The Yarn Whisperer (14 page)

In knitted fabric, bias exists for far simpler reasons: The yarn was given more twist than its fibers can absorb. Squishy protein fibers like wool, alpaca, and mohair are packed with zigzagging internal molecules, built-in airbags, coiled springs, and cushioned bumpers that can absorb quite a lot of force before beginning that sideways slide.

But the fibers grown from seed and stalk have no inner elasticity. While they're unflappably strong, if they fall into the company of a twist that's just a few turns too tight, they'll easily succumb to the influence. Try to knit such fibers in smooth sheets of stockinette, and, depending on the yarn and the way in which you knit, you may quickly begin to see a bias take shape.

Are these yarns innately bad? Certainly not. Nor do they deserve to be ignored as I've ignored them. Their fiber is far stronger than that of most quadrupeds, but their moral fiber simply lacks the ability to reason, to stand back and study their situation with an analytic eye, process what they're experiencing, and respond in a mature, independent manner. Instead, they feel the twist coming and raise their hands in surrender.

Having grown up in Arizona during the age of crystals and the harmonic convergence, my immediate instinct is to suggest therapy. And that's not too far off. All these fibers need is a little perspective, a 360-degree view of the situation. They need to be given a chance to pop their heads out the window and see what
their own house looks like from the outside. Travel abroad. If they're in a knit stitch surrounded by other knit stitches, toss in a purl. If they're in a purl among purls, flip the working yarn back to the front and surprise them with a knit.

The mechanics of moving our yarn from one side of the fabric to the other will balance the excess twist and return the fabric to straight. It's almost as if the fibers need the contrast of knits and purls to see themselves fully, to laugh at their bias, and let it go. Worked in this way, we can still show these fibers in their full, utterly bias-free glory. It's that simple.

Of course you could go whole-hog and replace your stockinette with seed or moss stitch—the equivalent of Spanx for your fabric—or you could do something more restrained and quiet, depending on what the design dictates. But add purls, give your fabric some perspective, and your woes will disappear.

It makes me wonder. If a fabric's bias is a result of external influence, could a human's bias be similarly caused? Is it hardwired in us, this predisposition toward prejudice and foregone conclusions, or is it a response to external circumstances that we lack the ability to process? If we lack such an ability, is it permanent? Unlike the molecular structure of fibers, which is pretty hard to modify, can we actually—dare I suggest it—change? If our life is a knit stitch, what would that bias-balancing purl stitch be?

What if the BOYCOTT FRANCE guy actually went to France, spent time there, got to know the people? Would his perspective be altered, if even slightly? Does molecular change come from greater exposure to the very thing it was resisting? Can
working through the wrong stitches to find the right ones help us see the world in all its glory?

I think of my nephews, two boys who are very different on the surface. The younger is outgoing and highly verbal, the older is much more quiet and contemplative. Even physically they have distinct differences. Yet the younger will do almost anything if his older brother does it. Singing a song about poop? He joins in. Suddenly likes chicken? He requests it, too. Fixated on keys? He sets off to find his own pair.

But nestled within this bias toward everything his brother does is a nascent personality of his own. I'm beginning to see it. I know that with time and a nurturing hand, that personality will develop fully, and his fabric—like my own knitting bias—will find its own way.

THE GREAT WHODUNIT

WE ALL HAVE
our coping mechanisms.
I know you're expecting me to say that mine is knitting, and to a certain degree you'd be right. But if you want to know the truth, my real coping mechanism is a good mystery.

As far back as I can remember, mysteries have been my favorite escape, my butterscotch sundae with a cherry on top, a tried-and-true guilty pleasure more pleasurable, even, than holding yarn and needles in my hands.

I come from a long line of mystery readers. My grandma devoured them like bonbons, feasting on the likes of Georges Simenon, Rex Stout, and, of course, Agatha Christie. Her father-in-law preferred his mysteries more smoky and lurid. His 1907 editions of Sherlock Holmes sit beside me even now, their pages having been nibbled by mice last winter
to form a cozy nest in the back of the bookshelf—really a stack of old fruit crates.

There's something infinitely comforting about a good mystery. It has all the elements of great entertainment. You have a varied cast of characters, intrigue, an investigation into something gone wrong, and, ultimately, the satisfaction of a resolution. It's a puzzle, really. The story challenges you, keeps you on your guard, rewards you when you're right, leaves you gobsmacked when you're wrong, and presents brilliant twists and turns that all come together into a perfectly resolved bind-off.

The puzzle part makes me realize how much a good mystery can be like a good knitting pattern. It takes you on an adventure, engages your mind, paints a pretty landscape, maybe even surprises you now and then, but always reaches the expected resolution. It has no errata, no missing instructions, no unexpected third sleeve or illegitimate son thrown in at the end to tidy things up without regard for the original plot line.

Like writers, designers tell stories in their own way. They each have their telltale plots and characters. They employ certain kinds of charts and keys and knitting techniques, use specific language, again and again, reflecting a unique and persistent creative style across everything they do.

Long before I knew how to knit, I was already hooked on mysteries. While my brothers occupied themselves with endless games of Dungeons and Dragons, I hid out in my room and read my Hardy Boys. (No Nancy Drew for me. I got my brothers' hand-me-downs and became so fond of Frank and Joe that Nancy didn't stand a chance.)

I liked these books because you knew nothing
truly
bad was ever going to happen. No matter how high that house on the cliff or how creepy that tunnel leading to the old mill where the counterfeiters were holed up, no matter how fast the waters rushed or how loud the bad guy's gun went
bang,
you knew nobody would get killed and everything would be resolved by the last page. The best week I ever spent was at home on the couch recovering from a highly exaggerated case of the flu, with a bowl of ramen noodles, a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos, a bottle of ginger ale, and my stack of Hardy Boys for company.

When we visited my mother's parents in the summer, I'd sleep in a tiny room under the eaves at the end of the house, with windows on three sides. It was my grandma's hideout, and in it she'd placed all of her beloved mysteries. Nothing fancy, just Bantam, Dell, and Pocket paperbacks priced at 45¢, the “newer” editions running a more decadent 60¢.

Here I met Hercule Poirot for the first time, that belovedly eccentric Belgian detective with the tidy moustache, who always referred to himself in the third person. I loved how he refused to eat two soft-boiled eggs unless they were identical in shape and size. I marveled at the way his brain seized on the most minute details—a shard of glass, a clump of garden dirt—how he always seemed to know when a postmark was genuine and when it had been altered. As great as modern television's Monk is, he has nothing on Poirot.

I jumped shelves and began reading Agatha Christie's other stories, especially those featuring Miss Marple. Far more mild-mannered and unassuming than Poirot, this innocuous little
old lady had the strength to stare down the most ruthless of criminals. But her real gift was her simple ability to draw parallels between whatever she was facing at the moment and her experiences in the small town of St. Mary Mead. “It is rather reminiscent of when the spoon went missing at Hartleygate Manor,” she'd say, “and everybody blamed the servant, Molly, until she finally left, and then the spoon was later found, but by then, oh, my, it was too late, now, wasn't it?”

Strangers would dismiss her talk as the random babblings of a crazy lady. But someone, somewhere, knew better. He or she did listen. And soon, as the plot unfolded, other people began to see that this woman was, in fact, more intelligent and observant than the rest of them put together. They would crane their necks for a better listen and cling to her every word. It always began with a gentle clearing of the throat, an, “Oh dear, I fear I shall explain things badly, you see, for I lack your
modern
training and all,” followed by a discreet suggestion that they check behind the vicarage, or look in Lady Something-or-Other's medicine cabinet more closely. Always, the answer is there. Agatha Christie was the Elizabeth Zimmermann of the mystery world, a masterful storyteller whose language was as consistently engaging and inventive as the plots themselves. In
The Opinionated Knitter,
you can almost hear Elizabeth clearing her throat à la Miss Marple before she suggests, “There are few knitting problems that will not yield to a blend of common sense, ingenuity and resourcefulness.…” I'm sure she meant to put a “my dear” in there somewhere, too.

Even my father got into the mystery game one summer
when he was living with his future in-laws down in Washington, D. C. He decided to read my grandma's entire collection of Agatha Christie books. He figured Christie
had
to have a code, some sort of secret formula she used to create her plots, and he was going to crack it once and for all.

He made it through all the books without ever figuring out her secret. But he did offer one observation. Christie was never truly sympathetic to the culprit. She'd paint pretty odious pictures of all of her characters at first—after all, that's the job of any mystery writer, to paint everybody as a suspect—but over time each person would gradually become more human, except for the true culprit, to whom Christie never showed mercy.

From Agatha Christie it was an easy leap to my grandmother's other guilty favorite, the mysteries of Georges Simenon. Suddenly we crossed the channel to a murky, gray Paris where the November cold was settling in and Inspector Maigret was hunkered in his office at the Palais de Justice, a haze of pipe smoke swirling around his head as a petty criminal squirmed in the seat across from him. Here the stories grew slightly more brutal in nature: the stabbings, the prostitutes, the severed heads. But again, the people and the environment created a vivid portrait that was as engaging as the plot itself. Paris came to life in these books, in Simenon's masterful descriptions of the streets, the smells, and, always, the food eaten by Inspector Maigret at every brasserie and bistro he passed … they were so strikingly animated that I could almost see, smell, and taste them. And always, fairness prevailed.

Even now, the Maigret stories are my popcorn, my chaser
after a heavy meal. The summer that I was finishing up
The Knitter's Book of Wool,
my daily routine was to write all morning, have my lunch out on the porch, and then spend the rest of the afternoon tucked into a Maigret mystery. I'd blow through one book every two days, sometimes in just one day alone. It kept my mind clear, and I love thinking that perhaps a tiny bit of Maigret's Paris managed to drift in and settle among each morning's woolly words.

Many of the newer mysteries leave me cold. They seem to thrive all too often on gratuitous blood-splatters, not only telling us that the leg was severed by a chainsaw but making sure we hear the sputter of the engine and the whir of the chain as it makes its first slice into human flesh. These stories, like Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, delve deep into human darkness, their conclusions reached with a realistically tired cynicism. Good may have prevailed today, but the evil and darkness lurking within each of us will ultimately win.

Thankfully, there's no blood in knitting patterns; nobody dies or loses a limb. But they can have characters who are always leaping, chasing, and being shot at. These are the knitting patterns where each row has action, your needles are performing constant acrobatics without ever getting a moment to slow down and breathe. They are packed to the gills with excess adornment, the
American Idol
contestant who insists on singing twelve trilly notes when just one steady, true one would suffice. They are laden with knitterly drama and pyrotechnics, often resulting in a spectacular garment that feels too special for everyday wear.

Other contemporary mysteries follow an even worse, cutesy “mystery lite” formula—the bulky garter-stitch scarf made out of a particularly uninventive and lifeless skein of yarn. Nothing bad happens in these books, you figure out the whole thing by page three, and then have to spend the rest of the time enduring the combative flirtings of your attractive and naturally slender heroine and Harrison, or Hadley, or Morgan, the incredibly handsome barrel-chested fire chief of her small Connecticut town.