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It's odd how things grab you. Terry Pratchett's take on werewolves kind of leaves me cold, but I find the Black Ribboners hysterical.

For those who aren't Discworld fans, the Black Ribboners are a group of vampires who have joined ranks a la AA to swear off human blood. For sustenance they get along on bludwurst sausages and steak tartar, but
they replace the craving for blood with cravings for other things; photography, fresh-ground coffee, gourmet chocolates, etc. As a result, the Black Ribboners are always a tad . . . neurotic and often try way too hard to act human.

I find the idea of working-class vampires tickles me to no end. I wanted to play Lillium de Loerlei here in a Discworld RPG as a member of the knitting guild, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. But then I thought of the passage in 'Thud!' that talked about Mr. John Not-A-Vampire-At-All Smith and his ghastly sweater:

'It was an awfull garment, that pullover. It had a queasy zigzag pattern in many strange, unhappy colors. It looked like something knitted as a present by a colorblind aunt, the sort of thing you wouldn't dare throw away in case the garbage collectors laughed at you and kicked over your trash cans.'

But back before the industrial revolution, if you wanted a handknitted sweater, you went to a shop, picked out the colors and the yarn was sent to a professional knitter, who knitted up the garment and sent it back to the store. Black Ribboners notoriously have no color sense, so who would be better to knit a sweater in hideous vampire-ish colors than a vampire professional knitter?

Given some of the color combinations self-striping sock yarn is coming out in, I'm not sure vampires haven't gotten thier fingers in the yarn design pie already.

Description
It's odd how things grab you. Terry Pratchett's take on werewolves kind of leaves me cold, but I find the Black Ribboners hysterical.

For those who aren't Discworld fans, the Black Ribboners are a group of vampires who have joined ranks a la AA to swear off human blood. For sustenance they get along on bludwurst sausages and steak tartar, but
they replace the craving for blood with cravings for other things; photography, fresh-ground coffee, gourmet chocolates, etc. As a result, the Black Ribboners are always a tad . . . neurotic and often try way too hard to act human.

I find the idea of working-class vampires tickles me to no end. I wanted to play Lillium de Loerlei here in a Discworld RPG as a member of the knitting guild, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. But then I thought of the passage in 'Thud!' that talked about Mr. John Not-A-Vampire-At-All Smith and his ghastly sweater:

'It was an awfull garment, that pullover. It had a queasy zigzag pattern in many strange, unhappy colors. It looked like something knitted as a present by a colorblind aunt, the sort of thing you wouldn't dare throw away in case the garbage collectors laughed at you and kicked over your trash cans.'

But back before the industrial revolution, if you wanted a handknitted sweater, you went to a shop, picked out the colors and the yarn was sent to a professional knitter, who knitted up the garment and sent it back to the store. Black Ribboners notoriously have no color sense, so who would be better to knit a sweater in hideous vampire-ish colors than a vampire professional knitter?

Given some of the color combinations self-striping sock yarn is coming out in, I'm not sure vampires haven't gotten thier fingers in the yarn design pie already.