Ripping Yarn

I've reached the ankle of the still-nameless sock that was inspired by a wallpaper from Upstairs, Downstairs.



You must pardon the photograph–I'm away from my proper camera, and used the one that lives in my computer.

After a day of pondering the leg I've decided to rip it all back and re-knit it. What you can't see in the photograph are the flaws and wobbles. They are legion. This is my first sock in two colors, you see, and a new design. I couldn't resist experimenting along the way.

I began on two circulars–my usual method–with the work right side-out. Then came a problem I've never had before: a slight buckling at the transition from needle to needle. No amount fiddling helped, so I flipped the sock inside out. This eliminated the buckling and gave me effortless, perfectly tensioned floats all around; but the flopping ends of the loose needle kept getting in the way of the working yarns. Annoying.

I switched to five double-points. First right side-out (satisfactory), then inside-out (perfect). I get a far looser gauge with the double points (though they're the same size and material as the circulars) and the ankle of the sock is bigger than the cuff.

You may be wondering who on earth looks so closely at my socks that any of this would matter to them. Nobody. Nobody but me, that is, and every time I put it on I'd grit my teeth.

So, my friends, it's rippin' time. But from the smoking ruins will rise a new sock, a better sock, a sock that the other knitters won't make fun of on the playground.

Rip rip rip rip rip.

Nuppin'

I realized recently that I’ve been doing this needles-and-string act long enough to perceive, for the first time, certain trends in my output. These trends are not at all what I’d have predicted when I started out.

If one’s knitting is a journey, I set out for Sausalito and wound up in Angkor Wat. I remember distinctly an early vision myself with a closet full of rustic handmade sweaters, made by me for me. They would fit properly, which off-the-rack sweaters never do. They would be beautiful, like folk art; but practical, like Gore-Tex.

So far, I’ve started three and finished one.

I know how to knit sweaters. I still enjoy the idea of knitting sweaters. I have (oh sweet Sally Melville, do I have) enough yarn to knit sweaters. But I do not, for the most part, knit sweaters.

On the other hand, my lifestyle is not such that I often stand before the mirror and think, You know what would look great with those motorcycle boots? A lace shawl. Yet I have discovered that I don’t feel like I’m up to much unless there’s at least one lacy thing in progress and two or three others under contemplation. If you look through my finished objects, you’ll see I’ve knit way more than my share of holes.

Go thou, as the Bible says, and figure.

Right now I’m up to my clavicle in nupps, thanks to Nancy Bush and her book, Knitted Lace of Estonia. I waited a long time for this book–years, Nancy, but who’s counting?–and was so relieved to discover it was worth the wait. Before it was released, I got my paws on a copy of the preview and Susan ordered one (1) copy of Miralda’s Triangular Shawl as soon as she saw it.



I decided, for reasons that are still unclear to me, that I should spin the yarn for this myself, using some beautiful Border Leicester provided by a friend. It’s coming along slowly, though my speed continues to improve.



(There’s nothing so titillating as a shot of a partially-filled bobbin of handspun singles, is there? Unless it’s a low-resolution YouTube video of drying paint.)

Mind you, I refuse to wait until the spinning’s finished to try out a pattern from the book, so I grabbed some JaggerSpun Zephyr and started the Leaf and Nupp shawl.

Nupps, in case you are not familiar with them, are little bundles of wrapped stitches characteristic of Estonian lace knitting. The word is pronounced “noop” and means “devil’s rabbit dropping.” (Nancy Bush insists it means “button” or “bud,” but you work a few of them and then tell me who you believe.)

Ha, ha. I jest. Nupps truly are not difficult after a bit of practice, and well worth the effort for the striking texture they add to the finished piece. Still, when you are learning, do so on a swatch and not the shawl; and make sure impressionable children and sensitive relations are out of earshot until you’ve got the moves down pat.

Photographs of in-progress lace are even worse than photographs of in-progress bobbins. Unless you take a lot of time to prep the shot, which I could not, they look like the bastard offspring of cheesecloth and macramé. But I tried silhouetting it against the morning sunlight, and offer you these.





If you squint, they look kind of artsy. If you don’t squint, please don’t say I never offered you the opportunity.

Am I Here? Here Am I. I Am Here.

That grinding noise you hear is rust working its way out of the joints in my cerebral cortex. My friend the Prominent Anatomist insists there are no joints in the brain, but I don’t believe it. I can feel them in there most days, creaking.

I have to stop every so often and oil the works to keep them from freezing up, which I neglected to do this month. Therefore, the extended silence.

And there has been so much to relate.

A talk at the Yarn Market News conference in Chicago. A talk at Knit in Public Day in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. A signing and a class at Loop, in Philadelphia. Two appearances in New York City at Knitty City and Annie and Co. And a visit to a live taping of my all-time favorite National Public Radio show, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, at which a group of knitters presented Mo Rocca with a quite gorgeous hand-knit sweater and I gave him a copy of the little book. (There’s even a video of that one, if you scroll down to the bottom of the WWDTM page.)

And I’ve been knitting, though mostly on projects that’ll be published elsewhere.

Just couldn’t write about any of it. Could not.

When you are accustomed to writing at least with fluency, if not elegance, realizing that you've suddenly gone dry is terrifying. It’s like sitting down to knit, and finding your fingers have melted and run down the drain.

Every writer suffers from block now and again. It’s an occupational hazard. But this wasn’t a block, it was a wall of blocks. A big wall, like that one in China. I was on one side, and on the other were all the ideas. I could hear them having a marvelous time, blowing kazoos and playing tag. But I couldn’t get over the wall.

My usual tricks–scribbling randomly in notebooks, talking into a recorder, beating my face against the shower door–fizzled like a pack of wet matches.

I started envying people who aren’t usually sources of envy. Like the guy who hands out flyers in front of the subway station. Sure, I thought. You have to stand in the rain shilling for a mariachi band that’s paying you a quarter an hour. But you don’t have two unfinished articles staring you down, vulturewise, from a perch just above the keyboard.

In the end, this time I simply had to give up the struggle and wait.

Thank goodness for knitting. Knitting helped. When I couldn’t follow a noun with a verb, I could still follow a knit with a purl. It felt like progress, production, industry. It kept my fingers busy while the circuits in my brain rebooted. I know it's far more traditional for a writer to turn to drink, but I'm too much of a lightweight to handle Thunderbird and too cheap to pay for good champagne.

(Just imagine if, instead of glugging whiskey in excess, that nice Mr. Hemingway had thought to cast on for a mitten. I bet The Old Man and the Sea would have ended properly, with a round of mojitos and a fish fry.)

As to what I've been knitting and lots of other knitting-related chitchat, tune in tomorrow. And no, I’m not kidding, I mean tomorrow. I'd write more, but I have to take Dolores downtown for a go-see at Veterinary Practice News and she's getting antsy.

Toodles.

Strangers on a Train

Typing this morning from LaCrosse, Wisconsin. I'm here to speak tonight at the town's annual Knit in Public Day. As the place is just close enough to Chicago to make it practicable, I came up by train.

Barring bandits or cows on the track, the trip is about five hours. We chugged along smoothly and I got a shocking amount of work done. Of course, there's not a lot to look at on a train and so five or six passengers, in passing by, stopped to ask about my knitting.

The most interesting conversation was with a woman who looked to be in her early twenties, and who began our dialogue in the usual manner.

"I've never seen a man knitting before."

To which I gave my standard reply, which I always deliver with wide-eyed surprise.

"You haven't? How odd."

She blinked. "Well, no. I mean, it's something women do, right?"

I smiled. "Not in my house."

"Oh," she said. "Well, I was brought up old-fashioned."

"So was I."

"Well, it's just surprising that you would do it in a public place."

I opened my mouth to say that, by coincidence, I was en route to an entire assembly of public knitters, but she went on.

"Don't you think about how it might look to the kids?" She indicated a few who were seated nearby in the coach.

"I don't follow you."

"Well, it might confuse them. The boys especially. A man doing something a woman does."

"I don't follow you."

She laughed. "Forgive me," she said. "I'm in the ministry, so it's second nature to me to minister. I'm always thinking about setting a good example for the young people."

I wondered if the window next to my seat could open, and if I could throw myself out of it.

"And you know,"she continued, "I have seen for myself that young boys need grown men to be role models of strength."

We were, figuratively speaking, at a crossroads. I could a) ask her why she felt a man peacefully doing something creative was not a strong role model, or b) feign narcolepsy and hope she'd go minister to the lady across the aisle.

Before I could do either, she asked, "Do you ever stop and talk to Jesus, and ask what He would want you to do?"

"I'm a Buddhist," I said. "Jesus and I don't usually go to the same cocktail parties."

"Oh," she said, stiffening. "Well, I guess there's nothing I can say to you then, is there? Have a good trip."

And she walked away.

Now, before some of you (you know who you are) start kvetching about Christian missionaries, let me ask you (firmly) please to not do that. We don't bash anybody's religion in here.

And as it happens, I have been just as annoyed on many occasions by Buddha-pushers who feel I am insufficiently Bodhi-fied because my practice is Zen and not Tibetan or Vipassana, or because I eat meat, or because I reflexively say "God bless you," when somebody sneezes. No single theology holds the monopoly on faith-based douchebaggery.

No. I wrote this conversation down because lately I worry (as you well may) about how we're ever going to climb out of the mess the world's in if folks won't talk to each other. Or rather, if folks won't listen to each other. Here was a textbook example of this large problem, shrunk to fit two people.

Missionary Lady and I had quite a chat but in the end, she didn't want to hear from me and I didn't want to hear from her. If we had kept talking, I doubt I would have been able to keep my cool well enough to be persuasive rather than combative. The end result: stalemate. If she and I can't speak and listen, how are opposing politicians and entire countries going to reach accord?

I hope you're not expecting a tidy wrap-up to this post, kids, because the heck if I can figure it out.

On the other hand, I did finish the knitting. So that's something.

Baby Got Flack

You never think about how difficult it is to get your hands on a baby until you really need one in a hurry.

Such was my situation recently. I was photographing this thing and it was made absolutely clear to me that no substitutes for an infant head and shoulders would be acceptable. No pretty dollies, no hat stands, no Styrofoam balls or wads of crumpled tissue paper. Only the genuine article, and pronto. Knitty waits for no man.

I live in a neighborhood that, in spite of its long-standing reputation as a haven for what used to be known as Confirmed Bachelors, is now increasingly home to young families. These days, you’re as liable to trip over a nanny on Halsted Street as you are a drag queen. Soccer mommies mixing with the leather daddies. Ah, progress.

Still, having more kids in the vicinity makes them no easier to borrow. You would be amazed at how reluctant city parents are to cooperate when you rush up–camera in one hand and baby hood in the other–and ask if they would kindly bung this onto junior’s head so you can snap a couple of quick frames. I had no idea strollers could move so fast.

Not neighborly, if you ask me. Downright standoffish.

I was about to concede defeat when a friend-of-a-friend obligingly gave birth to a bouncing baby girl. Together, we collaborated on a series of images that, judging from the response they’ve generated, are either too precious for words, or evidence that I am a child-hating untalented hack who should have my camera taken away and my knitting needles broken in half.



Me, I fall somewhere in the middle. These are far from my best work, having been made in five minutes in dim light so as not to tax either the baby or her mother. I did the best I could, which is sometimes all you can do. On the other hand, I applaud the model’s artistic choices. I feel they lift the series above the banal. Smiley kids are a dime a dozen. This one, like Margo Channing in All About Eve, obviously detests cheap sentiment. I love her for that. If the aura of enfance véritée turns some knitters away–well, I suppose that is the price one pays for pushing boundaries.

Proper Compensation

In lieu of payment, the model’s parents agreed to accept a hand-knit baby hat. Not the hood, obviously–it’s a wee bit much for daily wear in 2009. But a hat of my choice, and of course I want it to be a good one.

I started to whip up a little number of my own devising from the remnants of my Exceptional Niece Abigail’s™ Tulip Jacket. Some of it had gone into the embroidery for Bird and Berry, but there was still plenty to spare.

I did some pondering and charting, and cast on. At about this point in the proceedings,



I realized I have a problem.

I love this hat. Really love it. Really really really love it. Knitting it has been like a ride on a supercharged merry-go-round and I don’t want to get off. And there’s no way it’s leaving the family. It can’t go on me, since I don’t wear pink in the winter. So it’s going to Abigail.

Which means making another hat for the Other Baby. It won’t make any difference to her, or her mother. They haven’t seen this hat. And the other hat will be just as nice, I promise.

So why do I feel guilty?



Stop staring at me. Just stop. Stop it!

Invading America's Dairyland

A reminder to those in the vicinity of La Crosse, Wisconsin that I will have the honor and pleasure of joining you for your annual Knit in Public Day at the La Crosse Public Library. The theme is "Keeping You in Stitches: Knitting and Humor." I shall do my best to be especially funny from 6:30–7:30, when it's my turn to speak. (Natives, please advise. Are cheese jokes off limits?) The rest of the time, I will pursue my more usual course of trying not to say anything too stupid.

Socktomom

I came home from the gym yesterday and found the entire sock yarn colony running riot in the living room. At the center of the maelstrom was Dolores, holding Harry and a baby bonnet. She was apparently attempting to shove the former into the latter.

“No!” Harry screamed. “I’m not doing it! I’m not I’m not I’m not and you can’t make me!”

“But you’re gonna look so cute,” said Dolores. “Plus, if you don’t I’ll tell Franklin you’ve been sneaking into his supply of–”



“Hi, kids,” I said.

“You’re home,” said Dolores. “Good, I need a husband. Take off your sweatpants and put on those overalls and that flannel shirt. The guy who was supposed to be in the video with me just flaked out.”

“There are so many things wrong with what you’re saying.”

“And when the producers ask, it was my demure and yielding nature that first attracted you to me.”

“The more you say,” I said. “the less I understand what the hell is going on.”

With a piercing squeak Harry wriggled free of Dolores and sped across the room, seeking refuge under the coffee table.

“She wants us to be on television,” he panted. “She wants to make a video and send it to show business and say we’re a great big family and we all have to be her kids and cameras will follow us into the bathroom! Tell her she’s not allowed!”

“Television?”

“And I have to pretend to be the cute baby! I don’t wanna be the baby!”

“Stop whining,” said Stan, who was twirling around the rug in a pigtailed red wig and an extremely small organza print dress. “I think it’s a neat idea.”

“You’re only saying that because you get to be the sexy eldest daughter on the verge of womanhood!”

“I can’t help it,” said Stan, “that I happen to have photogenic cheekbones and winsome charm. And that you’re chubby and lisp when you get nervous.”

“Shut up, Stan!” said Harry.

“I prefer to be called Liesl,” said Stan.

Harry grabbed for Stan’s wig, and I was forced to send them to opposite corners. Dolores, meanwhile, retreated to the bedroom and returned wearing a gingham smock and carrying a nosegay of petunias.

“Why aren’t you dressed?” she snapped. “Where's your flannel shirt? They’ll be here any minute to shoot our promotional tape. We have to look like a hard-working, all-American family. Butch it up.”

She turned to the sock yarn.

“Now, I need all our little blessings on the sofa. And remember: you’re so happy, but you’d be even happier with a new luxury SUV and a bigger house.”

Harry broke ranks and headed for the front door.

“Have fun, guys. I’m going to the movies.”

“Get back here, blessing,” cooed Dolores, “Or Mama will feed you to the fricking alley cats.”

“Hold the phone,” I said. “You promised me we were finished with this sort of thing. Remember your first day on The Bachelor? You’re lucky they agreed to just scrap the footage and settle out of court.”

“I believe my actions have proven to be justified,” she said. “That guy deserved a hoof up his tuchus.”

“You weren't even supposed to be on the set.”

"Petty details bore me."

"Forget it, Dolores."

“You’re crazy,” she said. “Don’t you ever watch television? Hyperfertility is where it’s at. This is the moment! We don’t even need to get a show deal. All we need is four minutes on The Today Show with Matt Lauer, talking about how having forty colorful children has enriched us in spite of our poverty, and we’re golden. People would be throwing free stuff at us. We could get outta this dump in a week and move into one of those Extreme Home Makeover palaces with a designer kitchen and a petting zoo.”

“No.”

She sniffled into her nosegay. “Don’t do it for me, darling. Think of…our children.”

“Please, Papa,” said Stan. “Please, may I have a petting zoo?”

“Go to your room, Liesl,” I said.

“Never mind him,” said Dolores to Stan. “He has no vision. We’ll just have to do this on our own. Straighten your wig and chuck me some flannel. I heard The Amazing Race is trying to book a lesbian couple.”

Color

I don't think it would be fair to say that Chicago in winter is colorless. It's not. There is always the blue of the lake, and often the blue of the sky. But our cold-weather palette is certainly muted, and around this time of year it can start to feel like the world outside has gone all gray with buff highlights.

Maybe that's why suddenly everything on my work table is colorful. Make that multicolorful.

I finished swatching colors for my hypothetical Fair Isle vest.



Not bad at all. You could make a good vest out of that. But I've decided I want some zingy tones in there, so I'm going to order up a skein of orange and one of lapis lazuli (or whatever I can get that's close to lapis lazuli). And yes, I know a bunch of you said at first glance that I ought to do something of the kind, but I had to try it for myself. I appreciate suggestions, but I almost never take anybody's word for anything. That's just one of the many, many extremely annoying things about me. (For a full and annotated list, please contact my parents.)

Then there was this lovely sock yarn I'd had sitting around, waiting for me to get to it.

The colorway is Mahogany and it's from The March Hare. Meg's stuff comes from her own flock of Border Leicesters. The yarn is lovely to look at and blessedly soft, but until now I couldn't find a pattern that would do it justice.



First, I took a whack at Ariel Barton's Cable Net, which I've had my eye on since it was published. I worked the whole first chart before conceding that the yarn was too dark and just a little too variegated (though it's definitely a semi-solid) to show off the pattern. Rip.

Then, I thought maybe a plain sock would be best for the yarn, but quickly remembered why I don't knit plain socks. (Puzzlement: I have no trouble sitting motionless on a meditation cushion for an hour, but want to scream and throw things after six inches of unrelieved stockinette. Why?)

Then, I remembered a bright blue Shepherd's Sock from Lorna's Laces that's been vacationing in the stash cupboard for at least a year. What about a color-patterned sock?



Under the influence of two wallpapers from the first season of Upstairs, Downstairs, I spent two hours with my pad of graph paper and came up with this.



I feel encouraged enough to continue.

Pattern Alerts: Two Hats

Remember the Bavarian Twisted Stitch Hat I finished in January, using Meg Swansen's handout from Knitting Camp? If you don't, here it is again.



A bunch of folks asked about the pattern, which at the time hadn't been published except in the handout. But, happy chance, it was already being prepped for an appearance in the newest issue (Number 80) of Wool Gathering, the venerable and delicious newsletter from Schoolhouse Press. I love the new version.



And I would like to mention, in case you care to check it out, that there's a Victorian baby hood in the new Knitty that I worked up using an 1840s recipe. (The five-day-old model is not a member of the family. She was graciously loaned by her parents. As you can tell from the look on her face, she simply adored working with me.)

Now, Where Was I?

Listen, before you say one word about how long it’s been since the last post please rest assured that I’ve already heard it all, in the form of six e-mails asking if I’m dead, two of them from relatives.

Not dead, not yet. Just traveling. And traveling takes the mickey out of me, because I have a congenital distaste for moving faster than a brisk walk. I know that’s old-fashioned and probably un-American, but tis true. Still, at least when I get off the plane there are usually knitters at the other end.

Of course, Ravelry has exploded the cozy myth that all knitters are sweet-tempered, needle-clicking buckets of love. We have now seen it demonstrated that some knitters are quarrelsome, small-minded nimrods who ought to have their heads held under water until the bubbles stop.

But in the past two weeks I haven’t met any of those knitters.

Y’all

North Carolina was a pleasure on every level–once we got there. Just for fun, Mother Nature dropped nine inches of snow on Chicago just before we were due to leave. Happily, in spite of a four-and-a-half hour delay, I made it to the shop with six minutes to spare before curtain time. I'm glad nobody expects me to be pretty when I show up.

Mary of Yarns, Etc. and Great Yarns (yes, she owns ’em both, and they’re both great shops) put together two splendid events–a talk on Saturday and a photography class on Sunday. Here’s my view from the table at the front of the room before the talk.



(Click to embiggen. Wide room, narrow blog.)

Now, what Yankee wandering far from home could be uncheered by a sight like that? There were so many lovely people I thought Yarn Harlot must be in town. You can see what I looked like from their angle here.

I wish I had taken a few pictures of the photography class. I was still a bit bleary-eyed, but fortunately since it was early Sunday morning, so were many of the students. But we pressed on, foraging deep into untapped talents and untouched camera manuals. We coaxed true colors out of blue yarns under fluorescent light. We built a light box. We found interesting angles hidden in plain socks. We were knitters with Ravelry accounts, and we would not be defeated.

After class, I was a wee bit peckish. The friendly natives at Great Yarns steered us in the direction of a Chapel Hill landmark called Mama Dip’s. And can I tell you something? I have eaten some lavish meals in some fancy places, yet I have never left a table feeling more deeply grateful for my taste buds than I did that fine, fine afternoon after pork chops, fried chicken, yams, black-eyed peas, hush puppies, fried green tomatoes, corn bread and biscuits. I shouldn’t have eaten two biscuits, though. I should have left room for the blueberry cobbler. Next time.

After that I spent a few days of working vacation in North Carolina at a hotel. A really nice hotel. A foo foo hotel. I would even go so far as to describe as foo foo foo–the sort of place I’ve never been before and won’t see again until the next time somebody else’s company foots the bill.

It was a hoot. Fabulous people watching, especially at lunch when I sat in the bar and played Count the Facelifts. The staff fell over themselves to be helpful, and spoke in hushed, truckling tones. After a while it made me slightly crazy. I finally told the lady who served the morning croissants to chill out, because I wasn’t anybody important. (She gave me an extra croissant.)



I got into a nice rhythm of early rising, a workout, and then several hours of solid work before lunch at a sunlit table in the lounge. The place was still as a tomb. I was only interrupted once, when a group of ladies who must have been looking for a place to hold a social function were brought through by an event planner.

Two of them marched up to me–I was working on the finished Parterre Scarf for the lace class–bent down to see my work, then looked at each other in puzzlement. “What on Earth?” said one to the other.

I opened my mouth to say something, but they had already walked away, shaking their heads.

I think instead of a harpist for their tea party, maybe they oughta hire a guy to sit in the corner and knit scarves.

Yinz

And thence almost immediately to Pittsburgh, a deeply underrated, beautiful city inhabited by people who have actually heard of the place I was born–it’s about an hour's drive south. The natives speak with the brogue that as a child I associated with my paternal relatives and the denizens of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

It was another talk-and-teach visit, talk on Saturday and teach on Sunday, both at Natural Stitches. Martha, the owner, said this was the shop’s first try at having a guest. I would never have known. She and the tip-top staff made me feel like a visiting crown prince with a predilection for Noro.



When I got to the shop, this was waiting for me in the front window.



Dolores, life-sized. I'm surprised it didn't cause traffic accidents in the parking lot.

Inside: KNITTERS!



I hadn’t been to Pittsburgh in something like ten years, and it felt like old home week. Check out this trio.



I was greeted at the airport (and presented with the best brownies I've ever eaten) by the founder of the Dolores Devotees group on Ravelry, KnitNat (on the right). I finally met face-to-face one of the first Panopticon commenters ever, btpsmom (on the left). And there in the center is Melissa, who I first met three years ago on a Chicago public bus when we were on the way to hear Yarn Harlot speak at Arcadia Knitting. And now she works at Natural Stitches.

And then, just when it couldn't get any better–family! The actual kind, with the blood ties and the shared emotional baggage! Meet my Aunt Ev, my cousin Stephanie, and my cousin Eric.



It does not get any sweeter than having your own kin show up when you’re on the road. I encouraged all three of them to take up knitting. Aunt Ev is a lapsed crocheter, so she’s already got a toe in the water.

The nice people at the shop said they had a fantastic time. You can see for yourself, it's in writing. I did, too. May I come back, please?

I had to leave Pittsburgh way too soon, but not before taking a few minutes to peruse the kick-ass Mister Rogers' Neighborhood display in Terminal C. Why did I not think to take a picture? Take my word for it, when you see her in person Lady Elaine Fairchilde is a total dyke.

Meanwhile, I’ve made progress on several knitting fronts and do wish to share them, but I see this is already long entry. As Mister Rogers' own Henrietta Marie Pussycat would say, “Miaow miaow pressing PUBLISH now miaow miaow more soon miaow.”

Youse?

No, wait! One more thing! No, three more.

New additions to the calendar! I'm coming east! Philadelphia and New York City!

Here are the quick details.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Loop (1914 South Street)
Friday, March 27: Signing (5–8 pm, free)
Saturday, March 28: "Introduction to the History, Methods and Styles of Lace Knitting" (10 am–1 pm, $45)
For more information or to register, call 215-893-9939.

New York, New York

Annie & Co. Needlepoint and Knitting (1325 Madison Avenue, )
Saturday, March 28: Signing and reading (5:30-8 pm, free. Call 212-289-2944 to register.)

Knitty City (208 W. 79th between Broadway and Amsterdam)
Sunday, March 29: Signing and reading (3–5 pm, free)
For more information, call 212-PURL-TWO.

Next up: knitting!

Stole Away

Yesterday afternoon, I finished my Print o' the Wave stole and put it on the blocking wires. This morning I set it free and spent a happy hour just playing with it: throwing it up in the air to watch it float, draping it over things, wrapping it seductively around my head while singing the Habanera from Carmen. You know, the usual.



I cast on in November 2008 at O'Hare Airport, waiting for a flight to London. I knit it in the air, I knit it (just a little bit) in England, I knit it on the sea voyage home. It went to Maine, Montana, Florida. It had layovers in New York and Minnesota. It has been on the subway and the bus, to restaurants and bars, to hotels, to the gym, to the library, to the homes of friends. It has been worked in moments of great happiness, of quiet reflection, of depression and frustration. It has been cooed over and it has been sworn at. (Mostly sworn at.)



I knit it specifically to show students who take my Introduction to Lace class what they'll be able to do with basic skills. It isn't a complicated project, really–just an endurance test.



Not that I didn't learn stuff. It's a rare and sad project that teaches you nothing new, right?

My great eureka moment came at (you should forgive the expression) the tail end, during the weaving-in. I remembered from Sharon Miller's Heirloom Knitting that the Shetland knitters (when working square shawls from the edging inwards) often sewed the four trapezoidal borders together while the piece was pinned out on a blocking frame. So I decided to weave my loose ends after the stole was dry, but still on the wires. Much more efficient, and the results were extremely satisfactory–a great improvement on my past performances. I'm sure I'm not the first person to figure this out, but as I can't remember reading the tip online anywhere I pass it along.



I knit this stole to show the students in my Introduction to Lace classes what they'll be able to do with their basic skills. I didn't have any large-scale inspirational pieces to hand since all my previous ventures in lace have been given away. (It's hard, sometimes, being a boy.)

The pattern is clear, it's free, and provided you take care at the transition points (i.e., picking up stitches for the border and grafting the ends of the edging) success is well within a beginner's grasp.



And it's so pretty. I am totally wearing this the next time I go to a monster truck rally.

Shout Out

I was invited to knit last night with a group of librarians from the Music Library Association (they're in town for a conference) and had a marvelous time. Thanks, y'all–especially Lisa, Laura Gayle and Cheryl. (I told them to check out Loopy's Knit Night tonight. Wish I could be there.)

Another Shout Out

To everybody who left encouraging comments for the creators of Redress. They've read them, they appreciate them, and they've promised to keep us posted about future incarnations. Thank you!

The Knitter Who Came in from the Cold

All systems go for this weekend's events in North Carolina. The photography class on Sunday morning is full, and a nice crowd has already signed up for the talk/reception on Saturday evening. (If you're interested in hearing my squeaky voice, more information is here).

A very nice North Carolinian wrote to warn me that the weather there is nippy and to bring sweaters. Honey, we in Chicago would sell our grandmothers for a day or two of "nippy." We rejoice in "nippy." We run naked in the garden when it's "nippy." I'm sitting here looking out the window at sheets of ice the size of Madison Square Garden bobbing on the lake. Still, you are kind to worry about my comfort, and I promise to reciprocate with a weather advisory should you ever visit our fair city in winter. (Our version of your "nippy" is "bone-crushing.")

Redress

I suspect that those of you who only know me through this blog think of me as just an old-fashioned, tree-chopping he-man. The kind of guy who's most comfortable sitting around drunk in the cabin I built on a bluff outside of Laramie, watching monster truck rallies on satellite TV and picking my teeth with a matchbook cover.

But there's so much more to me, kids. When I'm not doing the watching-and-picking thing I love to check out what's happening in the art world. Hell, I'm an art junkie. Hang it on the wall or stick it on a pedestal under a spotlight and sure, I'll take a peek. High art, low art, folk art, insider, outsider, good, bad–whatever. In this day and age, I'm just happy that people are still doing something besides watching monster truck rallies and picking their teeth with matchbook covers.

My friend Nancy called me up and told me there was an installation I should check out at the School of the Art Institute's Sullivan Galleries (33 State Street, 7th floor– aka the old Carson Pirie Scott building). She said it wasn't just any art, it was art with knitting in it. Well, you don't have to tell me twice. (You do, actually. Sometimes more than twice, because I inhaled too much Paas Easter Egg dye as a child.)

So Nancy and I went to see the installation, Redress, and I liked it so much I went back again yesterday to take pictures and chat with the creators. It's a collaboration by three artists–Amber Ginsburg, Carla Duarte, and Lia Rousset, all students in the MFA program.

Redress is interactive.



A rail of thrift-shop sweaters is suspended from the ceiling; more are piled in one corner. Even more have been unraveled, and the reclaimed yarn is spooled around eight wheel rims (from wrecked bicycles) mounted on a wooden platform (salvaged from a warehouse). The yarn winds off the rims (as though from a swift), swoops across the room via a series of hooks, and hangs down above eight seats (more salvaged wood) where it is being turned into eight swatches.



Anybody can knit on the swatches, and lots of people have. Afterwards, they can log their time on the appropriate time card.

The concept is simple, and the artists have done a good thing in not posting a notice explaining what it all means. You walk in, you knit (or watch the knitting) and you think your own thoughts and draw your own conclusions.

I was surprised as all heck at how much bubbled up in my brain during my visits. Knitting is something I do every day, and have done for so long that I generally don't think about it much. I should clarify: I think about what I'm knitting, but not the act of knitting.

Well, sitting in the middle of Redress I was suddenly very aware of my knitting again, almost as though I were a beginner, or a non-knitter watching a knitter. The knit stitch suddenly looked...odd. Alien.

And whenever I'd need more yarn, I'd pull on the suspended strand and the bicycle wheel would spin, and make a pleasant clicking sound. And that sound would remind me, "You are using more yarn." I became very aware of using up the raw material.

Handling the yarn and seeing what was left of the original sweater, I started to think of the person who had run the knitting machine that made it. I wondered who it was, what the factory looked like, what they'd been paid. I wondered if they ever enjoyed the work, what they'd been paid. Was it a man or a woman? Was anything about the process pleasurable for them, or was it pure drudgery? And here I was, using the remains of their work to do...what, exactly?

There are no rules for the knitting, so at leisure I added or subtracted stitches, threw in yarn-overs, worked garter, ribbing, stockinette. It was the first time in a long time I've just played with yarn. And it occurred to me that this was a pleasure the maker of the original sweater had not had. S/he had churned out fabric on a knitting machine as ordered by some factory foreman, period. It made me consider what a privilege I enjoy, knitting what I want in whatever manner pleases me.

And other knitters were there, knitting, coming, going. It was a knitting circle like any knitting circle, except it wasn't. It was a knitting circle with a frame around it. A knitting circle with everything but the knitting removed. A knitting circle where none of us really knew what we were knitting. We were knitting to knit. We were knitters, and we were also art. And our knitting was knitting, and it was also art.

This all sounds jumbled, because so were my thoughts. They tumbled over one another like a cascade of marbles and by the time I left (I was only there for an hour) I felt exhausted and excited. See "art geek," above.

If you're in Chicago or can get here, Redress is open through February 21. Not much time left, but enough time to see it before it's gone. Go and have your own experience. And make sure to clock in and out.

Love Snack

Hi, it's Dolores. And shit, am I ever excited.

Today, the fourteenth of February, is my Day of Days.



As heiress to the Love Goddess tradition embodied through the ages but such hotcha gals as Venus, Cleopatra, Delilah, Helen of Troy, Mata Hari, and Mamie Eisenhower,* it is my duty on this sacred occasion to spread the message that love is grand, love is universal, and love makes the world go 'round.

As I once said to Paul McCartney in a tender aprés-schtupp moment, "All you need is love, cupcake." Guess what happened next.**

And let me tell you, to celebrate love you don't need anybody else in the room. A lover can be nice, don't get me wrong–even if it's just the temporary kind you pick up at the market along with a bag of Cheese Doodles and a bottle of Pellegrino.

But if you're alone, see, you can still have a snack and a drink and you don't risk a fight in the afternoon because somebody forgot to wash his hands after eating the Cheese Doodles and now you've got sticky, neon orange fingerprints all over your underpants, the new satin sheets, the headboard, the kitchen table, and the privacy fence next to the Jacuzzi.

If you're having a solo Valentine's Day, why not get yourself a little something nice to nibble on and have a romantic film festival for one? Or for you and your best like-minded pals? Since this blog caters to yarn-centric types, Harry and I put together a list of romantic knitting classics:

1. The Way We Worsted
2. Cashmere to Eternity
3. Feltin' in the Rain
4. A Colorway Named Desire
5. Sheepless in Seattle
   
6. Yarnstruck
7. The Postman Always Purls Twice
8. The Last Tangle in Paris
9. The Koigu and I
10. It Happened One Knit
11. The Yarn Stores of Madison County
12. It's a Wonderful Laceweight
13. The Unbearable Lightness of Kidsilk Haze
14. When Harry Met Sally Melville
15. Gone with the Ball Winder

And if you're feeling bitter about the romance thing, there ain't no law against throwing a handful of Cheese Doodles at the screen when the kissing starts.

Now, if you're really out of the love loop and would prefer to see people struck by chainsaws rather than Cupid's dart, ponder our list of stasher movies. You might achieve catharsis.

But remember, kids, you're never truly unloved. I love you, as how could I not considering the earth-shaking extent to which you love me? Mama's got more than enough Valentine going on here for anybody who can handle it.

Just remember to wash the Cheese Doodles off your fingers if we shift into second gear.

* Seriously. I knew Mamie. Trust Me.
**Note to Paulie: Where's my effing royalty check, you cheap bastard?

Process

A reader in South Carolina writes:

I like your blog, but why don't you talk more about
your process?

This sets me to wondering whether I can say truly that I have anything so orderly, so forward-looking, as a process when it comes to my knitting.

I wish I could answer with a firm yes. If compelled to pick a side–either a "product" knitter who knits according to what he wants to wear, or a "process" knitter who knits for the sake of knitting, I sit more often on the "process" side of the debating chamber.

But do I have a process?

It doesn't feel like I do. Does a hurricane have a process? Does an earthquake? How about a toddler?

I've been thinking about this a great deal lately, usually when I am having a terrible day at the drawing table or the writing desk. My thoughts wander to other people in the field and I imagine them, right at that moment, needles or pencils or fingers flying, turning out work that makes people start Ravelry threads with the ejaculation "Squee!" in the title.

In my imagination, their work spaces are always very pretty and spare, awaiting the arrival of the photographer from Real Simple. Clear surfaces, bathed in gentle sunlight. On the wall, side by side, a handsome calendar full of Important Dates and a long list of Works in Progress with neat tick marks next to those that have been finished. Often, cats pay silent witness to the birth of finished projects like the unborn souls peeking out from behind God the Father in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam.

My own space looks like a wreck caused by the collision of two trains–one carrying yarn and the other full of art supplies.

When I work, I sprawl like a Midwestern suburb. Over there, swatches and odd balls. Fore and aft, graph paper pencils eraser droppings empty water glass stitch markers books and more books. In the middle, me knitting.

The nuns always told me a person's possessions and home are an extension of his mind, and they were damn right. Because my mind feels like this most of the time. A jumble. A rotating bin of lottery balls from which I very occasionally draw a winning combination. More often, I tear up my worthless ticket and scatter the pieces across the mouldering heap.



It's a wonder, honestly, that I ever get anything done at all. I look over my project page on Ravelry sometimes and think, what the hell is the matter with you? I'm all over the place - from dust-colored hats to lime green socks. No coherent aesthetic, just impulsive forays into whatever wilderness looks prettiest when I get up in the morning.

I got an e-mail recently from somebody who said, in effect, you have a lot of nerve blogging on the same Internet as Brooklyn Tweed. More often that not, I am inclined to agree.

But maybe this is my process. Maybe I need chaos in order to create–however haphazardly–a snippet of order here and there. Maybe my style is no style and my palette is no palette. Maybe one day I will achieve the sunlight and the neat lists, or maybe I won't. I'm still new at this, so who can tell?

Meanwhile, I just keep knitting.

(Won't You Take Me to) Geekytown

I've been working on the Fair Isle vest. No, I haven't.

I've been messing around with the yarns that I hope, pray, intend shall at some future moment become the Fair Isle vest. I have so far produced 1) a Photoshop chart of small test patterns, and 2) most of a small swatch, which are but the primoridal protoplasmic ocean-dwelling ancestors of the finished vest.



These are to help me decide what to do and, more importantly given my dismal track record as a colorist, what not to do.

Here's what I've figured out so far about color:

• In the palette of yarns I have darks and brights. Within the darks and brights, the colors divide themselves about equally into browns and blues.
  
  
• Patterns made entirely with browns look dull and mushy.
  
  
• Patterns made entirely with blues look gaudy and mushy.
  
  
• Patterns that mix the browns and blues have a nice jig to them. Since the plan is for bright patterns on dark grounds, the finished motifs should be bright blues on dark browns, or bright browns on dark blues.

And regarding gauge:

• I thought after the recent spate of socks, lace class swatches, pence jugs, teeny oranges, and that frigging lace-weight Victorian nightcap that it would make a nice change to work on something heavier, like a sweater vest. And after a couple of experiments, it's clear that this thing will have to be worked on a US 3 (3.25 mm) circular. My biggest piece of in-progress lace is on a US4 (3.5 mm). Oh, the irony.
  
  
• The swatch is still on the needles, so I haven't definitively measured the gauge, but it looks to be somewhere in the region of 8.5 stitches/inch. I have never been so happy to be so short.


• The test patterns are far too small to read effectively at a fine gauge, so I'll have to spend many more hours playing with charts in Photoshop–and then do more swatching. I am so vibrantly excited about this that I know I will never again be able to roll my eyes at anyone whose idea of a good time involves Star Trek trivia, golf or computer code.

I've known for decades that I'm an irredeemable geek, but it's still alarming to have it confirmed by a swatch. Shut up, swatch.

Going to Carolina

I'm tickled to bits to announce that arrangements have been made for a trip to North Carolina. On Saturday, February 21 from 5:30-7 p.m. there will be a talk/signing/reception at Yarns, Etc. in Chapel Hill; and on Sunday, February 22 from 9 a.m. to noon I'll be teaching "How to Photograph Your Fiber" at Great Yarns in Raleigh. The class is a repeat of the session that was such a hoot at Purl Diva back in December. For complete information, click here.

Yarns in Dialogue, Episode #07246C

Sailing to Fair Isle

The greater part of the American Midwest was stifled by a blanket of severe cold this past weekend, but I didn't feel it. I was at Threadbear Fiber Arts Studio, surrounded by knitters, wool, knitters holding wool, knitters covered in wool, and wool wrapped around knitters.

On Saturday, the Tomten Jacket class was packed once again. Such is the genius of Elizabeth Zimmermann, that a pattern she wrote in 1961 still draws a crowd. I loved watching the faces of the students as the little coat unfurled under their fingers. Knitting Elizabeth's best patterns is like reading a cleverly plotted thriller, and the Tomten is enough to make you drop your popcorn.

After our brief lunch break, I got a surprise–a giant birthday cake topped by a strikingly true likeness of Dolores.



It was delicious. Pity I had to sue them for copyright infringement.

Much better, let me tell you, to have Dolores on the cake than to have her pop out of the cake, which happened last year on Tom's birthday. Seven visits from Stanley Steemer and we are still trying to get the icing out of the carpet.



If you gotta get older, this is the way to do it.

On Sunday, I hung out at the shop and signed copies of the little book. It was very jolly.



Knitters just kept coming and coming in nice, steady stream so I wasn't pining alone in the corner.



Some I had met last year at the 1,000 Knitters shoot, some I knew from Ravelry or the comments, and many had no blinking idea who I am but figured it was either me or another afternoon at home watching the "Rock of Love" marathon on VH1 and decided to give me a shot.

For the first time ever I was asked to sign a boob, which puts me into the same club, I believe, as Willie Nelson, Kaffe Fassett and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Ma will be so proud.



I am indebted to Matt of Threadbear for taking and sharing these sweet souvenir photos.

Something About Alice

On Saturday night I was hanging around with the bears themselves, Matt and Rob, and our conversation about the current crop of pattern books took a detour onto books no longer available, including the bulk of those written by Alice Starmore.

Now, I've been knitting since 1992, but I spent most of those years completely out-of-touch with what was going on in the field. I didn't know any other knitters, and could barely find yarn, let alone pattern books. By the time I joined the dance, Alice had already pulled her work off the shelves.

As a result, I'd never seen any of the books myself. Not one. Everything I knew of them was secondhand. I would hear how wonderful In the Hebrides, Pacific Coast Highway, Tudor Roses and all the rest had been. I would read of exorbitant prices paid for old copies, of knitters begging local libraries to re-shelve them with the rare books so they wouldn't be stolen. I encountered a few garments knit from the patterns, though never using the original colors. They looked complex, yes. But there are lots of complex patterns out there.

So my opinion of Alice Starmore was that she was probably an excellent designer, and her books had probably been good ones, but the hysteria and the high prices were likely no more justified than the ridiculous sums that changed hands during the Great Pink Chibi Mania of 2004.

As for Fair Isle, I'd seen great heaping piles of that. Most of it either looked dowdy–the kind of ho-hum, shapeless stuff that almost killed knitting at the end of the 20th century–or was so busy it induced seizures. I remember one vest which sported such a gamut of vibrant colors between the hem and the neck shaping that it looked like an abridged version of an acid trip. "You can do anything you want," said the perpetrator, "and it's perfectly okay!"

I beg, madam, to differ.

So when Rob began to pull his copies of Alice Starmore off the shelf I was curious, but not overly excited. Then I sat down with The Art of Fair Isle Knitting and almost wet myself.

So this is what makes people gaga over Fair Isle. The tension, the incredible chill-giving tension, of vibrant colors rippling in counterpoint to vigorous patterning, the two constantly pushing and pulling like opposing voices in a Baroque orchestral suite without ever tipping the balance.

I kept on poring through the books, with their solid writing and their wildly creative variations on a theme, and I realized that for maybe the third time in my life I'd encountered an artist who was actually worthy of the hype. It's tough to design one good sweater, let alone a book full of them. It's damned near impossible to crank out a whole string of terrific books without going stale. And it's rare to find a scholar, a writer, and a designer all sharing the same body.

I hear tell that Alice may be ready to come back to the playground soon, and I certainly hope so, because if not the loss to the knitting world is immense.

And So...

Once upon a time, after dreaming over lace as presented by Nancy Bush, Galina Khmeleva, and Sharon Miller, I set out to knit a shawl of my own and came up with this.

Now, having seen what Fair Isle can be when it's well done, I'm in the mood to cook up a vest for myself. In this I was aided and abetted by Matt at Threadbear, who knows from color and helped me put together the shades of Rauma Finullgarn you see at right. (By "helped me," I mean I watched in amazement as he deftly assembled the palette from a huge basket of yarn. Then, at the end, I took out the ball of cream.)

I'm swatching right now to figure out my gauge, and then it's time to chart. I haven't been this jazzed about a new project in ages, and you know I'm easily excited. Will I knit a decent vest or will I crash and burn? Time will tell.