Newsflash

Toronto- Reports are beginning to emerge that may indicate that local knitblogger “Yarn Harlot” (we believe that may be an assumed name) has finally snapped.

The recent overwhelming realization that the vast majority of knitbloggers are incredibly decent, generous and kind (combined with the tragic loss of her daughter’s infant Tamagotchi) had her in an emotionally fragile state to begin with, but this mornings wrangling with HTML in order to provide a new page for the blog appears to have put her right over the freaking edge. (We also have suggestions that Rams suggestion yesterday in the comments that the Harlot stop writing thank you notes may have caused some sort of Canadian politeness short circuit. Rumour would have it that the Harlot was writing thank you notes when she got the directive from Rams to stop thanking people (or risk,…what was that threat? BITING?), which made the Harlot very grateful to Rams for such sensitivity, and that made her want to thank Rams, which was forbidden. The inability to thank someone for trying to relieve her of thank you notes and its resultant unfulfilled thankfulness may have sent the Harlot into some sort of feedback loop and resultant meltdown.)

When asked for a comment her blog-god buddy Ken said “I don’t know what happened. She phoned me and sounded sort of, well…crazy. I couldn’t even tell if she was laughing or crying. Something about how she only tried to add a tiny little button and now the “whole blog was !@#$%^&!! broken”. I did what I could to calm her, but it was all I could do to get her to stop gibbering and clicking on “refresh”. I fixed what I could…but I can’t even begin to imagine what she was thinking. I mean…she was pointing images to a local drive. I can’t talk about this anymore. She’s already chewed up half my day.”

Ken indicated that despite the profound damage the Harlot had done to her own blog code while apparently trying to “upload” something…he had managed to reconstruct the brand new Knitters Without Borders Homepage for the KWB button to link to. He concluded by saying that he wonders if the Harlot was simply suffering some sort of seizure. “The tally in the sidebar is all she talks about. All the donations? I think she just got too happy“.

This reporter began to suspect a plot when she confirmed that Jean may have played a role in bringing on these dangerous levels of happiness by donating an incredible hank of handspun yarn to the Knitters Without Borders reward pot. Jean has details of this on her blog, where The Harlot may have shamelessly lifted this picture from.

Jeanshs

Not just any handspun…but the flagship handspun from her own blog….where, not coincidentally, this reporter discovered completely intact HTML code. Suspicious?

Only one sighting of the Harlot herself has been made since several witnesses confirmed her extremely odd behaviour at the stitch and bitch at Lettuce Knit on Wednesday evening. “You wouldn’t have believed it,” said one incredulous knitter..” she was here for hours and she didn’t buy anything. Nothing. Not even a magazine. We couldn’t believe it. She just kept muttering about needs and wants. Then she left. She didn’t even have any knitted stuff on…In January? It was really weird. Do you think she’s ok?”

While this non-yarn buying behaviour is highly suspicious, we continue to hold out hope that the Harlot is merely experiencing an uncharacteristic period of focus and self control. Since the Harlot has never before exhibited either of these characteristics, it is too soon to tell if it is a sign that she has become crazier than Cher claiming that she doesn’t like sparkles. This reporter gained access to the harlot home last evening and after digging through the rubble found the following mitten part on the table.

Msfboh

This mitten appears normal enough…but among the things overheard in the wool strewn house was a concern that the Harlot believes that the pattern on the hand is “too low contrast” and may need to be re-knit. Somewhat reassuring is that the Harlot may have been able to let go of her obsession with stripy palms and knit some sort of little diamond action on this one.

Msfpalm1

This reporter also overheard a discussion between the Harlot and a man she called “Joe” (though he may also use an alias) and some smaller people, who were all trying to figure out a way to deal with the decrepit Christmas tree in the living room. There was significant resistance to the Harlots suggestion that perhaps one of them could carry it outside for compost pickup. There may be some hope for the Harlot….as she did reject Joe’s alternate idea that perhaps they could just keep vacuuming up fallen needles from under the tree all year. According to “Joe” the tree would eventually simply disappear.

The Harlot’s response? “You know dude, thank goodness I work here, or you people would be exhausted.”