At Knit's End (2 page)

Respect your inner compass. It points to yarn.

 

If necessity is the mother of invention, then
resourcefulness is the father.

— B
EULAH
L
OUISE
H
ENRY

I
am pretty darned sure that knitting with wire was not a knitter's intentional artistic act, but instead the desperate move of an obsessive knitter trapped in a town with no yarn shop … but five hardware stores.

I will not allow my creative spirit and need to knit to be thwarted by a lack of materials.

 

It is the working man who is the happy man.
It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

— B
ENJAMIN
F
RANKLIN

M
y daughter and I were trapped in a seemingly endless bank line. Now me, I'm an experienced mother. I had a children's book, a baggie of snacks, and my knitting in my purse. I've been in this line before and now I come prepared. The woman in line ahead of us had come with nothing but her son and her wits, and she was showing clear signs of not only losing her temper but also developing a twitch over one eye. My daughter watched the woman become increasingly agitated and finally commented to the woman's son, “Your mom should get some knitting; that's what my mommy looks like without it.”

I recognize that knitting can improve my mood in trying circumstances.

 

To invent, you need a good imagination
and a pile of junk.

— T
HOMAS
A. E
DISON

T
he colors, textures, and quantities available in one's stash are the knitter's pile of junk for inventing. As with all inventing, you can expect it to end badly from time to time. With knitting, there are no explosions or clouds of noxious gasses, there's just some kid opening a box from his Auntie Mary and seeing an orange and puce sweater with a ruffled V-neck, three-quarter-length sleeves, and really clever cables.

Birthdays are not always the best time to introduce experimental inventions.

 

Any man who afflicts the human race
with ideas must be prepared to see them
misunderstood.

— H. L. M
ENCKEN

S
ome time ago, I designed a sweater. It was knit of the softest wool, in a color that was perfection itself. The subtle heathered yarn was a soft forest green that would have been perfect had I chosen to hide in a bed of creeping thyme. To me, it was breathtaking. My friend admired my sweater and asked for my pattern. Imagine my shock when several months later she proudly showed me her version, knit dizzyingly from a shiny variegated acrylic yarn that would have been perfect for hiding in a disco. She loved it, and I hoped she wouldn't tell anyone that it was my pattern.

I will acknowledge that what happens to my patterns after they leave me is none of my business.

 

Insanity in individuals is something rare —
but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs,
it is the rule.

— F
RIEDRICH
N
IETZSCHE

A
knitter's guild is a staggering, incredible thing. It is a room filled with men and women who have in common one obsession. They are possessed enough by the manipulation of two pointy needles and some yarn to give up whole free evenings, not just to knit, but to talk about it. The first time you find yourself having a conversation about moss stitch with a group of people who aren't desperately trying to escape you … it's like coming home.

I will join my local club or guild so that I can talk about knitting and still get invited to my friends' parties.

 

Love thy neighbor as yourself,
but choose your neighborhood.

— L
OUISE
B
EAL

W
hen my mother-in-law was a young mother in Newfoundland, Canada, she used to make time each afternoon during the brief summer to sit and knit in the sun. Being a mother, she used to get called into the house often to solve troubles, stir pots, and answer the phone. Often, when she would return to her knitting she would find enormous mistakes: yarn overs, dropped stitches, cables turned round the wrong way. She would ponder these things, chalk them up to losing her mind, and carry on. It was more than 20 years later that her next-door neighbor, Dick, finally admitted that he used to hop the fence and have a go at her knitting.

Some people have an inner knitter … screaming to be heard.

 

I love being married.
It's so great to find that one special person
you want to annoy for the rest of your life.

— R
ITA
R
UDNER

It took me years and years of trial efforts to work out that there is absolutely no knitting triumph I can achieve that my husband will think is worth being woken up for.

As strange as I find this, I will try to respect it.

 

You know you
knit too much when …

You find yourself pondering
the decision about what
knitting to take to the
grocery store with you,
because you might have
to wait in the checkout.

 

My masculinity isn't hinged on
whether or not I knit.

— R
OBIN
G
REEN AND
M
ITCHELL
B
URGESS
,
Northern Exposure

Russell Crowe (actor)

Bob Mackie (designer)

Rosie Greer (football player)

Laurence Fishburne (actor)

Isaac Mizrahi (designer)

U
ntil the beginning of the machine age, knitting guilds were populated only by men. It was when knitting machines were invented that the men went to the factories, and hand knitting fell to women.

 

Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.

— C
ONFUCIUS

M
ohair is unique among fibers in that it possesses a beautiful halo of fuzziness that effectively welds the knitting together. Few and far between are the knitters who can pull back knitting mistakes in mohair with their sanity and sobriety intact. Those who choose to knit with mohair would do well to triple-check that they have cast on the correct number of stitches, because errors are best abandoned. Also note that this yarn quality increases the chances of not noticing a mistake for 8 inches. This chance is upgraded to a virtual certainty if you have only the exact amount of mohair required for the project, or if you paid a crazy amount of money for it.

If I ever want to knit something that will never, ever come apart, I will choose mohair.

 

Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

— M
URPHY'S NINTH LAW

F
elting — or, more properly, “fulling” — is the act of taking a knitted object and submersing it into hot water and agitating it. The fibers in the wool hook together to form a firm, dense fabric that no longer resembles knitting. This process makes good bags, slippers, and hats. It is only known by its other name, “shrinking,” when it is done by accident.

I will respect the laws of Murphy when allowing my knitting near water.

 

I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.

— G
ILDA
R
ADNER

T
here is a certain segment of knitters who refuse to accept that there may be such a thing as a wool allergy. They accept that you can be allergic to bees, peanut butter, daisies, or penicillin, but not their precious wool. They maintain that the allergic have simply not yet met the “right” wool.

I will try to accept a wool allergy instead of attempting to sneak wool into the wardrobes of the unwilling using unethical subterfuge, just so that I can prove a point.

 

“Anna Makarovna has finished her stocking,” said Countess Marya…. They meant two stockings, which, by a secret known only to her, Anna Makarovna used to knit on her needles simultaneously. When the pair was finished, she always made a solemn ceremony of pulling one stocking out of the other in the presence of the children.

— L
EO
T
OLSTOY
,
War and Peace

T
his is accomplished by a technique known as “double knitting.” The stitches for each of the two socks alternate on the needles, and the knitting is accomplished by knitting these stitches with two balls of yarn, alternating balls with each stitch.

I wonder whether Anna Makarovna ever had the experience of discovering that after hours of painstaking alternation, as she triumphantly pulled the socks apart, that they were fused in one spot, joined by one stinking stitch.

 

Sometimes I can't figure designers out.
It's as if they flunked human anatomy.

— E
RMA
B
OMBECK

D
ear designer of questionable intent,

Please send me a photo of yourself. Please be wearing the knitted pants that you designed. It's not that I don't believe that there is anyone out there thin enough to wear horizontally striped trousers knit from chunky wool, it's just that I would like to know whether you are deliberately cruel or whether you are the one woman these would really look great on.

When choosing projects, I will remember that there are very few derrieres that can stand up to that kind of assault.

 

Only Allah is perfect.

— P
ERSIAN LORE

I
got to thinking about the Persian rugs woven by masters and how they insert one mistake, to show humility in the face of Allah's perfection. I have often thought that I, too, having knit the perfect sweater, would intentionally insert one little mistake … to keep myself humble. I realize now, of course, that I'm out of my mind. I've always made countless mistakes long before the end.

I will remember this quote and embrace my human imperfection.

 

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved.

— W
ILLIAM
W
ORDSWORTH

T
here is a simple act that unites all knitters. If you give them a hand-knit sweater, they will turn it inside-out to look at the sewing up of seams and the weaving in of ends. They will do this without even considering how odd it appears to examine closely the wrong side of a garment. This is done partly as a competitive move, an attempt to catch the other knitter with sloppy ends, and partly because knitters know that it is an art. It is not enough to have a sweater that looks good only on the outside. To be truly worthy, the sweater must possess inner beauty.

I will not wimp out during the sewing up of my knitting. The making up deserves as much attention as the knitting. Someone will be checking.

 

I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work.

— T
HOMAS
A. E
DISON

T
he first time you turn a heel correctly is a landmark knitting moment. Learning to do the magic trick of turning a corner in three dimensions with your wool and your wits … well, you feel pretty clever. Clever enough that the 300 times you ended up with a sock heel you could sell at an old-time circus freak show are magically erased from your memory.

I will appreciate the clever architecture of a knitted heel.

 

Before I met my husband, I'd never fallen in
love, though I'd stepped in it a few times.

— R
ITA
R
UDNER

I
n Devon, England, during the nineteenth century it was common practice for a bride-to-be to knit a wedding sweater for her beloved. It would be elaborate, of fine wool, and as personal as possible, sometimes even with his initials knit into the gusset under the arms, like an inscription in a ring. The incredible thing was that this sweater was not just a gift but also formal attire that the groom would wear to the wedding.

There is no occasion too fancy to express your love in wool.

 

The artist is nothing without the gift,
but the gift is nothing without work.

— E
MILE
Z
OLA

R
eally, there are only two kinds of people who are going to understand about hand-knit socks: those who wear them and know the singular joy of perfect socks, and the knitters who have the pleasure of giving that exquisite experience. Everybody else thinks you must be a special kind of crazy to spend so much time making something that you could buy for $1.99 at the store.

The only way to educate the masses is to knit for them.

 

If evolution really works, how come mothers
only have two hands?

— M
ILTON
B
ERLE

M
any women discover their urge to knit when expecting a baby. It seems like the right thing to do, knitting little baby things to wrap your new arrival in. When you think about it, being a new knitter and being a new mother are a lot alike. Both activities get better with practice, both are awkward and bumpy at the beginning, and both yield lovely results using common materials.

Done right, motherhood and knitting are both creative acts.

W
hen choosing a pattern, look for ones that have words such as “simple,” “basic,” and “easy.”

If you see the words “intriguing,” “challenging,” or “intricate,” look elsewhere.