Speaking of Knitting

October, 2008. Never have I ever had such a busy month–not even in college, when our final exams were painfully stretched out over multiple weeks.

After nearly fifteen years I still contemplate those two dreadful swatches of winter and spring with undiminished horror. One was either sleeping, eating, prepping for a test or taking a test; and both sleeping and eating were curtailed in order to leave more time for prepping.

Once, halfway through the ordeal, a friend persuaded me to unwind by leaving campus and heading into Boston to spend the afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts. Unfortunately, I was an art history major. Instead of losing my cares for a couple of hours in the loveliness, after fifteen minutes I had a panic attack in front of a Renoir and fled back to my books.

October has felt a bit like that. I was either traveling to something or from something; or packing something; or shipping something; or drawing something; or photographing something; or writing something; or signing something; or writing about traveling or packing or shipping or drawing or writing or signing.

Notice, among all those -ings, the absence of knitting.

Not that there wasn't any. It's just all been small and simple, and some of it (like the patterns for the next column in Knitty) I can't show you in advance or Amy Singer will get all huffy.

But I am heartily sick of not blogging about knitting. Today, although a gaggle of -ings has clustered around my ankles to scream for attention, I'm shutting them all in the bathroom so I can show you the latest sweater for Abigail.

The knitting itself is as plain as plain gets: Baby Pullover #214 from always-reliable Knitting Pure and Simple. Top-down, raglan sleeves, highly recommended without reservations. My only changes were to work a seed stitch collar and cuffs, instead of rolled stockinette.



The yarn, Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in "Aslan," was pretty all by itself. But when the sweater was finished I wasn't happy with it. Handsome, sure. But dull. No dash. No surprise. A dish of ice cream with no cherry on top. Rock without roll. Mary-Kate without Ashley.

During my infrequent, unoccupied moments at home I'd pick it up and turn it over and squint at it, and then throw it back into the workbasket. I briefly considered slicing the front to make a cardigan with Fun Buttons, but I've had no time to shop around for Fun Buttons.

Then I opened one of the doors on the stash cupboard to hunt for something and three or four small balls of leftover Dream in Color from Abigail's Tulip Jacket fell out. The memory of a bird I'd seen pecking at a bush on Fremont Street knocked up against the memory of a embroidering the Baby Kimono, and a Eureka Moment ensued. (Passers-by in the street heard only a soft popping sound, but for me it was a great relief.)

I consulted briefly with my embroidery books, made a few preliminary sketches, and turned the pullover into "Bird and Berry."



One sleeve, the back, and the front all have the same sort of vine growing from the bottom up. It's just a feathered chain stitch with two-stitch "berries" sprouting at random.



On the front, one of the vines has a little brown bird perched on top, with a berry in its beak.



If you haven't tried embroidering on a piece of knitting, I highly recommend it. I liken it to working cables. For example:

• a well-chosen motif can add immensely to the success of a project;
• it's much simpler to do than it looks, given a little study and practice, and;
• to the uninitiated, it looks like magic, and you are not required to disillusion them.

By happy chance, there's an article by Pam Allen about embroidery for knitters in the new holiday gifts issue of Interweave Knits. (The same issue is absolutely crawling with Panopticon sheep, by the way.)

Little Book News

The hometown launch for It Itches happened on Sunday at Arcadia Knitting an oh, what a merry crowd. It was a charge to stand in the same spot where'd I'd seen Debbie Stoller and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee talk about their work, and read aloud from mine. I wanted to hug everybody who took the time to come say hello. I think I probably did hug about three-quarters of you. I'm turning into the Leo Buscaglia of knitting.

Word is that the book is hitting the store shelves and (finally) landing in the mailboxes of those who placed pre-orders back when it was nothing but a pile of crumpled, ink-stained paper with a terrified cartoonist in the middle.

I spotted it in the wild for the first time at the Borders on State Street, and because I am a shameless, sentimental geek I took a picture. Sue me.



Holy crap. Right there next to Louisa Harding. And me, just a simple girl from Kansas with a pair of tap shoes and a dream.

Meanwhile, several folks have been kind enough to write about it, including The Knitting Scholar, who gave me the royal treatment–an interview and a review. I've also chatted about it on "Ready, Set, Knit," the WEBS Podcast; and the KnitPicks Podcast.

Shop News

The Guys with Yarn 2009 Calendar is back in the Etsy shop, and a new batch of prints and gift enclosure cards will follow on Monday. The 2008 tree ornament and its ancestors are still available in the Cafe Press shop, where I'm hoping to launch new variations on the 1,000 Knitters bags and shirts this week.

Surprise Package

I got a package in the mail from Interweave–via FedEx Overnight, no less.



Inside, something wrapped in starry starry paper.



Inside the paper, my dream come true.



This little book is sitting on my drawing table because of you, dear readers. If you hadn't begun showing up and leaving encouraging comments, I'd still be tossing all my idle scribbles into the trash and wondering what life would have been like had I gone to art school.

From the damp foundations beneath the creepy sub-basement of my brimming heart, I thank you.

Scenes from TNNA

I've been back home from TNNA for two days, and already my memories of the weekend have taken on the candy-colored hyperreality of an especially lucid, potent dream. The things I'm remembering can't be true, can they?

Did I really sign previews of my little book? Did I really sit under an umbrella and chitchat with Clara Parkes? Did Annie Modesitt and Janel Laidman really give me copies of their new books?Did I even go at all?

I would say no, except the pile of stuff still waiting to be sorted indicates otherwise.



I have no photographs, as there were advance warnings that anyone snapping a camera on the show floor would be flogged with iron rods and dragged naked through the streets of Columbus. I had to resort to making little notes and sketches, which it is my pleasure to share with you now.

I wish I could have taken you all with me, but there was only one bed in my hotel room and I snore, so you would not have got much sleep.

This is me at TNNA.



Here is me with my fun friend Carol Sulcoski and her fun friend Laura Grutzeck. They wrote Knit So Fine.



I got to meet Jess and Casey! I got to meet Mary-Heather, too, but she moved before I could finish the picture.



This is a diagram of our dinner table on Friday night. (I had a salad and Yarn Harlot put a sock in my mouth.) You can see actual photos at Anne's blog.



At the Interweave Press booth I finally got to meet Anne Merrow, who is the editor of my little book.



And I got to meet Eunny Jang who edits Interweave Knits.



Jeane Hutchins, the editor of PieceWork, showed me the advance copy of the article I wrote about my Grandma for the summer issue. I was happy I could express my appreciation in person.



On Saturday morning I signed previews of my book, it was fun!



At TNNA when you are not working you can wander around the show and collect free samples, but you have to be pretty good at sweet-talking the vendors. I wasn't very successful at first.



Here is something I noticed about three famous people I met at the show.



I had male bonding with Drew Emborsky, the Crochet Dude.



I ate miraculous Jeni's Ice Cream with Stephanie Pearl-McPhee and Sandi Wiseheart. Mine was Belgian Chocolate. Sandi is even nicer in person than you would think. You should meet her.



I walked around the show for a little while with Stephanie. It took us two hours to move fifteen feet because some people recognized her and wanted to say hi.



Some of the vendors were wicked nice to me.



I kept meeting cool people and being geeky at them.



Really geeky.



There was terrific yarn everywhere! And I got some!



Abby Franquemont even gave me some yarn she spun herself. I loved watching her spin; she's so masterful the fiber and the spindle are like extensions of her hands. She has very graceful hands, like little white birds that dance together in the air.



I hated to leave but at some point you just have to go home or your head will explode. Thanks, everybody, for making the new boy feel so welcome. I can't wait until next time.

Listen to This

A couple of weeks ago I had a long, jolly chat with David Reidy (the sexiest male voice in knitting podcastery) and the interview is included the latest episode of Sticks and String. I've been listening to Sticks and String for a long time, so it was funny to tune in as usual and hear myself. The segment is so well-edited that I sound almost coherent.

David, it was great talking to you. Let's do it again, next time in Australia, preferably when it's February in Chicago.

La commedia e finità

I did it.

Seventy-five finished ink-and-wash panels for the book. On time.

It's funny. Now that they've left the nest, seventy-five doesn't seem like such a large number. But I took photos like this one, of a batch drying on the living room floor, to remind me of how it felt.

Just looking at that makes me want an epidural.

Mind you, I still have essays left to finish in short order; but writing isn't quite the physical labor for me that drawing is. And there are more presentation-quality drawings in this book than I've made in the rest of my life to date.

I think I'm going to have a little lie-down, now.

No, wait a moment. Word on the street is that the Summer 2008 Interweave Knits is on the shelves and landing in many mailboxes. I have an article in there–my first for IK–about Meg Swansen, Elizabeth Zimmermann and the fifty-year story of Schoolhouse Press.

Nothing daunting in such an assignment, no. Quite simple, really. Write a complete history of the world's most beloved fiber company in 1200 words, using an interview with one of your personal household goddesses as a primary source. Hah. No sweat.

But it really was fun. The fact is, the folks at the Schoolhouse are just as down-to-earth as the knitter on the street. Making a living with yarn and related paraphernalia hasn't dimmed their enthusiasm. When I spoke with Eleanor–who has worked there for 25 years and seen a thing or two happen in the field–it was a heady combination of knit chat and history lesson, with generous doses of good humor thrown in.

Thanks to everybody who agreed to be interviewed–I'm indebted to you all.

And Eunny seemed pleased with it, so here's to hoping more work from IK comes my way.

And Also...

I finished the Primavera Socks. I love the Primavera Socks. I will knit the Primavera Socks again. There is no higher compliment I can pay to the designer. And Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (this colorway is "Violet") is so fantabulous to touch that I had to take seventeen photographs before I got one in which my toes were not curling.



Now. Where's that red laceweight?

Notes to Self

My sketchbooks for It Itches* are dotted with questions I jotted down while working on the rough cartoons, so I'd remember to research or puzzle out the answers later on.

As I enter the home stretch, I keep running across them as I flip through looking for the bits and pieces to be used in finished drawings.

Here's a representative sample:

• Miles Topeka to Kansas state fair?
• Where do breasts go?
• Length and curve of blade? Bloody?
• Number of panes in Shetland window?
• Lion? Unicorn?
  
• Bird and squirrel can be friends?
• Which fricking e has accent and is grave or aigu?
• Fat baby pajamas?
• Wolf toes?
  
• Would she say this to him like that?
• Mausoleum door locks?
• Ask Leigh how large ballerina ass?
• Ancient sheep face hair?
  
• Table can support bear? Two bears?
  
• How big should balls be?

Yeah. Just standard knitting book fodder.

Your encouragement in the comments to the last post is much appreciated. Please don't think I'm whining–the chance to publish a book is a blessing, and my worst day as a cartoonist is better than my best day trying not to smack rock-stupid university alumni across the face.

While the pen's busy the needles are idle, aside from occasional rounds on the second Primavera sock. I'm almost to the toe, and still loving the pattern. I expect to finish book and sock almost simultaneously.

I have promised myself that once the final packet of drawings flies off to Colorado, I may begin Sharon Miller's Wedding Ring Shawl. (Yes, I bought the pattern before it sold out. Nyah, nyah, nyah.) Mine will be worked in a handsome, red Merino laceweight. Of course, it's not as fine as the cobwebby Tinkerbell dental floss Mrs Miller recommends; so if I actually reach journey's end, the finished shawl won't slip through a wedding ring.

I wonder if that means I'd have to call it something else? If you call it a wedding ring shawl when it won't actually fit through a ring, does the Shetland lace cartel send goons to your apartment to shoot out your kneecaps?

Those chicks in Heirloom Knitting look pretty tough. I wouldn't put it past them.

* Internet fun fact: If you Google "Interweave Itches," the first result is my book.

Instead...

...of a real post, today I present a still life entitled, This Is Why I Am Not Giving You a Real Post Today.



The book deadline approacheth. Apparently there have been pre-orders, and not all of them are my mother, so I have to finish on time. Above you can see seven (out of seventy-five*) inked cartoons on the drawing table, each awaiting the finishing touches of watercolor wash as needed.

This isn't the sum total of my progress, of course. It's just that I'm having trouble sending the other finished panels to Interweave because once they go into print I can never, ever change them.

That's been the biggest surprise of this whole process–the realization that at some point, final art is final.

It's enough to make my hands shake, so I try not to think about it. Nonetheless, my usual creepy-crawly line may look a little creepy-crawlier when the book is published.

*Somebody asked whether the book will be new material or stuff from the blog. Both. Some of the cartoons will have appeared here, but the majority are previously unpublished and all but one will be completely re-drawn. Some essays will incorporate material I've used before but, again, I'm reworking everything and much is brand new. OhgodIneedadrink.

Scribble Your Way to Clarity

It's Monday, so let's start the week off right with some housekeeping details.



First, the list of newly-confirmed 1,000 Knitters shoots for March and April wasn't all-inclusive; it included only several dates that had just landed on the calendar. The April 19 shoot at Wool Gathering in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania is still very much on. Poor Jackie was slammed with e-mails asking whether it was cancelled. Nope.

If you're ever curious, the complete list of public shoots (past and present) is available on this page of the project blog.

Second, on a related topic, I swear I'm not deliberately ignoring London; Atlanta; New York City; Washington, DC; Seattle; or Portland, Oregon. Please...how could I? Here's the deal.

When I started 1,000 Knitters, it never occurred to me that the project might involve travel. I assumed I'd work on it slowly, with knitters sitting as they happened to visit Chicago or when I happened to be on the road with my camera for other reasons. So there's no underlying grant support (or small, private fortune) to pay for traveling shoots. They happen if/when I'm contacted by a host who feels the cost of sponsoring me is worth the fun of participation.

I've had requests to visit from bunches of knitters in the cities above, but haven't had any offers to host. As new shoots are confirmed (and now that March and April are settled I'm focusing on a few other offers for the future), you bet I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I appreciate all the support and the interest more than you can imagine.

Cover Me

Now, about the photograph vs. cartoon portrait question. The publisher's vision for the little mock-up they'll use for publicity–calls for a drawing rather than a photo. That's all. Interweave didn't tell me my actual face would break the printing press. They just asked for a different take on the concept. A cartoon portrait for a book of cartoons. I'm fine with that. They know what they're doing. They've sold more books than I have and they fairly ooze talent.

I never realized until I finding myself in the thick of it what a relief it is to not be in charge of every single thing about the book. I'd learned from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee that an author doesn't have control over many things you would think s/he might, including the title and the cover design. That seemed hideously unfair until I realized that when you're up to your neck in making the content, the last thing you want to deal with is the container.

Scribble Scribble

Speaking of the content, I got a really amusing question via e-mail the other day from somebody who wanted to know how many cartoon ideas I come up with every day. Heh. Heh heh. Heh heh heh.

Here's how I work. I draw every day, which does not equate to necessarily drawing a cartoon every day. I wish...oh, how I wish...that each morning around 8:30 a fully-formed idea would pop into my head, whereupon I would sit down at the drawing board with a cry of "Eureka!" and put it on paper. I would then send it to Interweave, which would respond with shrieks of laughter and the adjective, "perfect."

Also, I wish I had a pony and a second home in the Kentish countryside.

I draw every day, no exceptions, in small sketchbooks. Sometimes at the end of the day all I have are a buncha pages that look like this.



We call those "bad days."

But I have to do it because it's like calisthenics. The humorous and graphic faculties are mental muscles. If you exercise them, they grow. If you don't, they atrophy. And the mindless, stream-of-consciousness doodling does with surprising regularity lead to a finished idea. There's even one cartoon in the book that arose six weeks later from a nearly incomprehensible doodle one inch square.

Sometimes the doodles even look a bit like a finished cartoon, though I don't really know what the joke is. Here's an example.



If you have any idea what's happening here, feel free to chime in.

And now I have to go doodle.

Face Time

For as long as I can remember I've always loved a chance to see the inner workings of things. Given the choice, for example, of seeing a great Broadway musical from the front row or the wings, I'd choose the wings.

When I started working on It Itches, I knew next to nothing about how a book is published. After many months, I can now proudly say that I know almost next to nothing.

Recently I learned about the BLAD. To me, BLAD sounds like the name of a dashing Hungarian spy, or perhaps an onomatopoeia describing the sound of vomit. But my patient editor, Anne, explained that it stands for Book Layout And Design. The BLAD is a little sampler of the finished work that Interweave will use to mesmerize wholesale buyers into ordering hundreds of thousands of copies.

Needless to say, I support them in this mission.

So when Anne asked for an author portrait to put into the BLAD I was delighted to comply even though I am my least favorite subject. Interweave's publicity team specifically states that it does not want high school yearbook poses, and indeed my own is a perfect example (on so many levels) of What Not to Do.



(The expression on my face perfectly conveys the joy I felt at being a tuition-paying pupil of my lousy high school. I remember the photographer told me to smile and I snapped, "I am smiling.")

So I decided to create what we in the click-click biz call an "environmental portrait" of myself in my natural setting. However, there proved to be too much traffic in the ice cream aisle at the supermarket; people kept knocking over the light stands with their shopping carts. So I went with Plan B and set up a shot at my drawing board.

To get the proper angle I had to elevate the camera on a tripod about seven feet off the ground, which of course meant to reach it I had to climb up my library steps. All told, with makeup and hair styling and wardrobe consults and such it took four hours to come up with one acceptable frame.



I sent it off to Interweave, and got a sweetly apologetic e-mail response from Anne. Apparently I had misunderstood. The photograph was nice, but...given the nature of the book, they wanted a drawn portrait. How about something like that avatar I'd used on Ravelry. That sure was cute!

This is the avatar she meant.



Honestly, how is the Pulitzer committee supposed to take me seriously with an image like this?

More Portraits



I don't love taking pictures of myself, but you may have noticed I quite enjoy taking pictures of other knitters. And guess what: there are more 1,000 Knitters public shoots on the calendar.

• March 15, 2008: Yellow Dog Knitting in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Nota bene: Dixie (who I can't wait to meet) is asking folks to sign up in advance, so please check out the shop Web site for full details.
  
  
• March 18, 2008: Windy City Knitting Guild in Chicago. The meeting is open to all; sittings will be first-come, first-served and space will be limited. If you haven't checked out the Guild yet, perhaps this would be a good time to visit. The meeting runs from 6:45–8:55, but I'll begin at 4:30 and have to stop about 8:30 in order to pack up the set.*
  
  
• April 12, 2008: The Yarnery of St. Paul, MN is graciously hosting me at Yarnover from 9 am–5 pm. Yarnover is a daylong event held annually by the Minnesota Knitters Guild, with a free vendor market featuring 24 unique purveyors of fiber from across the Midwest, as well as the opportunity to register for classes with regional and national knitting teachers; for more information, visit www.knitters.org. The Yarnery will soon have model releases on hand for those who'd like to participate; they'd appreciate it if folks would sign up in advance.
  
  
• May 31, 2008: The Knitting Nest in Austin, Texas. You read it right, y'all...Texas. I can't wait. We'll be shooting from 10 am to 5 pm. Yeeeeeeehaaaaaaaw!
  

*Times edited because I am a dim bulb.

Books Old and New

Old Book

The other day I was poking around the neighborhood charity shop and ran across a period piece that absolutely had to join my collection of vintage and historical cookbooks–particularly as it cost all of $1. Take a look at this.



It was published by Doubleday in 1965. In spite of the title, Saucepans and the Single Girl wasn't intended as a novelty. The writing is brisk and witty, and though the recipes are inevitably dated, they're eminently practical. This book was meant to serve as a practical guide for a single working woman (who is always referred to as a "girl") who needed to feed herself, the roommate it was assumed she would have, and the string of bachelors she would need to cook for until one of them knuckled under and proposed marriage.

I've been fascinated with old cookbooks and domestic guides for years. I own several linear feet of them, but most date from well before 1950. This one I find particularly striking because although it's relatively recent, the world it evokes seems as remote as that in which Eliza Action wrote Modern Cookery for Private Families in 1845.

The authors–former roomies who make it clear early on that they are both now married–make several explicit assumptions, most of them depressing.

For example:

• A woman–erm, girl–with a college degree will only find employment in the business world doing support or secretarial work. Her male classmates, however, will become junior executives.
  
  
• She will necessarily earn less than men her age. While she should be expected to be treated to dinners out, she will only be able to afford to entertain at home.
  
  
• When she marries, she will give up her career.
  
  
• Marriage is a girl's sole alternative to lonely poverty.

To my mind, the most fascinating chapter is "Pandora's Box," one of the few not concerned with cooking for dates. It's about food to be shared exclusively with groups of other women. Only when men are absent, say the authors, can women truly relax and enjoy their food:

Unfortunately, the strange mores of our society dictate that a male may snarl and slaver over his food and come back for thirds, but let a hungry girl pick up her fork with a little honest gusto and it's, "My, but aren't we putting on a little weight?"

And yet the girls don't seem to consider themselves downtrodden, trapped or otherwise limited by gender. On the contrary, they take frequent swipes at the previous generation of women–so much less liberated–who don't drink or smoke but do bake cookies and, perish the thought, knit. Poor things.

I closed the book thinking, How far we've come. And haven't.

New Books

I am extremely excited that pre-orders have just opened for two upcoming titles from Interweave Press. One of them is Knit So Fine, co-authored by my friend Carol.



That's her design on the cover. I think it's dreamy. Just like Carol.

This is the other one.



Amazon pre-orders haven't opened yet, but orders through Interweave Press have.

So I suppose I should finish writing it.

Not Appearing in the Book

Sometimes when I'm working on panels for the book I like to let my mind and my hand wander just to see what happens. And then, sometimes, I snap back to full consciousness and find that I've drawn something like this, and I consider whether I ought to seek professional help.

Psssst!

OMG, I am totally sitting in the back of my sister's classroom in Maine and blogging at the same time. Everybody else has to work on their research presentations, but I get to play with her computer and draw cartoons and even knit my sock. And I can't get sent to the principal's office!

School is so much more fun when you can threaten to tell the kids a story about the teacher slipping out of her diaper one morning and running around the block naked singing "I'm a little teapot" at the top of her infantile lungs.

I've wanted to watch Susan in front of a class for as long as she's been teaching. It's one of those jobs I lack the temperament to perform, like waiting tables or reading the funnies to the president. Herding young people through the brambly hedgerow maze of knowledge day after day would reduce me to hysterics in five seconds flat.

Teachers, I salute you. This is my first time in a high school classroom since my own senior year and I don't envy you. And these are, on the whole, good kids. Nice manners, stable homes. We're in an affluent suburb of Portland and the class isn't all that large–perhaps fourteen students.

And yet the job seems to require the sort of skills one would need to pilot a bus full of live chickens backwards, with no brakes, down a rocky road through the Andes while simultaneously providing colorful and informative commentary on the scenery.

The questions fly at her–and at Julie, her co-teacher–from all sides all at once, as do the excuses. Amazing, the excuses. Dogs no longer eat papers, it seems, but computers do.

I typed it all out, and it was so good, and now I just can't find it anywhere on my hard disk!

I typed it all out, and it was almost done, and then my computer crashed and I lost it all!

I typed it all out, and then my Internet predator boyfriend spilled Coke all over the keyboard when the people from "Dateline NBC" showed up and I lost it all!

Susan and Julie take these confessions as an opportunity calmly to teach the conceptual difference between "your problem" and "my problem." Perhaps they are saving the Angry Professor and her colleagues a bit of trouble down the line.

Class is almost over so I have to sign off now. Lunch period is next. I hope I don't have to sit alone in the cafeteria.

Personal to Anne, my editor at Interweave: I'm working on my book right here in the classroom! See? How's that for dedication?



What do you mean you don't get it?