July 1, 2005

It's Canada Day!

You know you are a Canadian knitter when:

1. Your yarn comes in metres and grams, your needles in millimeters and you measure tension over 10cm. It’s too hot to knit at 30 degrees, you better whip up a sweater at 11 degrees and you drive to the yarn store going “60k”.

2. You have been, at some point in your life dressed in a “
Mary Maxim” bulky knit, zip up the front, picture on the back sweater (hockey player for boys or ballerina for girls), and despite having been scarred by this, for reasons that you cannot fully explain, you still get the Mary Maxim catalogue delivered to your door.

3. You have had a conversation about Patons Kroy sock yarn, and debated whether the “old Kroy” was better than the “new Kroy”, and further to that, you can identify Kroy sock yarn and it’s various incarnations by the colour of the label.

Kroy

4. You know that Koigu, Mission Falls, Briggs and Little, Fleece Artist, Patons, Treenway Silks (If you don't know about them, take a deep breath before you click.) and Philosophers Wool are all Canadian, and are in on the secret plan to take over the world through the magic of yarn.

5. When your knitting drives you to drink the beer is 5% alcohol, and you can start at 19 years of age.

6. It is a considerable point of pride for you that
Sally Melville, Debbie New, Fiona Ellis, Veronik Avery, Dorothy Siemens and Lucy Neatby are all Canadian.

7. You have knit a toque. Probably in the colours for a hockey team.

8. You know that if you mail thick knitted socks to anyone living anywhere in any province of Canada, they will come in handy.

9. If I tell you I'm sitting on my chesterfield watching Elvis on tv while I'm knitting you know it’s figure skating eh?

10. The oldest chartered trading company in the world, a Canadian department store called The Hudson Bay Company, used to have a yarn counter, and sold so much of Canada’s yarn supply that most Canadian knitters have yarn from “The Bay” in their stash and the other half have their pattern books. The only thing that would be better than The Bay starting to sell yarn again would be if Canadian Tire did, since that would give you a real reason to keep track of your Canadian Tire Money.

Ctmoney

Posted by Stephanie at July 1, 2005 2:05 PM