Free-Range Knitter

by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

  I have begun knitting projects absolutely sure that I knew what I was making, only to discover that the yarn was seriously opinionated and wasn’t hip to my plan. I’ve had scarves become wraps because the yarn went further than I thought (that was sort of a really skinny wrap, but I make my own rules), and in one particularly surprising event involving my calculations for yardage and the fact that mathematics have always been a deep challenge for me, I set out making a fall jacket and ran out of yarn before I got any more than a chunky wool tank top with one half sleeve. (That one actually turned back into balls of yarn again, since summer wear that gives you heatstroke is of limited use.) I certainly couldn’t have predicted that the end result of twenty hours of knitting would land me back squarely at the yarn stage, and if you had told me that it was even a possibility that the project would have gone that way I would have laughed for an hour (and denied it), but like other things that are full of possibility, there you have it.

  Another project began with an ordinary yarn being knit into an ordinary cardigan that revealed its magic in the knitting and has ended up being a sweater that is so unordinary that it is my near constant companion. It is one of the best things I’ve ever made, and I love it so much that I have considered knitting another one just like it as a backup sweater, just in case. I wear it so much that I imagine that someday when my descendants describe me, they will have to mention that sweater, only they will use adjectives like ratty and mothbitten and wonder why on Earth a knitter didn’t have a better one. When I started it, I couldn’t ever have predicted that the mundane and inexpensive ingredients I had assembled would end up giving me a sweater that I adore to the point of distraction, but that’s exactly what knitting is like. Pure possibility … a cosmic crap shoot of possibility.

  The intrigue only deepened for me when I realized that knitting success or failure isn’t even particularly repeatable or predictable. You can knit one sleeve and have it be exactly the right width, and then repeat the same exact process for the other and end up—for reasons known only to do with fate, gauge, and the fact that you drank one glass of wine during the first sleeve and fought with your spouse during the second—with two sleeves that don’t have enough in common to belong on one garment. Add in yarn errors, like the time that you bought ten balls of yarn in the same dye lot, only to discover (when the sweater was finished, of course) that one ball was actually lighter and is now a rather obvious stripe across your belly or breasts, depending on which one you had seriously hoped to downplay. (The knitting fates concerned with the matters of possibility do think it’s seriously funny to make your worst feature the only thing people will see coming.)

  Don’t forget to think about pattern errors or quirks, where the designer, tragically human, doesn’t write the neck decreases the same way on both sides (even though human necks are the same way on both sides), and the ability to predict knitting outcomes is starting to be really risky and full of promise for entertainment. If you still feel like knitting isn’t an exercise in adventure, mystery, and intrigue that is impossible to predict, finish the whole risk assessment with your own personal potential for error and gift for screwing things up, since only you can be blamed if you knit two left fronts to a cardigan, forget to increase for the arms, or miss three charts on a shawl.

  A bag of yarn with your intention to knit it is a wonderful sort of a gamble. The path a knitting project takes on its way to completion isn’t usually any less intriguing than a good book (or as tedious as a bad one), and I know that I’ve been a much happier knitter since I embraced that and stopped trying to be in charge of every yarn’s plot. This part, the way that every knitted thing is going to tell me a story, is exactly the something that I think non-knitters are missing when they come into my house, look around at all the yarn, and ask me what the hell I need it for. Some of us, those who have more yarn than they could ever knit in a lifetime, even though we may be very honest people, we tell a lie then. We say, “It’s for knitting,” and we do our level best to look at the quizmaster as if it’s totally reasonable. It took me years of watching the look on their faces at that moment to realize that this is why they think I’m nuts. They aren’t stupid. (Or most of them aren’t stupid. I shouldn’t generalize.) They see all that yarn, they see how fast I’m knitting it up, and then they do a little simple math. This much yarn divided by knitting that fast, why, my goodness, it equals a slice of crazy pie, and in that moment they see that I’m clearly delusional if I think I’m going to make a dent in it. (As an aside, this is entirely the wrong moment to reveal that you’re still buying.) After years of reflection and damage to my reputation (and years that I am certain my neighbors have been discussing it), I’ve decided that I might do a lot better if I tried to explain that its charm doesn’t really lie in the knitting.

  The yarn in the house, all of it, is not for knitting, although I sure thought that’s what it was for when I bought this much of it. It turns out that it’s for inspiration, for insight—for the inherently fascinating possibility of what it might become. It is there like a collection of books in a house. It is there for the moment, someday, when I pick some of it off the shelf (or closet, or freezer, whatever) and I cast on, and the whole thing starts. The yarn and I will embark on a thing, even if it’s a little thing, and the knitting will start to tell me a story.

  As a general rule, once someone knows how I am with all the knitting, they ask me how many projects I have in progress at once. Occasionally this person is an interested or slightly confused non-knitter, one who can’t imagine why you would possibly be knitting more than one thing, but more often it is another knitter, come to scope me out.

  Maybe it’s a virtuous knitter with only one or two things on the needles, or maybe it’s a knitter desperately looking for someone who has more on the go than he does, but either way, they have noticed a parade of things on my needles and begun to suspect that I lack a certain monogamous instinct in the project department. In the past I have skirted this question with various dodgy answers, since I have always suspected that it is a trap. If I answer, no matter what I answer—that I have a few or that I have many—the asker always seems to get a huge “Ah-ha! You are exactly as insane as I have always suspected” expression, or worse, they actually say so out loud before looking rather superior.

  This question gets asked in a lot of ways, sometimes boldly, sometimes quietly, sometimes in a private moment between two knitters, but always in a manner that tells you that they are going to decide something about you, something defining the moment you give them the answer. It is not hard to spot the trap, which makes it embarrassing that I still sometimes fall for it. Knitters ask each other “How many?” the way that non-knitters ask each other questions like “What sort of car do you drive?” or “Do you dance?” or the way that women ask men “Boxers or briefs?” with a suspicious raise of the eyebrow. Like asking a date whether he or she likes to dance, knitters ask this question because they believe the answer will reveal something about the kind of knitter (and therefore person) that I am. Mostly, we think that knitters who have just one or two projects on the go are steadfast, dedicated, loyal, and get a lot done, and we suspect that knitters who have many (many) things on the needles are weak willed, inconstant, easily swayed, or even flighty. As a knitter with several projects on the go (and by several I mean “more than you are expecting,” no matter how many you are expecting), I would like to take a moment to defend my type. We knitters with mountains of knits in progress are more effective and loyal than you think we are.

  See, no matter what anyone suspects about my fealty and its relationship to the number of projects scattered around my house, I do not have this many things on the needles because I am weak willed and pathetically susceptible to wool fumes. (Well, I am weak and pathetically susceptible to wool fumes, but that isn’t how I got into this situation. That was the problem in the yarn store and why I bought it, not why I have since cast it all on.)

  The problem is that I and many
other knitters like me are the exact opposite of what you think we are. We are so effective, so practical, and so dedicated that we enjoy having something to knit with us at all times, no matter what our circumstances. Once you look at it that way, as a sincere sort of loyalty, there is no denying that if you are going to knit everywhere, all the time, not every project is going to be appropriate for every situation. This means that I, or other knitters who have embraced this as a lifestyle, require a rather large assortment of different projects available to us in order to meet this goal. It’s all about balance and planning.

  Nobody can knit lace in the dark at the movies. (Sorry. I shouldn’t say “nobody.” I’m sure there are a few crazywild talented knitters out there who are churning out Orenburg lace in the pitch dark at the cinema because they have memorized the chart and can feel the stitches and have the sort of memory that allows them to follow what George Clooney is doing without looking at what their fingers are doing, but I am not one of them, and frankly I think that if you are, you should be at the United Nations sorting out that world peace thing with your huge brain.) I need a simple knit. No shaping, no yarn overs, no stitch or row counting; it needs to be a project that just has plain knitting with nothing happening. It needs to be small so I can tuck it into my purse, and discrete enough that turning it on my lap is not a large and distracting movement for the other moviegoers. (See? I’ve really given this some thought.) I have solved this dilemma with socks. Assuming that I have finished the ribbing (I can’t see what’s a knit and a purl in the dark, and if Brad Pitt jumps off that building there’s no way I’ll be able to remember what I was doing) and that I am not yet at the heel (I can’t short row in the dark; it’s unreliable), then the straight bits of the leg and feet are perfect for the movies. Round and round, knit every stitch. Perfect.

  Other times, I’m looking for something more complicated but not so fussy that I have to use a chart or pattern to any great degree. I want something I can pick up and put down while I work on other things. Five minutes while I’m on hold, ten minutes in the line at the bank, fifteen minutes in a waiting room, or an hour waiting for one of the kids at a lesson or swim meet. No chart holds up well for this sort of in-and-out-of-your-purse action, and the project must be retired from public rotation as soon as it gets too big for easy transport. (There was a lesson learned on a public bus some years ago involving a stranger, an afghan, and my belief that he stole a ball of yarn from me, but that story does nothing for my reputation and I’m not repeating it. No big projects on buses.)

  With this, we haven’t even scratched the surface of my knit needs. I need a project for the evenings when I’m watching TV. That can be something big and unwieldy that doesn’t get moved around much, or I could even choose something more complex, since I’ll have the light to read a chart. Charts are fine as long as it’s a drama. If it’s an action show where you actually need to watch to know what’s happening, the chart’s back out. (I’ve learned that if you’re “watching” action while knitting, a very great deal of the plot can still be followed if you just listen to the explosions.) Subtitles are their own genre, since chart reading is out if film reading is in. Listening to the radio, I can work on whatever I like, and it would be a shame not to take advantage of the chance to knit something complex with a chart and fussy instructions. After all, my eyes aren’t doing anything.

  Following these guidelines, I’ve very efficiently begun a whole lot of projects (plus a few more, because all that simple stuff isn’t so simple until it’s cast on and counted), and I’ve placed them in helpful locations. Sock in my purse, hat by the door, simple sweater in a knitting bag by my coat. Mittens on the coffee table, Fair Isle by the chair in the kitchen, top-down cardigan on the dresser by my bed. A scarf is at the top of the stairs, in case I need a backup, and there’s another in a basket in the dining room in case I get bored with the first one. In the interest of honesty, I can tell you that there are several things that I started to meet the needs of the moment, but they don’t count because I’m ignoring them right now. They are in the hall closet, where they don’t try to make eye contact. Just to be sure that I am thoroughly prepared for all contingencies, I’ve also got several balls of sock yarn with the needles stuck in them, just in case I need to grab four or five in an emergency.

  Yessiree, I’m prepared. Totally prepared. Efficient, practical, dedicated, and almost entirely prepared for all knitting contingencies. I’m not in over my head. I am not weak. I am simply extraordinarily well-rounded in the knitting department and prepared to cast on enough projects to prove it. It’s not a failing. It’s not a lack of commitment. It’s being properly committed and prepared to knit at any moment. I know it looks bad, though. I know it looks like a bit of a mess, but really?

  It’s all about balance and understanding, about loyalty and how many relationships you might need to be really monogamous, in a larger sense.

  I’m really good at it. (In a larger sense.)

  Knit Two Together

  Stories of Belonging, Joining, and Love (Sort Of)

  Cass

  When I decided to write about how Cass knits, I had in mind that I wanted to talk about how impressive I find her because she lives alone. I don’t live alone, I have never lived alone, and I’m not sure what would happen if I lived alone. I harbor a suspicion that I am tidy (inasmuch as I am tidy), organized (same thing), and behaving properly (going to work) only because I have other people living around me who would hold me accountable or phone someone if I gave in to my natural urges to drink nothing but coffee and wine, eat nothing but chocolate and wasabi peas, and do nothing but sit around knitting in my underpants while watching old movies. Cass has nobody to supervise her, and she still tidies her house, goes to work, pays her bills, and knits only when her responsibilities are met. (Sort of.) I wanted to write about that because I am just so keen to understand what the difference is between her and me—why I think I would go feral and start building yarn castles in the kitchen if you let me, and why Cass doesn’t. I thought that’s what I was going to write about, and while I waited for her to e-mail me the little digital movie of her knitting (she lives in New Jersey and I in Toronto), that’s exactly what I thought this would be about. I waited while we tried to sort out the technical challenges of that sort of thing, and by the time a file arrived that worked, that I could open, and that actually had Cass knitting on it, I was so damned happy to see it that I watched it four times before I saw the surprising thing about the way she knits, and I changed my mind entirely.

  Cassandra was working on a stockinette swatch, one row knit and the next purl, and I watched carefully as she knit a row. I paused the film, made a series of notes about what I was seeing, and then played the next section. On my little screen, as I peered intently and watched my faraway friend start her next row, I saw her do something stunning. As she made the switch from knitting to purling, she changed everything. Her whole hand position changed. It wasn’t a small adjustment she made to accommodate purling; it was a whole other knitting style. There wasn’t anything she hadn’t changed. She had been palm down, now she was palm up. She held the needle a different way; she even shifted which finger was tensioning the yarn. It wasn’t related to what she’d been doing before at all. If I couldn’t still see her face, I wouldn’t have believed it was still her. I reached for the phone. I called long distance. When she answered I told her that I’d been watching knitters for a long time, and I’d never seen anything as crazy as that. I quizzed her for a while and sort of freaked her out. How the hell did she work ribbing, or any other row where knit and purl both existed. Did she have to change her whole hand position in between every knit and purl? What the hell was her plan? What was she thinking? Cass considered this odd phone call for a minute, and then she said something I’ve probably heard her say a thousand different times. “What makes you think I know what I’m doing?” she said. “I make changes. I shift things around. I just make it work. Loosen up.”

  I pra
ctically had to put my head between my knees while she was talking. That happens sometimes when I talk to Cass. I’m not a flexible person. I am a creature of habit and routine, and things or people that break up my system or have no system upset me. I am a nervous overthinker, and I tend to stick with what I know, and that means I never say, “I just make it work.” I do make things work, I really do, but things working out for me is the direct result (I think) of planning, an attempt at organization, an agonizing amount of contemplation, and a striking relationship with lists and an overdeveloped fondness for office supplies. Even the way I knit is the result of a carefully contrived efficiency developed over thirty-five years. This idea, what Cass was saying, that she had no idea what she was doing or how, but was doing it anyway, was entirely alien to me. She might just as well have been offering me information in Swahili, and I had to hit the reset button on my psyche and remember again why Cass is in my life. At the risk of sounding like the sort of person who makes her own granola (which I do, but that’s not the point), I believe that everyone is here for a reason, that every person has a purpose, and that as itchy as it makes me sometimes, I know why I love Cassandra in my life.