Pins and Needles, Needles and Pins

One of the side effects of having your avocation become your vocation is that you have to find another avocation. I love knitting as much as I ever did–more, if possible–but most of my projects now come with contracts and deadlines attached to them. This will, on occasion, tend to harsh one's mellow.

My alternative mellow for quite some time has been working out. It clears my head, it calms me down. If I don't get to do it for an entire day, I turn crabby and starting hitting people. Since it also makes my jeans fit better, it's productive fidgeting–which happens also to be my friend Joe's incredibly apt description of knitting.

Unfortunately, the weight room at the gym can't be kept in a pretty basket on an end table or stuffed into hand luggage. It cannot be employed to pass the time while waiting for a flight, or casually picked up when the after-dinner conversation lulls.

But a guy has to have something to do in those restless moments when after six hours of knitting I really, truly cannot stand to look at yarn one single minute more. I was at a loss until, while sorting through files, I found my notes from a PieceWork article about my grandmother's childhood...and her quilts.

Then there was a hazy patch, and a flurry of e-mails with a friend who plays with fabric for a living, and a surprise from another friend across the sea who sent me this.



Then another hazy patch, and last night I came to while standing at the ironing board. It seems I was pressing my first quilt block.



It's made from men's shirts I picked up for a buck apiece at the thrift store down the block. There will be six fabrics in the finished piece, and when I looked at my pattern after laying it out, I realized I've moved progressively through all the colors in the same way I'd put together a swatch of Fair Isle.

Once a knitter, always a knitter.

Gimme Gimme Gimme

I'm piecing the quilt top by hand–it's incredibly soothing–using needles I bought at Stitches Midwest. They were imported by Bag Smith from a French needlework company called Sajou.

I had never heard of Sajou before I walked up to the Bag Smith booth. They were founded in the nineteenth century; and though the company folded in the mid-twentieth century, it has now been revived by the descendants and is producing all the old lines in their original styles.

I opened the Sajou catalogue and wanted to climb inside and stay there.

I didn't know you could still buy things like this. Embroidered cotton labels for marking household linen, or adding little tags to your work that say ATELIER or FAIT MAIN in dignified red letters. A positive fleet of albums (including the gorgeous old DMC books) stuffed with elegant, playful alphabets, borders, friezes and motifs to embroider–none of which include Sunbonnet Sue or Kountry Kitchen geese in bandannas. I want them all. Wooden mercery drawers and pin boxes, porcelain bridal thimbles, and the scissors...oh, the scissors.

Even the packaging is glorious. This is the packet of needles I bought.



I spent fifteen minutes dithering, because there were half-a-dozen designs in the booth and they were all glorious. You should see the three or four that include spinning wheels. When the needles are used up, I'm putting it into a frame.

Now, honestly–isn't that easier on the eyes than this?



Who the hell thought that was a good idea? When was it decided that the utilitarian need not be a pleasure to look at?

On a practical note, the needles are so well made they leap through fabric like dolphins playing in gentle surf.

Personal to the people in my family who always want my wish list at Christmastime: here it is. The whole site. Just pick something.

Blue Period

The Panopticon festival of blue yarn continues with the casting on of a sock, shown below.



The colorway–"Violet" from Lorna's Laces–is so intense that it's like a kiss on the eyes.



I'm knitting it into Primavera, which is available free from this blog. When I encountered the pattern unexpectedly on Ravelry I felt like Romeo bumping into Juliet at the Capulet ball. Or Dick Cheney finding a new flavor of Häagen-Dazs in the freezer section. I must and shall have you, I thought.

I would like to thank the designer, Natalja, for providing that elusive treasure: a handsome, unfussy sock that includes not a single yarn-over. When you have hairy legs, socks with little holes in them do not make for a pretty picture.

Reader Q & A

TB asks, "What yarn did you use for the socks?" It's Schaefer Yarn Company's Heather in the colorway Margo Jones. The whole time I was knitting with it, I thought of it as brown. When I finished them, I added them to my list in the sidebar as "Brown Socks." TB (and several others) called the yarn orange after seeing the pictures. I just took another look. Yup, it's orange. So much for my reputation as an intensely visual person.

I'm still going to leave the title "Brown Socks" in the sidebar, but from this point it should be taken not as an indication of color but as a tribute to James Brown, the Godfather of Soul.

Knitography is curious about the source of the phrenology bust I used as a hat stand in this post. I've seen them on sale for a lot of money in Chicago boutiques–those places in Lincoln Park and Wicker Park that buy $3 figurines in Chinatown, hot-glue them to wooden bases and mark them up to $75–but I got mine for cheap on eBay. I don't recall the seller's ID, but s/he had bunches for sale. After it arrived, I spent some time feeling my own skull and discovered I have an alarming crater in the "moral and religious sentiments" region and an interesting bump corresponding to "extermination."

The photo styling questions continued with SamD, who wants to know what was holding up the Noro Scarf. It's a porcelain pedestal dish I picked up at the local charity shop for a buck. I throw my wallet and keys into it every night, which helps me pretend I've become an organized person.

Aidan asks if I'd like to put my cute little niece in a pita pocket and eat her up. No, I would not. She's been eating a lot of Cheerios and rice cereal, and I don't need the extra carbs. Also, I'm fairly certain that in New England it's customary to serve fresh baby on a clam roll.

An anonymous reader, whom I suspect to be Oscar nominee Daniel Day-Lewis, asked about getting the kitty valentine cartoon on a t-shirt - I'll see what I can do, Daniel, and thank you for asking. (By the way, if you're ever in Chicago and want to cheat on your lovely wife, the key is under the mat.)

Another anonymous reader, whom I suspect to be Oscar nominee Daniel Day-Lewis wearing a different hat, asks about the status of the snowman hat pattern. I admit, I have been remiss. The trouble is, I made it up as I went along and so have no notes about it, so recreating it means knitting it over again, which is taking some time. (By the way, Daniel, if you do decide to drop by there's a free t-shirt in it for you.)

Bronchitkat asked whether the "Denim" Fisherman Yarn from Lorna's Laces that I'm using in my sweater is available in the UK. I think you're in luck, dear–go to the Lorna's Laces Web site and do a search in the "Where to Buy" section. Looks like there are four dealers: London, Bristol, Pembrokeshire, and Somerset. Please buy some. Our economy needs all the help it can get.

Unbridled Consumerism

Let nobody say I'm not doing my best to live simply. Paring down one's belongings is suddenly fashionable in the United States, as we all prepare to move into cardboard boxes and wait out the looming recession. (At least that's what they said on the "Today" show.)

Over the past five months I've engaged in a massive apartment purge. Fourteen huge bags of shredded paper have gone down the trash chute, a new wing has been added to the local charity shop to accommodate the former contents of my closets, and I purged my bookshelves of all superfluous volumes.*

However, as good as it sometimes feels to let go, I won't pretend for a minute that the arrival of new goodies ain't a thrill for me. Please, I'm only human. And a knitter. Apparently some of you are, too, judging from questions in the comments.

So today I'm going to light candles in front of the statue of Mammon and lead the congregation in Hymn #42, "In Heaven Be There No Credit Limits and the Good Yarn Is Always on Sale."

Shut Up and Knit Shirt

Elizabeth (no blog) asked where to get the "Shut Up and Knit" shirt worn by Lilith in her portrait for the 1,ooo Knitters Project.



As it happens, Lilith herself designed the shirt, and it's available through a friend's online shop. Clever woman, that Lilith. I wish I'd thought of this one, myself.

Dragonfly Dishes

A whole bunch of you expressed interest in the dragonfly dish that inspired the dragonflies on Abigail's Kimono. I got mine from Cost Plus/World Market, which has a Web site but doesn't appear to sell them online.

Honestly, although I love how they look, they're disappointingly fragile. I'm not one to fling crockery across the room (unless the president is on television), but almost all of my dragonflies are already chipped from nothing more than normal, occasional use. I won't be buying earthenware from World Market again.

Dragon Stash Guardian Shirts and Mug

You asked for a dragon on black/dark shirts. You got it. You asked for a dragon mug. You got it.



It's all here.

People were speculating as to whether it's supposed to be Smaug (from The Hobbit) or Fafnir (from The Ring of the Nibelungs). Neither. Her name is Mary Alice and she's from Rancho Cucamonga, California.

Pattern Tamers

I saw these at Yarn Con, but was so busy making portraits that I never got a chance to look closely at them. But the maker, Kelly Black, was kind enough to provide me with a set to try out. In brief, they're ribbon-covered magnetic markers that can be used to mark lines or charts in your knitting books (or cookbooks, or any other kind of book).

Here's my set in use.



When I plan on toting a complicated project around, I usually make a personal-use photocopy of the chart and keep it in a Knitpicks chart keeper. But when I just want to just try out a motif–for example, a pattern out of one of the Barbara Walker treasuries–that can be a lot of bother. Kelly's Pattern Tamers mark your place–and hold the page down–without harming the book. Yes, please.

She sells them via her Etsy shop and also through six or so Chicagoland yarn shops.

Pre-Orders of 2008's Most Eagerly-Awaited** Knitting Book

An encouraging number of you have asked about pre-ordering my book. So many of you, in fact, that my panic attacks have decreased to no more than one per hour.

I checked with the nice people at Interweave Press and they anticipate Amazon pre-orders will be possible in or near May (the book itself is to appear in the fall of 2008). However, pre-orders through Interweave's own site should be available sooner than that. I'll let y'all know when that happens.

So keep your pants on, Ma. It's coming, it's coming.

My Dream Knitting Bag

For ages I'd been carrying my knitting around in a Chinese military surplus bag. I tried to pretend this was hip and cool, but in fact the thing was so bedraggled and filthy that when I walked around with it over my shoulder it encouraged passers-by to offer me spare change and sympathetic looks.

I knew I needed a new knitting bag, but...I'm a guy. For guys, picking out a new knitting bag is like beating your head against a wall, except that beating your head against a wall at least burns calories.

It's unlikely that your local yarn shop carries anything suitable. The saleswoman may insist that all the metrosexuals are carrying batik totes with bamboo handles this year, but you will know in your heart it's not so.

An Internet search on "men's knitting bag" pulls up no useful results, unless you want to follow Stephen's example and knit your own. But I don't want to knit my knitting bag. I just want to put my knitting in it.

Women who are allergic to the traditional "pink brocade kitties" styles can go to a host of smaller, slicker designers; a big name like Jordana Paige; or even Knitpicks. Alas for men, in re-inventing the knitting bag these folks have basically re-invented the purse.

Well, at last I found my bag. Or rather Tom, a non-knitter, found it and presented it to me at Christmas.

Tom doesn't knit, but he pays attention. He took mental notes as I jabbered about what I needed and the pitfalls of so many would-be knitting bags. He knew it had to be tough, top-opening, subdivided on the inside, and not too deep. He knew it had to be free of Velcro, the natural enemy of yarn.

This is what he came up with. It's from Victorinox Swiss Army (how butch can you get?) and I adore it.



Guys, it's fantastic. It comfortably holds two small (or one large) projects, the odd book or two, my sketch book, pencils, notions and spare needles (in interior zippered compartments), my chart keeper, and my collapsible umbrella.



The shoulder strap is comfortable and sturdy. There's an exterior zipper pocket so you can get at your day planner, your pen, your subway pass or whatever without opening the whole thing. It has no Velcro, no batik and no pink kitties. It in no way resembles a purse. GI Joe could carry this thing into battle and nobody would bat an eye.

And that, if you ask me, is the only reason you've never seen GI Joe knitting. He couldn't find the perfect bag to match the boots.

*Ten. A new record!
**By my mother.