Greetings, OMG more yarn, and pet peeves.

Kind of a hodgepodge this week. 

First, thanks and welcome to the nearly 700 people who downloaded Seized during last weekend's Beltane Blowout.  I gave away a few copies of "Lulie" as well.  Hope you enjoy them! 

Second, I've been off the grid for pretty much the whole weekend.  I spent Friday night and all day yesterday knitting, mainly to finish a top for my daughter so that I could start on one for me.  :)  Then today, I went with a friend to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  It's the first time I've ever been to this festival and it was pretty much mind-blowing.  Who knew there were so many yarn shops and yarn makers out there?  It takes place at a county fairgrounds.  The shops filled stalls in the Main Exhibition Hall and four or five other buildings, and were also set up in tents for several more blocks.  Needless to say, we did a lot of walking, and I am pretty well tuckered out.

I didn't fully realize how tired I was until I cast on for a sweater for myself tonight, managed to twist the work when I joined it to knit in the round, and didn't realize I'd done it until I had almost finished the seventh round of knitting.  If I'd kept going, I would have had a lovely Moebius strip, but the sweater would have been quite impractical to wear.  So I've ripped it all out and have promised myself that I will try again once I've gotten some sleep.

I also got another knitting book while I was at the festival.  Looking over it while eating dinner tonight, I was reminded of one of my pet peeves.  Granted, English is a living language, usage changes, and all that good stuff.  But where was I when we did away with the word "knitted"?  Because at some point when I wasn't looking, people dropped the "-ed".  Knitters are no longer making "knitted fabric," we make "knit fabric."  "She had knitted" has turned into "She had knit."  It's crazy-making, I tell you.

In the same vein, why is Microsoft Word insistent that I conjoin the words "any more"?  And the words "some time" too.  Okay, "sometime" is a legitimate word, if you're talking about, say, a guy who occasionally drives racing cars ("a sometime race car driver").  But there are also circumstances in which "some time" ought to be two words -- for instance, in the phrase, "some time later."  "Sometime" means "occasionally"; "some time" means "some vague or uncertain amount of time". 

But "anymore"?  That just looks wrong to me.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Microsoft Word would not accept "awhile" as a legitimate word until added it to the dictionary.  That's despite the fact that "awhile" has been in common usage for at least a thousand years.

Anybody else got any other examples?  Or an explanation for why we haven't knitted in awhile?

Have a good week!