At Knit's End (15 page)

 

You'll find boredom where there is
the absence of a good idea.

— E
ARL
N
IGHTINGALE

K
nitting 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.

— J
EAN
-P
AUL
S
ARTRE

O
ne of the many beauties of knitting is that it requires little in the way 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.

— G
LORIA
S
TEINEM

F
or 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.

— T
HOMAS
A. E
DISON

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.

— E
RMA
B
OMBECK

T
here 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.

— B
ENJAMIN
F
RANKLIN

S
hould 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 non-knitting 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.

a common knitting acronym that stands for
Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.

A
t 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.

— R
OSABETH
M
OSS
K
ANTER

T
his 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.

— T
HOMAS
J
EFFERSON

I
t 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.

— E
URIPIDES

E
very 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.

— B
ENJAMIN
D
ISRAELI

S
ometimes 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.

— J
OHN
E
RSKINE

T
here 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.

— M
ASON
C
OOLEY

I
t 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.

— L
OGAN
P
EARSALL
S
MITH

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 of 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.

— B
ILL
A
DLER

M
ost 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!

— S
OME
L
ADY

N
o, 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.

— G
ENE
O
LIVER

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.

 

I took a speed-reading course and
read
War and Peace
in twenty minutes.
It involves Russia.

— W
OODY
A
LLEN

T
he knitting world is full of books and patterns for “quick knits.” They involve big yarn, big needles, and projects promising instant knitting gratification. I love them; they are tons and tons of fun. Finishing a hat in two hours can make you happy. Finishing a lace shawl of fine cobweb wool, however, makes you want to go into the street and accost complete strangers, forcing them to admire the shawl and be awed by your knitterly genius.