Stuff That Fell Out of My Suitcase

I envy bloggers who manage to post reports of their travels while their return flight is still on the tarmac. What's more, their trips invariably flow in a neat channel from Point A to Point B. They may meander now and then, but never is the Grand Narrative lost.

My trips are not like that. I, too, begin at Point A; but the route to Point B skitters around like a jitterbug afflicted with St. Vitus's Dance. Back home, exhausted, I try to cajole the ducks into a single file conga line. But I get frustrated or fall asleep, the ducks scatter, and when I wake up I decide to forget it and go back to my knitting.

No more.

You want Grand Narrative? You won't find it here. You okay with random tidbits and souvenirs that tumble out of my bag along with torn boarding passes, Clif Bar crumbs and odd stitch markers? Read on. (If you start to feel dizzy, pop a Dramamine.)

Columbus: Knitters' Connection

Knitters' Connection is the brainchild of the lady who runs this place. She's a smart cookie. Every summer The National NeedleArts Association hosts one of its two annual conventions right there in her backyard. And while the convention attracts August Knitting Authorities like clover attracts honeybees, there's a catch: their classes aren't open to the general public.

So Jan (the smart cookie) decided to see if any of the August Knitting Authorities would like to stick around afterwards and teach the general public. It turns out they would, and the result (for the past four years) has been Knitters' Connection. This year, they let me join the can-can.

It was my first chance to offer almost every class in my repertoire, bangbangbang, for three days running. Some people signed up for the whole megillah. I wish I'd had little medals to pin on them at the end.

Zimmermania

The second day was entirely occupied by a Tomten Jacket Bootcamp, at the end of which the students (a hearty bunch, not a bleeder among them) had produced a nubbly hillock of Tomtens-in-progress.



One of the students asked at the end of class whether I'd like to see an Elizabeth Zimmermann relic, and drew from her knitting bag an original copy of the newsletter in which Elizabeth first published the Baby Surprise Jacket.



Reports that I squealed like Smurfette when I touched the signature are slightly exaggerated.



But only slightly.

The Quotable Candace Eisner Strick

At the student reception/book signing: "I'm sorry, but I only wipe my lips on qiviut."

"Improve Your Knitting" Panel Discussion Agenda

Topics covered by the panel (ably moderated by the redoubtable Amy Detjen) included:

• blocking techniques
• the relative sizes of knitting needles and crochet hooks
• finishing
  
• wet felting
• thong underwear

Jeni's Ice Cream

I had eleven scoops in four days and I don't care who knows it. Jeni's makes all other ice creams taste like library paste.

Cute, or Disturbing?

At the Knitters' Connection market, I had the opportunity to talk at length with the owners of Fiber Optic Yarn. One of them mentioned that her daughter (aged four) had adopted a pet sheep, and that the daughter had named the sheep Dolores after hearing numerous (expurgated) tales from this blog as bedtime stories.

I am not sure whether I ought to be flattered, or call Child Welfare.

(More on Fiber Optic in an upcoming post, by the way.)

Back to Texas

I left Columbus on Friday evening because I was scheduled to teach on Saturday morning at The Knitting Nest in Austin, Texas. This was my third gig at the Nest, because when they ask me to visit my only question is "When?"

They've just moved into a splendid new space at 8708 South Congress, but I knew I was in the right place when I saw the display of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted in "Longhorn."



Austin Fun Fact

Austinites are constantly shouting "Hook 'em!" which leads one to assume that they are all simply mad for crochet.

Wall Flower

When the Nesters moved, they had to leave behind the enormous drawing of Dolores on the wall of the old shop. I would have considered this a great relief, but Stacy said she'd like a new one.

Stacy's got an entire photo sequence of me in action (shut up) here, here, here, and here.

Now she can try to work while Dolores sits nearby, burping and smoking.



Welcome to my world, Stacy darling.

Be Careful What You Wish For

I distinctly remember saying to someone, once, just a few years ago, "I love knitting so much. Gosh, I love knitting. I love knitting so much I wish I could just knit and knit all day, every day, and never do anything else but knit."

Those words, spoken from innocence, have been looping in my brain for the past few weeks, because some evil eavesdropping genie granted my damned wish. I have in fact been knitting and knitting all day, every day, and not doing anything else but knitting. I have a new furrow in my brow that bears a striking resemblance to a US 0 dpn; and one night I was getting ready for bed when I noticed this on my chest and upper arms:



I appear to have broken out in lace charting symbols.

My doctor, who doesn't knit (he prefers Mountmellick embroidery) is stupified. I hoped he'd have some cream to clear it up, but apparently there are no other verified cases in the annals of medicine. Isn't that special? Any minute I expect a tap on the door and speedy private transport to an isolation ward at the Mayo Clinic.

Which might be nice. I could get a lot of knitting done in between probes or CAT scans or whatever horrid nosy things they'll do to me in the name of science. (I saw E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial five times. I know what those scientific probe people are like.)

In other words, I have a lot of knitting to do and I have been doing a lot of knitting. Would you like to see it? I'd like to show it to you.

But I can't, because it's almost all knitting for things that other people want to publish in their books and magazines. And those people get justifiably peevish if their designers offer unauthorized sneak previews. And then they don't want to use your work, and then they don't pay you, and then you are forced to live on the cold, mean streets without money for food or yarn.

No yarn!

Which makes it difficult, suddenly, to blog about my knitting.

But I was determined to find a way, and so I took some pictures of a sock I'm working on and asked the publisher if I could, pretty please, show it to you. Just to prove that I haven't given up and joined the macramé achievers. And since I am the publisher, I said yes, but only after I agreed to engage in behavior so vile and degrading you can't even see it on the Internet without paying a stiff recurring membership fee that is billed discreetly to your account as "SARAH PALIN 2012."

(I only mention this so you'll understand how much I love you.)

Here is the sock.



It's going to be in three colors of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, two of which you can see here.

(If you think I've been knitting with an awful lot of Lorna's Laces lately, you're what they refer to in my neck of the piney woods as darn tootin'.)

The inspiration was Victorian wallpaper, which I will have you know is not the only thing that inspires me, although after this and this you might well wonder.

(I wondered. I wondered aloud to Beth Casey, who owns Lorna's Laces. "Beth," I asked, "What is it with me and the Victorian wallpaper?" "Sweetie," she replied, "you're very, very gay." So I checked, and she's right, I am.)

But there's no wallpaper in my apartment. Which raises another question, but I have to stop typing now and go put more Calamine Lotion on my yarn overs.

Urban Legends of Knitting, No. 1

Please to Make the Acquaintance of My New Stole

Those nice people over at Lorna's Laces have a new yarn coming out in fall. I can't tell you what it's called, because it doesn't have a name yet. You can tell them what it's called, though, because they're putting the names suggested by the knitting public up to a vote.

It's a DK-weight silk/alpaca blend, and it's ever so nice on the fingers.

They gave me a bunch to fool about with, and this sheaf of quickie snapshots shows the result of the fooling. The colorway is under wraps until the debut at TNNA in June, so you're looking at it in black-and-white. (This is what blogging would have been like in the silent movie era.)

I'll photograph it properly when I can get it onto a model and into good light–Chicago is back to the usual February-in-May gloom that often passes for spring in these parts.

I call it Sahar.

The pattern will be available after the usual round of tech editing and test knitting.

Three Things That Keep Going Round and Round and Round Until My Vision Blurs and I Start to Feel Rather Sick

1. The Tea Cups at Disneyland.



2. Ann Coulter's "logic."



3. The edging on this new design for a shawl.

B.Y.O.D.

This afternoon I've been knitting at the neighborhood coffee shop where I do so much work we've begun to call it my Field Office.

The largest of the pieces-in-progress is a lace shawl design. As usual, the swatches for it have run to about a dozen, and I had them scattered across the tabletop along with the usual litter of tea cup, cookie plate, and laptop.

A lady in head-to-toe official Cubs regalia (we're near Wrigley Field and it's a game day) came in and settled herself with a latte at the next table. After a few sips, she looked over at me, and then at the pile of lace swatches. I could feel an interview coming on, and braced myself for the usual battery of questions. They're so predictable I've toyed with having the answers printed on a card so I could just hand it over and save everybody some time.

"Hi," she said.

"Hello," I said.

"Sorry to stare."

"It's okay. Happens all the time."

"I'm sure it does. You're pretty unusual."

"Heh...I suppose you could say that."

"Definitely. A lot of people sneak their own snacks into coffee places, but you're the first guy I've ever seen who brings his own doilies."

Speaking of Lace...

I'm teaching it at Loopy Yarns on Saturday. To be specific, I'm teaching "Lace Edgings: Before, During and After," which is a new class focused on sewing on edgings, knitting on edgings, and working edgings simultaneously with the shawl center. I premiered it at Renaissance Yarns out in Kent, Washington last month and we had a jolly good time. Do join us if you can.

And that's not all that's happening at Loopy. Veronik Avery's coming to town, and she's signing her new book on Friday and teaching a class on Sunday–visit Loopy's site for details.

A Haus Is Not a Home

I came home from the studio yesterday and Harry me at the front door wearing a fright wig made of silver tinsel and holding a large brush from which green paint was dripping onto the blue carpet.

This is never a good sign.

“Hi,” he said. “Wow. Nice to see you. Did you have a good day? Did you get outside to breathe fresh air? You look like you could use some fresh air. You should go for a walk. Outside. For maybe an hour.”



“Harry, I’m tired. I spent half the day knitting a shawl and the other half ripping it back. I just want to order Chinese and watch television.”

“That’s not a good idea. There’s nothing on.”

“Yes, there is. The Yarn Channel is showing Behind the Fiber: Alice Starmore at seven o’clock.”

“We already watched that.”

“We missed the second half because Dolores threw her Sazerac Sling at the screen.”

“Oh, yeah. She said Alice pushed her off a cliff during a photo shoot.”

“I told you not to mention that again. Lawyers are expensive.”

“Sorry.”

“So go switch on the set and while I call Lo Hung’s.”

“Can I have an extra egg roll?”

“Sure. And ask Dolores what she wants.”

“Mostly she wants you to stay out of the living room. Except it’s not the living room now it’s the atelier.”

"The atelier?"

"The atelier."

“I don’t want to know why, but why?”

“Because the man is in there painting.”

“Painting what? The walls?”

“No, Dolores.”

“He's painting a picture of Dolores?”

“No. He’s painting Dolores. I mean, he’s putting the paint on her.”

“I don’t want to know why, but why?”

“So they can take some pictures for the poster.”

“The poster?”

“For the festival.”

“The festival?”

“The music festival.”

“The music festival?”

“Dolores is going to make a music festival.”

“A music festival?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dolores bellowed from the living room. “Just get in here, Harry, and bring Little Sir Echo with you. Laszlo can’t finish my left cheek until you wash out that brush.”

“You know,” I said, “I didn’t get any fresh air today. I think I should go for a walk. Outside. For maybe an hour. Or maybe all night.”

“Take me with you,” whispered Harry. “Pretty please?”

To be continued. Sigh.

Scorsese to Direct 4-D Biopic of Visionary Knitter

Hollywood, CA. Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese today confirmed rumors that he will direct Triumph of the Wool, the long-awaited cinematic treatment of the epic life of Elizabeth Zimmermann, a British-born knitter whose pioneering work liberated millions from the tyranny of the printed pattern.

“It’s a no-brainer,” said Scorsese. “My work has always celebrated the underdog and the rebel. Elizabeth didn’t take no shit from nobody. That’s my kinda woman.”

The Fourth Dimension

The director was tight-lipped about specific details, but insiders hint that George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic has been tapped to supervise CGI fantasy sequences dramatizing the creation of Zimmermann’s mind-bending Baby Surprise Jacket and other signature designs.

Triumph of the Wool would, indeed, be a logical debut vehicle for the company's much-anticipated "AranVision" 4-D technology, which will allow moviegoers to reach out and fondle on-screen yarns and handknits.

Glittering Cast

The A-list cast will include Dolores Van Hoofen, legendary cabaret singer and noted fashionista, in the central role of Elizabeth from her early teenage years onward.

Van Hoofen, speaking poolside at the Bel Air Hotel, pronounced herself “honored as all hell” to be cast and very much looking forward to a reunion with Scorsese, who last teamed with her to produce the unreleased Gangs of Rhinebeck. (Rumors of an on-set affair have been pooh-poohed by both parties.)

No Van Hoofen? Fuggedabouddit!

Scorsese admitted Van Hoofen was the only actress under serious consideration for the role. “Who the fuck else is there right now? Miley fucking Cyrus? Fuggedabouddit. Without DoDo,” he admitted, using his pet name for the notoriously temperamental star, “there is no picture. And check out that great caboose.”

Also to appear are Viggo Mortensen (The Lord of the Rings) as Zimmermann’s husband, Arnold; Lily Tomlin as Barbara Walker; and Meryl Streep (Death Becomes Her, Mamma Mia!) as Zimmermann’s daughter and heir to the company throne, Meg Swansen. (Streep reportedly went into seclusion at her chalet in St Moritz shortly after this year’s Oscars to work on her pronunciation of words like "entrelac" and "antepenultimate.")

Location shooting is slated to begin in Munich and Marshfield, Wisconsin in late spring, with an anticipated release to IMAX theaters in time for Christmas 2012.

A Few Choice Words from Seattle/Tacoma Airport

For the parents of the dozens of little children on spring break who keep sneezing and coughing on me.

Whatever I catch from those ill-bred little bastards, I hope you catch double.

For the man who "forgot about" the hacksaw blade in his carry-on bag.

Pray tell, what is the weather like on the planet from which you come?

For myself.

Putting knitting needles in your carry-on is rather pointless when you pack all your yarn in your checked bag.

For airport concessionaires.

Keep a couple pre-wound balls of Cascade 220 and a few pairs of size fives behind the counter, for knitters who aren't very bright in the morning. You could charge fifty bucks a ball. We'd pay it.

Same Airport, Different Scene

So this morning I was at O'Hare again, this time heading west to Seattle. I've flown enough lately that I can now go through uppity fancy foo-foo special security when I'm on American Airlines, which is no small boon when Terminal 3 starts to feel more familiar than the living room.

On either side of me in line were standard-issue uppity fancy foo-foo special people. Guys in suits. Guys in golf clothes. Women in suits. Women in resort clothes. One woman took the stereotype to the limit and was pulling the bag containing her microscopic dog in one hand, and her plaid-clad golf-shirted husband in the other.

And there was...me. I am neither uppity, nor fancy, nor foo-foo. I don't even qualify as foo. And I'm wearing the kind of stuff I always wear–leather jacket, engineer boots, jeans. Come to think of it, I looked like this:



The nice people at Skacel made that photograph, as one of a series of magazine ads promoting their Addi Lace needles, which I do in fact happen to adore. (My mother called in a froth from the magazine aisle at the supermarket when she opened Vogue Knitting and found this version of me staring up at her.)

To say I struck an anomalous note in my surroundings is to understate the case. But nobody seemed to notice. Even in uppity fancy foo-foo special security, the passengers are generally too concerned with hanging onto a shred of dignity while disrobing and emptying their bags to care who else is wearing what.

But then I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was a woman, of emphatically indeterminate age, without dog or husband but still very much in the second-home-in-Palm-Springs mode.

"Excuse me," she said, not unkindly, "but I just have to guess...you're a musician, right?"

I laughed. "No," I said. "I'm a knitter."

She looked confused for a split second, then she frowned–and snapped, "Jesus Christ, I was only asking. There's no need to get sarcastic."

Next time I'm just going to say why yes, I am in fact Willie Nelson.

Whilst in Seattle

I'm only here in Seattle for a couple of hours, then I'm heading north for a sort of knitting conclave on what I understand to be a very pretty island with lots of trees and water and absolutely no cell phone reception.

After that, it's back to Seattle, where the good folks at Renaissance Yarns are hosting me (on Sunday, March 28) for a day of lace knitting classes. In the morning, we'll have "Introduction to the History, Methods and Styles of Lace Knitting;" and in the afternoon, "Lace Edgings: Before, During and After."

If you're interested, as of this writing there are still a few spaces left. You can call the shop at (253) 852-YARN or (877) 852-YARN, or write to info@renaissanceyarns.com for more information.

Franklin in Wonderland

The last time I changed apartments, the moving crew was deeply amused to find that I had five smallish pieces of furniture, eight huge bookcases, and 110 boxes, 97 of which were labeled BOOKS.

I attract books the way velcro attracts cashmere. In spite of a strict policy of twice-yearly culling, which sometimes eliminates as many as seven volumes, I'm still hovering around the 3,000 mark and fear that my cataloguing project will never be complete.

Some of what's on my shelves has been known, read and loved for so long that the books themselves have become almost superfluous; the contents are embedded in my brain and will likely remain until I am otherwise old and dotty and pluck at specks of dust, unable even to spell my own name.

The Alice books are on that list. I remember with absolute clarity the first time I met them, in the first library I can remember, at my first school. I didn't twig to all the jokes–unlike Alice, I had been deprived of peeks into an elder brother's Latin grammar–but I loved Tenniel's pictures.

They were unlike anything in my other favorites: Curious George, Corduroy or even Where the Wild Things Are. The last of these had scenes that were twilit and vaguely threatening; but the illustrations in Alice touched a level of absurd creepy chaos so spine-tingling and delicious that I suspected that I wasn't supposed to be looking at them.

Which is why Alice was the first book I ever stole from a library and hid in my bedroom. (Don't make that face. I felt guilty and brought it back two days later. I always brought the stolen books back.)

When I started working on the Looking Glass Socks I didn't want to get too elaborate. These needed to be low-stress travel knitting. I still hoped to have some kind of visual reference to Wonderland, but after the chessboard fiasco I gave up and settled for plain ol' stripes.

It wasn't until I was getting ready to write this entry, and actually pulled my copy off the shelf to scan an illustration, that I looked at Alice meeting Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum...



...and was startled to notice that in the second book, Alice is wearing striped stockings.

As the second of my pair reverses the colors of the first,



I've decided that one sock must be from the waking side of the looking glass; the other is from the dreaming side.



And I did it without realizing what I was doing. Funny, isn't it, the things that knitting will pull out of the deepest wrinkles in your brain?

And I Don't Feel So Good Myself

Why Should Cats Have All the Fun?

Six Things Passengers Waiting for This Flight to St. Louis Would Rather Do Than Sit in the One Empty Seat Next to the Guy with the Knitting Needles

1. Perch on an armrest next to a ten-year-old who spews BBQ Pringles every time he makes a big kill on his little video game player.
   
   
2. Sprawl on a carpet that is visibly soiled with popcorn droppings and invisibly soiled with heaven knows what else.
   
   
3. Spy on said Knitting Guy from behind a pillar and take his picture with an iPhone.
   
   
4. Move toward the empty seat as though to sit down, then reconsider and walk away, then come back, then walk away, then come back, then walk away, then come back, then walk away, then come back, then walk away, then come back, then walk away.
   
   
5. Greedily devour a McDonald's Extra Value Meal while balanced unsteadily on the rim of a garbage can.
   
   
6. Call "Maureen" and tell her you're "still in Chicago" and that now you've "seen everything."
   

Footsie

I was putting away clean laundry the other day and realized that my collection of dress socks–which I grant you is not uncommonly extensive–is now about fifty percent hand-knit.

That's a respectable total, I think, especially considering my tendency to over-think knitting projects in general, and socks in particular. After a recent speaking gig somebody asked me, "Do you swatch?" and I replied that it sometimes feels like I never do anything else.

Those Looking Glass Socks I wrote about a few entries back, the ones made from Supreme Possum, are a perfect example. I fussed and fussed and cast on and knit and ripped back and cast on again and ripped back again and broke out the colored pencils and doodled on napkins and Googled "Fibonacci" and created charts in Illustrator and stared at the wall and bent the ears of several persons willing and unwilling. I wound up with this.



I'm happy with it. It's fine. It may even be cute. But after all the exertion I keep thinking of a favorite anecdote from one of my culinary idols, Madeleine Kamman. In When French Women Cook, Madeleine tells of slaving for hours in the kitchen over a new dessert intended to impress the chef to whom she's been apprenticed. The chef looks at the finished dish, tastes a spoonful, and says, "Congratulations, chérie. You have just re-invented Nesselrode Pudding."

After all that effort, it does seem one might have come up with something more revolutionary than 2-4-2 stripes, doesn't it?

On the other hand, just at present I need a bit of plain vanilla. When I have an odd moment to knit, I can pick these up and knit. No charts to consult, no maneuvers that can't be accomplished on a speeding bus, no passages that preclude conversation. There's something to be said for that.

Part of the swatching process involved testing five different solutions for avoiding that ugly color jog that you get when working stripes in the round. The first two solutions were

1. pretending I didn't care about the ugly color jog, and
2. pretending the ugly color jog didn't matter if I kept it at the back of the leg.

The other three were various sly tricks figured out by knitters far smarter than I. I ultimately settled on the jog-less jog Meg Swansen sets forth with characteristic brilliance in Handknitting With Meg Swansen. I'm not going to explain it here, because it's Meg's technique and not mine. And for heaven's sake, the book is cheap, amazing, and readily available. If you don't have a copy, you should get one.

I will show you how well it worked. Here's the foot, with the spots where the color jog would be in plain view.



Here's the path of the jogless jogs.



As you can see, Meg's maneuver (which I can perform, but still not comprehend) causes the first stitch of the round to travel one stitch to the left each time it's performed. Here's how it looks on the inside, with the unused yarn being carried up a short distance between stripes.



Maybe, just maybe, if I keep fiddling and dawdling, I'll eventually come up with such a fabulous contribution to the field.

Or maybe I'll be 96 and still knitting freaking stripes. Time will tell.

A Gold Medal

Ironically, while I've been doing this very unremarkable work I've also been preparing a reward for those who have completed extremely remarkable work.



It's the Gold Medal for Yarn Harlot's 2010 Knitting Olympics. If you like it, you can get one of your own here, or snag sidebar- and Ravelry avatar-sized versions from Stephanie's blog.

A big ol' salute to everybody who took part, including Harry, who finished his animal blanket with time to spare and didn't even care when Dolores told him the cow looked like an elk.

Go Go Kimono

Once upon a time (January 2008) a knitter (me) put the finishing touches (three embroidered dragonflies) on the baby kimono from Thoroughly Exceptional Babies and the Men Who Knit for Them by Debbie Bliss.



I wrote in this entry that I'd begun working the 9–12 months version when it seemed impossible that the exceptional baby in question–Abigail, my niece–could ever be so large as to fill it out. Each flat piece was a square acre of stockinette; Abigail could have fit into a shoebox. Not that we tried it, but she could have.

But she did grow. She grew at such an alarming rate that I accused my sister of feeding her on a diet of breast milk and



small cakes inscribed EAT ME.

I finished the kimono in what I figured was the nick of time, so that Abby could cuddle up in it for a month or two before it would be relegated to the chest of outgrown knits. It fit her like a mid-length spa robe (simple, but chic) and became a go-to woolen garment for chilly weather.



A year later, when the frost returned to the pumpkins, it still fit. But it had become a short jacket.





A year after that (two days ago, in fact), a freak spell of mild weather in southern Maine caused my sister to reach for it again. It is now a little shirt with three-quarter sleeves.



For those of you who knit, crochet, sew or otherwise fashion handmade clothing for children, I need not explain to you why this series of photographs fills me with matchless gratification.

For those who do not, let me walk you through it:

• I made it for her to wear, and she wore it.
  
  
• Her mother made sure I got to see her wearing it.
  
  
• There's honorable evidence of heavy use (note the pilling on the sleeves) but also of proper care (and it isn't machine-washable).
  

You make a baby garment hoping it'll fit for an entire season. Three seasons? A small miracle. And sometimes I think the small ones are the best.

Then Again, Let's Not

Confession time.

There are moments when I feel ungentlemanly for shooting peas at these old magazines. Part of it has to do with being a budding designer myself, and wondering which things I'm putting out there will some day make the Hit Parade of a "You Knit What?" as yet unborn.

The other part stems from an honest-to-goodness feeling of gratitude for publications like Workbasket. That plucky little thing toodled along for sixty years–a magnificent run for a periodical by anyone's standards–even though by the mid-1970s knitting and crochet were both on life support. Granted, Workbasket was heavy with flights of fancy that should have been grounded on the tarmac. Toward the end, fiber arts content was heavily supplemented with forays into tuna cookery and making your own beef jerky. But the editors kept putting it out there, month after month, long after more mainstream mags like Woman's Day and Family Circle had given up on any craft that required mastery of an actual skill.

On the other hand, just when I'm in danger of smudging the faded ink with tears of thankfulness, I turn the page and run into something like this.



In case they don't have doors where you come from, this is a doorknob cover. In case they don't have doorknob covers where you come from, you may be wondering why a doorknob needs a cover.

Me too.

I have encountered doorknob covers in real life–including several sisters, cousins and aunts of the Scary Clown variation shown below. They were to be found on various knobs around my paternal grandmother's house when I was a little boy, and I hated them.



When you are five years old, and small for your age at that, a doorknob cover is less a piece of handmade whimsy than a torture device. The doorknobs on the heavy old doors in grandma's house were either metal or china. They were slippery when nude. Tricked out in equally slippery acrylic, they became almost entirely impossible to turn, even with both hands.

And there was one on the bathroom door.

Place yourself, if you will, in the tiny shoes and underpants of a newly housebroken child who has had three glasses of Kool Aid and has just felt the alarming and unmistakeable call of nature. He heads for the commode, but finds the way barred by the immovable head of a smirking clown. He struggles, he bangs, he cries a little bit.

Finally, in desperation, he goes against everything Grandma and Sunday School have taught him rather than face the shame of admitting to the grown-ups that there's been an accident.

Grandma, if you're reading this, I used one of your good tablespoons to bury the doorknob cover over by where the plum tree used to be. I'm sorry. The tree is long gone; but since the clown face was made out of Red Heart, it's probably still there. At least you didn't have to mop the hallway.

A Stroke of Genius

After the Fall Men’s Knitting Retreat back in September, I staggered home under the weight of one of the most voluptuous goodie bags ever to be seen outside of an Academy Awards gifting suite. Somewhere in the middle, between a handsome book by Brandon Mably and a typically gorgeous skein hand-dyed by the inimitable Rabbitch was a small bundle wrapped in tissue paper.

Inside was a quantity of this:



It’s a blend of merino, silk...and possum. Yes, possum. I couldn’t quite believe it, either. In fact, I recoiled, as this



is not an image that makes me feel all kinds of cuddly.

The yarn–which is called Supreme Possum Merino–comes from New Zealand and was a gift to the retreat from the guy who replaced Kiri Te Kanawa as my favorite Kiwi. (Sorry, Kiri.) James is the proprietor of the Joy of Yarn Sock Wool Boutique in Greytown, New Zealand, and no slouch when it comes to picking out great fibers.

Still–possum?

But as my dear grandmother once said to me regarding pickled beets, and as I once said to a Marine Corps lieutenant regarding nevermind, how can you know you don’t like it until you try it?

A short swatch later, I was typing a frantic e-mail to James asking about the immediate availability of more, more, more. This stuff, dear kiddies, is like a kiss on the forehead. Buttersoft, cloudlight, gently haloed. Not quite cashmere, not quite qiviut, but also not quite the same cost per ball as a spa vacation. You have got to try it. (And yes, James sells online.)

I got a second color, an ineffable mauve through which the natural shade of the possum still glimmers. And I decided that the original fuchsia and the mauve would, together, make a fantastic pair of striped socks.

Then I got to thinking, which never bodes well for me.

I started thinking about how boring I was about socks when I first started knitting. I wanted them in blue or brown, I wanted them without patterns, and I wanted them to match.

Gradually, the hoodoo of sock knitting jangled my brain, and I started to imagine what fun it would be to make colorful socks, so I made a pair in lime green. Then I thought a pair of colorful, mismatched socks would be just the ticket, so I knit a pair from a self-striping ball.

And the suckers matched perfectly.

I tried it again. Different self-striping yarn, different pattern, advised by an expert to start the second pair in a different part of the color repeat.

And again, the socks matched perfectly, except for the heels. Heels don’t count.

Here, with two yarns, I could at last control the color changes with an iron fist and force the socks to mismatch. In fact, why not make them mirror images of each other? And call them–Lewis Carroll dork that I am–Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum?

And in what book do the frères Tweedle appear? Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.

And what is the central motif of Through the Looking Glass? A chess game.

And how many colors in a chess board? Two!

And how many colors of yarn had I to work with? Two!!

Eureka!!!

Chess board socks!!!! With the colors reversed!!!!!

!!!!!!

If you are not quite so confirmed a dingbat as I, you have already spotted the flaw in this vision. If you are, pray allow me to offer this demonstration.

I'm striping them. It's only been two months, and I'm almost three inches past the cuff on sock number one. Hooray for me.

Yammertime

I recently had the great pleasure of talking with Lara over at Crafty Living and the Math4Knitters Podcast, and the episode (number five) is now up if you’d care to have a listen. I promise she’s not nearly so frightening as you would expect someone to be who has put the word “Math” in the name of her Podcast.

In the Shop

Newly in stock: gift enclosure cards and signed prints. New designs are in the pipeline, too. Many thanks for all the positive feedback!

Knittin' to the Oldies

I've just had a curious snowdrift of messages asking whether I'm finished posting about that little stack of vintage patterns that came my way. Heavens, no. But after the parade of toilet dollies I thought we might all need a wee breather, and perhaps a drink.