Blogs to Explore - Panopticon

Continuing my efforts to reduce my "Blogs to Explore" stash by actually exploring some blogs I bookmarked to review later...

I recently got to hear a Knit Picks pod cast featuring Franklin Habit. T'was quite funny and I became more intrigued. He's got a very clever book out: "It Itches" and I'd heard about his 1000 Knitters project from 6/17 comments from the Yarn Harlot. His blog, the Panopticon has been languishing in the Blogs to Explore folder for a very long time.

E'yup - I went exploring.
Well, first I got drastically side tracked. I gotta get me one o'these!!!
And love this...and this is excellent fun...and I have been giggling a little over the "It Itches" books at Purls....

Um, where was I? Oh - Yeah - Exploring. Blog. Right.
Um. We start today with a Valentine's message from Dolores.
The Sheep. (?)
I'm aware of Dolores but have not yet been exposed to a lot of her exploits.
I believe Mr. Habit's fan base on Ravelry is... Whoa - yep, "Dolores Devotees, For fans of Dolores van Hoofen (and -- it should go without saying -- her creator, Franklin.)".

Back to the blog. Dolores' Valentine message is charming and fun. ('cept now I'm craving cheese doodles...)
(Wait! Later in the blog I found a link to the Meet Dolores blog from March 2006! Is this the birth-blog of an Icon?!?)
LOVE the list of Romantic Knitting Classics (movie title twists) - AND the Stasher Movies!

I really liked his comments in the "Process" blog. He sounds like a kindred spirit in the surroundings-reflect-the-mind category.
Hmmm - someone sent him a rude e-mail questioning how he could have the nerve to blog on the same Internet as Brooklyn Tweed. That's creepy rude, actually.
Now - Brooklyn Tweed is also in the Blogs to Explore folder, and as I recall it was quite spiffy, but certainly not on the level of gotta-read-as-often-as-feasible like, well, the Yarn Harlot's blog. And for that matter - we all have A LOTTA NERVE blogging on the same Internet as Stephanie Pearl-McPhee!!
(Yeah - see how rude/silly/get-over-yourself that sounds?
(....and I'm creeping myself out a bit))

Back to the blog. (Rambling a lot today, aren't we? Got distracted with shopping and never came back (I'm thinking I might want one of these too...).
Lem'me grab some knitting to get me on the reading-track...(swatching...).

And there's charm to be found in this blog. Thus far it reads to me like a comfortable conversation with a friend.
A clever friend with an impressive vocabulary, some humility and a serious artistic bent.
Some inspiring creativity - on several levels.
Ha!! Excellent sense of humor! Dolores van Hoofen puts in appearances in many of the December blogs with a unique version the 12 days of Christmas ("Lurching Toward Epiphany").
(Yes, I'm getting blog-smitten...)
Ok, I'm chortling as I read this report of a Dolores adventure
I like how he changes writing personas.
(Hmmm - this is so well written, I'm actually wondering if Dolores will come kick my a** if I question her physical presence in our world or her exploits in Texas...)

And then a dose of knitting reality. This gentlemen views a lace pattern as "complex enough to be diverting, simple enough to be worked in company"...aside from the proof already being in photos of completed projects and the point that he teaches classes of Elizabeth Zimmerman patterns - he can knit lace "in company" and finds it "diverting"?!?!? (read with the tone of Lucy of the Peanuts).
i.e. - he's gooooood... but he's also human - he blogged that he missed three rows of the lace pattern and deftly describes what came after. Nifty.

Ok, I'm having too much fun reading Panopticon; this is another blog to visit again and again.
Time for bed - swatching is showing I need to go to larger needles.