This post was originally going to be poignant, touching and funny.  Everything you always wanted in a knitting blog post.

Alas, due to the machinations of big business, my original vision has been forced to change a bit.

A couple of years ago, my sister Bets — who keeps EVERYTHING — went closet-diving and surfaced with a really unique and special gift for me.  It was a framed clipping of a Sunday cartoon, published sometime in the mid-70′s (note:  more than 30 years ago).

Back then, my sister was knitting:  and it may be recalled that it is all her fault that I’m doing this today it was she who inspired me, at the tender age of 6, with a burning desire to learn to knit.  A desire that has led me to my midlife crisis a bit early has permeated my entire life and spawned my new career, saving me and my soul from corporate engineering hell.

Evidently, back in the 70′s, Bets too was something of a knitting fanatic.  (Some might say knitting fanaticism runs in the family.)  So a friend cut out an amusing knitting cartoon for her, about a woman who knits continually, and my sister kept it all these many years.

Now Bets has gifted it to me — apparently she thinks it appropriate, for some unfathomable reason, that I should have it – and it hangs on the wall of my studio:

studio

OK, that’s the touching and poignant part.

To lighten things up a bit, I thought it would be fun to actually show y’all the cartoon.  It is funny, and it’s about knitting, after all.

And since I wanted to do the right thing, I searched online to find the people who hold the rights to the cartoon, and I filled out their rather explicit online form, explaining what I wanted to do:  scan and post this old knitting cartoon from my sister on my small knitting blog.  Seems simple enough, doesn’t it?

Guess what?  They tell me it’ll cost me $450 to post this on my blog — for just one year.  And I wasn’t even asking for "camera-ready artwork"!!

Well.  It’s shocking to have to say it – especially after receiving those economic stimulus checks — but I just don’t have $450 to blow spend that way.  (And anyway:  if I did have $450 to blow, think how much yarn that would be!!)

cartoon

So look at this now, quick, while it’s still here.  It’s just my own small photo of this endearing keepsake from my big sister, and I hardly think you could call it a "reprint".  I have made it plenty small enough so that you can’t actually read the cartoon – plus there is so much glare from the flash, anyone eagle-eyed enough to actually read it would be blinded.  But, I have a sneaking suspicion that they might tell me to take even this image down…if they find it.

Now, I could end the post right here, or I can try to tell you about the cartoon instead.  Unfortunately, it probably won’t be quite as funny as reading it for yourself, but I’ll do my best.  (Heck, if you’re ever in the neighborhood, drop by and I’ll let you read it.  I’m happy to share.)  OK, here goes: 

  • One of the characters is knitting throughout the cartoon.  [Presumably she is using aluminum needles, as the words "CLICK CLICK CLICK" are written all around her.]
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  • Her hubby complains loudly and gruffly throughout the first few frames that she’s always knitting, and it’s driving him crazy.  Then he expresses the desire that she take a break from the constant knitting.
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  • And when he leaves the room again, she says,

"I can’t — if I wasn’t doing something with my hands, I’d throttle him."

(There’s one last frame – in which he asks what she said, and she says she was just singing — but I am pretty sure you’ll agree with me that the funny part is prior to that.)

(And if you’re not laughing, you’ll have to blame the people at Creators Syndicate.  Sorry.)