surprised because I didn't think I would be able to complete it. I was also surprised because people love it, and come to visit the tree just to see the work.'

To view more work by Babukatorium, check out her Flickr page and Etsy shop. She’s also here on Tumblr.