Yarn a Go-Go

There's this gigantic and famous Paul Gaugin painting at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, with the title painted helpfully right on the canvas:

D'où venons-nous? Qui sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?

Even though French seems to be the lingua franca of knitting blogs (must be all those Canadians) here's the translation just in case:

Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?

I remember standing in front of that painting sophomore year with Birdfarm and another friend of ours, Sylvia, a vastly entertaining person who had more than a touch of Wednesday Addams in her personality.

Birdfarm and I gazed, and pondered, as was our wont. Sylvia sized the thing up for a second and said flatly, "We came from Cambridge. We're Harvard students. We're going to lunch."

Her tone of voice was such that Gaugin, had he been there, would have felt very silly for even asking such questions, let alone spending all that time painting an answer.

Today, however, I am not a Harvard student, I did not come from Cambridge, and it's too late for lunch. Today, I am a guy who knits, I just came from the yarn store, and I am going to Stitches Midwest in less than a week.

I wish I could tell you I'm wild with untrammeled excitement about the classes I picked. I am not. I selected them months ago (register now and SAVE!) based on what I guessed I'd be ready and willing to do by August.

Nine of my twelve hours are to be occupied by lace knitting. The first three are with none other than Nancy Bush, whose name meant nothing to me when I registered. Now, of course, I know she's dreadfully famous. I imagine the class with be full of devotées who have already knitted an acre or two of lace, and I'm scared shitless.

It doesn't help that after going 10 rounds with the @#$%@! Branching Out scarf, just to get myself accustomed to the processes of basic lace knitting, I have black eyes and a bloody nose. And no scarf. (Please don't tell me to knit lifelines so I can rip back when I have to. I should be so lucky as to get that far.)

My other three hours are an intarsia class. Unfortunately I've realized over the course of the past several months that I hate intarsia. Or at least I hate pretty much everything I've seen done with it. Fair isle, or jacquard knitting - those I would love to try. But not intarsia. And I won't change my mind until I've seen evidence that it can be put to better use than this, which is only slightly worse than the usual offenses.

I must qualify the above. This makes it sounds like I'm dreading Stitches, and I'm honestly not. I'm delighted to be going. I've never been to anything like this before. All that yarn, all those people to whom I can speak of knitting without their eyes immediately glazing over. Is this heaven? No, it's Rosemont.

It's probably good to have it under my belt before really jumping into the deep end at Rhinebeck.

Maybe dear Nancy Bush will not slap me for misplacing my yarn-overs. Perhaps I will encounter an intarsia pattern that does not look like a crayon doodle made by a second-grader with poor motor skills. Maybe my classes will not be like the last paragraphs of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" with me in place of Tessie Hutchinson.

Oh, I wish, fairy godmother. I wish!

I must remember that I get to meet and hang around with Jon, which alone is worth the price of admission. Of course, all bets are off when he sees that I've bought Lion Brand Wool-Ease for the intarsia class. (I know, I know. But it's practice yarn, and at $1 per skein it looked pretty freakin' beautiful to me. Even if it does feel like rug yarn. People wear this stuff?)

Now that I've vented my fears just as the nice doctor said I should, I'm going to go sit in a corner, hug my skein of "Dale Baby Ull or equivalent in a light shade" and think happy thoughts.

Gulp.