At Knit's End Read online

  In reality, a knitter today is just as likely to be young, hip, male, and sitting at a “Stitch and Bitch” in a local bar. Several of today’s best knitting designers are men, and a knitter is as likely to have body piercings as homemade cookies.

  Despite our diversity, the tendency to be accompanied by a cat is an oddity among knitters that cannot be explained.

  Friends don’t let friends knit drunk.

  — ANONYMOUS

  When I was in college, there was a knitting club. I went a couple of times but quickly learned a valuable lesson. The club met in the university pub, and after a couple of episodes of drinking and knitting, I quickly realized that this was not the combination for me. Not that I didn’t have a good time; it was great. It was simply that the hangover made correcting my wild drunken mistakes too painful to contemplate. The result was always two days of lost knitting time.

  Should the temptation to knit at a party or pub overwhelm me with ideas of camaraderie and candlelight knitting, I will either order a soft drink or stick to garter stitch.

  Ideas are the factors that lift civilization.

  They create revolutions. There is more

  dynamite in an idea than in many bombs.

  — BISHOP VINCENT

  How grateful are we to the first person to think, “Hey, you know what would be a good idea? If we all didn’t have to spin our own yarn. What if I invented a machine that would spin it for me? Then I could make enough to be able to sell it to people who just wanted to knit!”

  I can remember to think kindly of the inventions and inventors who made it so that I can just go to the yarn shop instead of wrestling a full-grown angry sheep to the ground holding shears in my teeth.

  Hide not your talents, they for use were made.

  What’s a sundial in the shade?

  — BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

  How many times have you diminished knitting? Someone praised your work and you said, “Oh, it was nothing.” (Yeah, nothing. Sixty-seven hours knitting a cabled afghan, squinting into the dark wool and muttering suspicious things … nothing.) Or how about, “No, no … it was easy.” (Easy? Do you normally use foul language in the presence of decent upstanding wool? Normally have a twitch over your eye? Normally stay up late into the night just to finish one more row?) From now on I am telling the truth. I’m taking back knitting as a respectable art, one to be contended with.

  The next time your knitting is complimented, raise your needles and repeat after me: “Thank you. It was a challenge, but I did it.”

  I have learned to use the word ‘impossible’

  with the greatest caution.

  — WERNHER VON BRAUN

  Barb Hunt uses knitting to create replicas of antipersonnel land mines to raise awareness. Debbie New has knitted a boat and a grandfather clock. Janet Morton made a balaclava for a rhinoceros, a cardigan for a giraffe, and a remarkable “house cozy” that covered an entire cottage on Toronto Island, dressing the house for winter.

  I have personally knit an Aran sweater for a 6’4” man with a 48-inch chest. Nothing is impossible.

  You know you

  knit too much when …

  You have ordered in pizza

  for dinner so you can have

  more knitting time, even

  though you don’t really

  like pizza. Double points

  if you have done it twice

  in one week.

  Out of the mouths of babes …

  — PSALMS 8:2

  After several painstaking hours of teaching my youngest to knit, during which her patience with me was sorely tested, and I wondered why on earth I was trying to share this with her when she appeared not yet ready for the pleasures of knitting, my five-year-old finally warmed my heart by saying, “Hey, Mom, guess what? Knitting is fun!”

  I will consider, during the less-than-rewarding phase of teaching a child to knit, that if I impale myself on my knitting needles I will miss hearing a very great truth.

  Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

  — GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

  My kids claim that there is a kind of knitting I do that they call “angry knitting.” They say that they can come into a room, look at the way I am knitting, and know that something has pushed me close to losing my temper.

  I know this is nonsense. I am an expert knitter, and I do not let my emotions alter my knitting style. I am eternal and unchangeable, and I am sure that there is no more “angry knitting” than there is “tender knitting.”

  I am willing to consider that my emotions may affect my knitting, now that I have discovered the sleeve I worked the night my daughter came in late is so tightly knit that it easily measures 3 inches narrower than the other.

  With great power comes great responsibility.

  — UNCLE BEN PARKER,

  from Marvel’s comic Spider-man

  I find, as I know many other knitters do, mistakes in a knitting pattern to be unbearable. Designers hold our precious knitting time in their hands, and there is nothing that can be done to make it up to a knitter who has just spent 57 excruciating hours questioning her own sanity and ability, developing a tic, and cursing at the cat, while ripping her yarn threadbare trying to knit something that has an error in the pattern.

  When I run the world, test-knitting a pattern before selling it will be law. I’m not sure what the punishment for breaking this law will be, but it will take at least 57 hours.

  My theory is that men are no more

  liberated than women.

  — INDIRA GANDHI

  I was teaching a children’s knitting class in the rear of a toy shop. Halfway through class a little boy shopping with his mother wandered over and approached an 11-year-old boy happily and expertly knitting a potholder.

  “Hey!” he laughed, “boys don’t knit!” “Clearly,” said the manly young knitter, “they do.”

  I will take care not to pass on any gender biases I may have to the next generation.

  Generosity is giving more than you can,

  and pride is taking in less than you need.

  — KAHLIL GIBRAN

  Knitting for charity is a lovely, lovely thing. There are knitters who knit hats for preemies, warm clothing for children, pads for animal shelters, blankets for the war-torn, chemo caps for cancer patients, and many, many more. The generous knitter can find a multitude of ways to turn her knitting into a good deed. I want to make a difference in the world, too, and I’ve tried knitting for charity. That said, when after six months I had knit only a hat and a blanket square, I realized that a charity may need my yarn money more than my slow knitting.

  Should I be unable to knit fast enough or often enough to make a difference with my knitting, I will remember that most charities could really use my time and money, too.

  You know you

  knit too much when …

  You hear about a breed of

  “miniature sheep” that

  grow to be only 16 inches

  in height and weigh only

  50 pounds, and immediately

  start trying to figure out

  whether you can convince

  your spouse it’s a dog.

  You’ll find boredom where there is

  the absence of a good idea.

  — EARL NIGHTINGALE

  Knitting is a boon for those of us who are easily bored. I take my knitting everywhere to take the edge off of moments that would otherwise drive me stark raving mad. Waiting in line, waiting for appointments, waiting for lectures or meetings to begin. Knitting adds interest to even the most tedious and mundane moments.

  I will remember, because I am not the only one who has figured this out, that it might be offensive to knit while I am out to dinner with friends.

  Three o’clock is always too late or

  too early for anything you want to do.

  — JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

  One of the many beauties of knitting is that it requires little in the w
ay of setup. Let’s say you have a few minutes in the afternoon, how about a little pottery? Nope, can’t do it, takes too long to set up. Maybe painting? Won’t work. By the time you take out the paints and clean up the paints, your 15 minutes are gone. Knitting is perfect for quick breaks. Pick it up, do half a row, wander off again. There’s no mandatory minimum amount of time. You could take three minutes a day for knitting.

  While relishing the stolen moments I can find with my knitting, I will appreciate that if I knit only three minutes a day it will take slightly less than a year to knit one sock.

  We’ve begun to raise daughters more like

  sons … but few have the courage to

  raise our sons more like our daughters.

  — GLORIA STEINEM

  For eons women have had the same complaints about men. They need to slow down, they need to remember things, they should be more patient, and they should pay attention to detail.

  Remind me again why we aren’t teaching all little boys to knit?

  Hell, there are no rules here —

  we’re trying to accomplish something.

  — THOMAS A. EDISON

  I was reading a knitting book and learned, much to my horror, that you are never, ever supposed to stop in the middle of a row. This shocked me. I’ve been knitting for three decades; how could I have never heard this rule? Furthermore, because I haven’t noticed any terrible consequence to my knitting from stopping in the middle of a row, I wonder why we’re not supposed to do it. Fires? Bad karma? The plague of locusts?

  I can consider, when I encounter a knitting “rule” (and feel badly about not doing it), that the knitters who make up these rules like to have a lot of structure.

  I’ve been on a constant diet for the last

  two decades. I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds.

  By all accounts, I should be hanging

  from a charm bracelet.

  — ERMA BOMBECK

  There exists, in the knitting world, a concept called “The Yarn Diet.” The theory is the same as a regular diet. You purchase no new yarn and use only the yarn you have until you have “lost” the predetermined number of yarn pounds from the stash. Sadly, the result of a yarn diet is often much the same as a regular diet: a crazy woman feeling guilty as she packs on the cashmere in a yarn shop while nobody is looking.

  I will try and learn that nothing will change for me until I love my stash the way it is.

  An ounce of prevention is

  worth a pound of cure.

  — BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

  Should you begin to suffer from wrist or hand pain while knitting, your doctor may suggest resting the hand for a day or two. The consequences of failing to rest a sore hand can result in having to sharply curtail your knitting habit for a much longer time. Many knitters have found that they can ease knitting withdrawal symptoms and temptation during this rest time by replacing knitting with one of the following activities:

  • Visiting nonknitting friends (if you have any)

  • Doing activities that you don’t associate with knitting (if you have any)

  • Drinking heavily

  I will rest when I need to, because a lifetime of these tactics has its own problems.

  SABLE:

  a common knitting acronym that stands for

  Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.

  At some point in a dedicated knitter’s career, he hits this point of yarn ownership. He discovers that he has so much yarn that even if he were never to buy even one more ball or skein, and even if he were to knit full-time from now until the hour of his death, he couldn’t knit it all in his lifetime. This amount of yarn is highly variable, of course, and depends on factors such as knitting speed and the age of the knitter in question.

  Achieving the state of SABLE is not, as many people who live with these knitters believe, a reason to stop buying yarn, but for the knitter it is an indication to write a will, bequeathing the stash to an appropriate heir.

  To stay ahead, you must have your

  next idea waiting in the wings.

  — ROSABETH MOSS KANTER

  This idea is one of the foundation concepts behind keeping a substantial yarn stash. Although it may seem unbelievable to those who have not lived it, every potential project in the stash, no matter how long it has been there, was at some time supposed to be “next.”

  Things change. I will be flexible.

  I find that the harder I work,

  the more luck I seem to have.

  — THOMAS JEFFERSON

  It is a little known fact that swatches, often portrayed in knitting books as “tools,” are actually magic charms. Knit a swatch and you will be protected from any number of knitting mishaps. Be arrogant enough to mock and neglect the swatch and nothing good will come of it. Necklines will fail to go over heads, sweaters will itch, and sleeves will be 9 inches too long.

  I will remember, should I think that I am above knitting a meager swatch, that knitters can be punished.

  It is said that gifts persuade even the gods.

  — EURIPIDES

  Every time somebody gives me a gift that doesn’t suit me, I remind myself that it is the thought that counts. Still … if they were thinking, they would think yarn. I have trouble convincing people that even though I have tons of yarn, the best gift they could give me is more.

  I will remember, when someone does not give me yarn, that she was still trying to please me.

  As a general rule the most successful man

  in life is the man who has the

  best information.

  — BENJAMIN DISRAELI

  Sometimes I wonder about modern patterns. I wonder whether, back when knitters devised their own, they didn’t learn more about knitting. Truly, to knit a sock without a pattern you need a really, really good understanding of how knitting works. It seems to me that having all the information handed to us at every turn means we don’t really need to think too much.

  I reserve the right to change my mind when it turns out that knitting without a pattern teaches me about knitting way too slowly and results in a collection of knitted garments that need to be donated to the circus.

  Opinion is that exercise of the human

  will which helps us to make a decision

  without information.

  — JOHN ERSKINE

  There are two ways of providing information in a knitting pattern. The first way is written text of stitch-by-stitch instructions for each row. The second is a chart of the pattern, where the knitter follows the graph for each row, using a system of symbols. There are diehards in both camps. Some knitters will tell you that charts make them nuts; they can’t remember the symbols and wish text were provided for every pattern. On the other side are the knitters who would rather lick a cactus than try to follow written instructions, citing the advantages of “seeing” the pattern reflected in the chart.

  One passionate wish all knitters share: whether words or charts, publishers should just make them bigger.

  Cure for an obsession: get another one.

  — MASON COOLEY

  It is a particular curse of my knitting career that I am destined to love shawls beyond all reason, consumed by the need to knit them, enchanted by the yarns and patterns for them, possessed by urges to buy books about them and stash many, many skeins of yarn for them… yet look profoundly dorky in them and know no one who would wear one.

  I can remember that, sometimes, the joy is in the doing and that shawls might make good tablecloths.

  Solvency is entirely a matter of

  temperament and not of income.

  — LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH

  I hear tell of knitters who do not have a stash of yarn. They purchase yarn for a project, knit that project to completion, and then purchase the yarn for the next project. They do not have closets, bins, bags, shelves, and freezers dedicated to the storage of wool, and they have never left a yarn store with anything that they hadn’t decided to buy ahead o
f time.

  I can try to broaden my acceptance of other styles of yarn acquirement and not assume, just because I have never met a non-stashing knitter and can’t imagine being one myself, that stories about them do not belong in books next to “tooth fairy” and “Santa Claus.”

  You know you

  knit too much when …

  Before you buy anything,

  such as a hammock or

  curtains, you seriously

  wonder whether you

  could knit it.

  A cat is there when you call her —

  if she doesn’t have something better to do.

  — BILL ADLER

  Most cats have a thing about knitting. They are honor sworn to pester knitters and be involved in knitting as much as possible. They lie on patterns, play with balls of yarn, bat at the end of a moving needle, and given two seconds of opportunity, will spread themselves all over your knitting, intentionally shedding as much fur as possible.

  When selecting a cat to share my life and knitting with, I will consider choosing one whose fur doesn’t contrast with my favorite color yarn.

  I saw a sweater just like that at Wal-mart!

  — SOME LADY

  No, you did not. Even if this sweater looks just like the one from Wal-mart, even if it is the same yarn, the same color, and the same size, I assure you that they are as alike as oranges and orangutans. This sweater is a handcrafted object that contains 153 hours of my life. Each stitch is here because of the sweat of my brow and the nimbleness of my fingers. THIS sweater exists only because I am a clever, determined, vital knitter, with stick-to-itiveness and an ability to follow through. Wal-mart can’t touch that.

  I will open my heart and accept those who do not grasp the immense value of my knitting. They’re getting a sweater from Wal-mart for Christmas, though.

  Every path serves a purpose.

  — GENE OLIVER

  I really wonder about the purpose of sewing pom-poms to the tops of hats. Given that I don’t really consider them stylish or elegant and that they are a huge pain to make, I wonder what on earth prompts millions of knitters to make and sew them dutifully on millions of hats. Tradition? Style? Using up extra wool?

  As I finish the top of my daughter’s hat and glare at the inevitable hole made by the gathered stitches, I will consider that pom-poms may have a deeper purpose.