Knitting machine = LSD?

I was at a concert last weekend and while waiting for the performance to begin, I couldn’t help listening to the conversation between two men seated behind me. When I heard the one guy say something like ‘I love LSD!’, my ears perked right up! Turns out he was a car guy and was describing ‘stuff’ in his garage that he called LSD - ‘labour saving devices’... it works for me!

Sitting in MSP airport recently, wearing ‘Tumbleweed’ from No 53, with 3 hours to kill between flights, I was stitching in ends on two ‘take an old bag shopping’ bags that I was finishing up to give as hostess gifts (my bag count since the pattern came out in No 44 is up to 29!). Anyway, this gal came rushing over to me to see what I was doing, all enthused to find a fellow knitter. She gushed over my cardigan and was particularly interested in the edging I’d used on the hem and cuffs - she couldn’t identify it. I admitted that I’d made the sweater and it was my own design. She picked up my finished bag, marvelling over the evenness of the stitches. She began asking me questions about where I got my yarn - she said she was from Winnipeg - I admitted to being a fellow Canadian and we shop-talked the Winnipeg knitting scene. She even exclaimed over my use of the thread cutter on my letter opener that I was trimming the ends with so I didn’t have to worry about them taking away scissors. When she asked me what size needles I used for my cardigan, our relationship was over... as soon as I said ‘knitting machine’, I may as well have used bad language in public. She dropped me like a stone, just when I thought I had her hooked! I had put off using the ‘M’ word as long as possible but sadly she was one of those purist-snobs who believe that stitches should only be made the old-fashioned way. As she flounced off, I wanted to yell, ‘yeah, but...you liked me okay at first, before you thought I was a cheater.’

(oh, quick comeback, MA!)

Now that I got that off my chest, back to cheating...er, knitting with my LSD!