Knitlandia

by Clara Parkes

  “See?” she pointed at the bathtub-toy sailboats floating in the shallow water, “You can sail here, too.”

  But by then I think we both knew it wouldn’t work out. Like strangers on a first date, we’d reached that critical moment when one person reveals a love of cheese, the other, incurable lactose intolerance.

  We said goodbye and I headed for home. As sad as I was that there would be no press release, no big announcement, I knew I’d made the right decision. And I still had a book deal. For a paperback about sweaters people knit for their boyfriends and girlfriends. Featuring teddy bears. But that was still something, right?

  I returned home to my routine and I waited.

  The call came almost three weeks later. It was from someone else, someone whose name I didn’t recognize. She’d been out of the office the day I came, she explained. But she understood I had an idea for a book? Yes, I said, and laid it out for her. That’s very interesting, she said, not sounding interested at all. She suggested I write up a proposal and send it to her for consideration. Things were pretty busy right now, but she’d take a look and get back to me in a few weeks. She briefly explained how to write a book proposal, she wished me the best of luck, and we hung up.

  Not only was there no press release, no offer of any kind, but if I wanted this odd little book (that I already knew I didn’t want), I’d have to fight for it. And I was now out 20,000 frequent-flyer miles.

  One week later and entirely out of the blue, I got a call from an editor who was launching a new knitting imprint at Random House. Had I ever thought about writing a book? she asked. By the end of that phone call, from my very own kitchen table, I’d struck a two-book deal with an option on a third. The first book would be my beloved ode to yarn, The Knitter’s Book of Yarn.

  Clay’s company would eventually go on to be acquired by an even bigger fish, F+W Media. Linda’s still there, but Clay cashed out to “do some fishing and bird hunting and let opportunity find me,” he told Folio. In the spring of 2014, the bank building was shuttered and all 130 employees were moved to an anonymous office park in Fort Collins.

  But in my heart of hearts, Interweave will always be that grand old bank on Fourth Street where I first got to sit at the big kids’ table and where the Ann Budd told me where to shove it.

  GLASS, GRASS, AND THE POWER OF PLACE: Tacoma, Washington

  THE MADRONA TREE is a marvel of the Pacific Northwest. A tall evergreen with broccoli-like foliage, its slick pumpkin-colored bark gradually peels away, like chocolate shavings, to reveal a tropical green skin underneath. The tree doesn’t transplant well, and where it does thrive, it’s the preferred nesting site for anything with wings. In short, it’s a beautiful, rare, and popular place to call home—as is the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat, which has been happening every February in Tacoma, Washington, since 1999.

  Knitting retreats tend to be similar from place to place. You have workshops, a marketplace, evening social activities, and, through it all, you have ample space to spread out, make yourself at home, and hopefully form meaningful connections with other knitters. The flesh of nearly every fiber-related gathering hangs on such a skeleton.

  What, then, makes one event different from the next? In the case of Madrona, it begins with place. The four-day event is held inside a museum of American art glass loosely disguised as the Hotel Murano. It’s not just a pretend museum to lure tourists to the hotel, but a real showcase with curated exhibits of more than forty-five renowned artists. In the main lobby, it’s hard not to gawk at the stunning Chihuly piece suspended from the ceiling. Functionally a chandelier, it has snakelike glass arms that curl outward into delicate tips. When the light hits it just so, the silver glass takes on a warm, golden glow.

  Every floor of the hotel displays the work of a different artist, with photos and stories that also influence the guestroom decor. Each room key has a different picture of a featured art piece, along with the floor number where you can find it. Mine would have an intricate glass bustier by Susan Taylor Glasgow, fifteenth floor. Guests are encouraged to ride the elevator to the top floor and tour the collection, one floor at a time, until they’re back down at the lobby.

  Art glass owes much to the Pacific Northwest. American glass sculptor Dale Chihuly grew up in Tacoma, and he founded his Pilchuck Glass School here in the 1970s. Just a few blocks from the hotel is the Museum of Glass, a 75,000-square-foot showcase of art glass from around the world. It was installed along the waterfront during revitalization in the 1990s. All of this is to say that, whereas most conference-size hotels have the personality of a bowl of oatmeal, this one really does reflect the community it serves.

  And then there’s the organizer. Over the years, the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat has been relentlessly shaped by a nearly invisible, enigmatic yet passionate fiber artist named Suzanne Pedersen. You won’t find her on Twitter or Ravelry, and she probably thinks hashtag is a culinary term. She is not at all eager to jump on stage and be the center of attention, yet she is fiercely focused on and protective of this event.

  Suzanne does things the old-fashioned way. She writes long emails explaining the history and underlying cultural principles of Madrona. At its heart, that culture pivots on two simple ideas: learning and community. Most other retreats hope for the same, but they throw in an element of commerce and self-promotion that sometimes overshadows the rest. Madrona is not sponsored by a profit-driven corporation, by a big magazine, or by a yarn company. It is self-funded, born from the very same Pacific Northwest fiber community it serves. Today, the event draws more than 900 people each year.

  An invitation from Suzanne is a clear indicator that you have, in fact, arrived. You could say that everyone who is anyone in the knitting world has taught at Madrona, from Cat Bordhi to Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Nancy Bush, Evelyn Clark, Judith Mackenzie, Sally Melville, and Amy Herzog, a list that barely scratches the surface.

  My invitation came in 2013, after I’d been writing and teaching for more than a decade. Suzanne and I had emailed back and forth for years. We’d even met at Sock Summit, where she snuck into one of my lectures and then sat me down for an informal interview afterward. It seemed like a lot of work for a teaching gig, but I was flattered and eagerly accepted.

  Tacoma sits on Commencement Bay in Puget Sound, about forty minutes south of Seattle. The port city gained notoriety in 1940 when its brand-new suspension bridge, nicknamed Galloping Gertie, twisted so violently in heavy winds that it collapsed just six months after it opened, prompting the study of aeroelastic flutter.

  I left a Maine that was buried deep in February snow, landing on a persistently gray, but snowless, other side of the continent. While waiting for my shuttle, a group of Emirates flight attendants clicked by me in their pumps. Their tailored tan blazers and flared skirts were a welcome contrast to the flannel pajama pants I’d been seeing all day, worn by travelers who have no qualms about rolling out of bed, grabbing their pillows, and heading straight to the airport. But these women had signature red pillbox hats perched atop cowl-like white gauze veils that draped across their chests like a string of pearls. We all stopped to admire their procession.

  It was dark by the time my shuttle van pulled into the hotel. Exhausted from a day of travel, I probably would’ve grabbed a granola bar and hit the sack early were it not for the fact that I’d shared a ride—and commentary about those Emirates flight attendants’ uniforms—with Catherine Lowe and her husband.

  Catherine is a quiet lion in the knitting industry, someone who keeps a low profile while upholding the highest standards in everything she does. Her couture knitting workshops span days rather than hours, requiring students to commit to her and her alone for the duration of any major event. And the workshops always fill up. She has taught at Madrona for years. Where most patterns occupy six or eight pages, hers can span thirty or more for a single garment. I remember Catherine proudly telling me that she’d managed to shorten one pattern . . . down to eighteen pages.

>   She and her husband live in a farmhouse in upstate New York, equidistant from Boston and New York. In her previous life, she got her PhD in French from Yale (with a minor in Italian) and was a college professor for many years. Her husband was the head of the Columbia University library system before taking over the Boston College library. He wears a silk cravat, grows peonies, and is an amateur jeweler.

  You know how some people aren’t big talkers at dinner? Or they talk too much, barely pausing to notice what they’re shoving in their mouths? Catherine and her husband are neither of those things. They are charming and eloquent, well traveled, well read, and well spoken. They know their wines and have a fine appreciation for the art of the table. When they invite you out for dinner, no matter how long a day you’ve had or how far you’ve flown, you don’t even pause for breath before saying yes. And so I did, enjoying far too many courses and far too many wines whose names I couldn’t pronounce, hitting the sheets at an hour my body thought was 4:00 AM.

  I awoke a few hours later. While the event wouldn’t officially begin until the next day, the hotel was already crawling with knitters. Just sneaking out of the hotel for groceries took nearly an hour, I met so many old friends and acquaintances on the way. If I was going to see anything of Tacoma before work began, develop any kind of cultural bearings that would help me connect with local students, I needed to plan an escape—and fast.

  I hopped a bus uphill toward Martin Luther King Jr. Way, where my iPhone told me good Vietnamese pho could be had. This brothy noodle soup has always been my go-to cure for that groggy first day in a new place.

  A two-dollar bus fare and a mile uphill later I was in a quiet neighborhood of little businesses and somewhat shaggy-looking apartment buildings. I found my restaurant and took a table by the window. Soon my pho came, I squirted the requisite Sriracha and fresh lime, tore the cilantro leaves, dropped in the jalapeño and bean sprouts, and gave it a stir.

  Just as with touch, flavor has a way of bringing the world into focus. The stronger and more potently soothing the taste, the more familiar and reassuring the associations, the deeper and clearer that focus becomes. I sipped, and sipped, and sipped, with each spoonful of broth pulling me back together. A good wool has the same restorative powers.

  Sated, I wandered back out to explore the neighborhood. I passed the Johnson Candy Company, which looked like it hadn’t changed much in fifty years. Ditto the hospital uniform store next door. Just beyond that, a cheerful mural depicted a streetcar chugging by a busy farmers’ market, red and white awnings flapping in an imaginary breeze. There was no such market, streetcar, or breeze today, just clouds and threat of rain. I strolled past a vast medical complex, the air humming with ventilation systems and a sense of urgency.

  I reached a grungy coffee shop that claimed to offer Tacoma’s finest—complete with a disapproving barista with excessive facial hair. I took my cup into a park I’d noticed across the street, gulping its contents before reaching my next destination: the beautiful and historic W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory. Inside, a riot of color greeted me, blooming tulips, azaleas, impatiens, and daffodils. Walking farther, the greenery changed to ferns, clivia, orchids, bougainvillea, low palm trees, Spanish moss, and weird clusters of alien-looking plants in little wooden boxes suspended from the ceiling. I found a bench tucked in a corner, with a green stone dragon peering over my shoulder, and pulled out my knitting. The air smelled lush and sweet.

  I don’t know why exactly, but whenever I knit in public, people take it as a sign that I want to be interrupted—perhaps even saved from what they might perceive as a terribly tedious task? A steady stream of onlookers wandered over and wanted to talk. “Oh look, honey, she’s knitting,” a husband nudged his wife. “Now that looks comfortable,” said another man. “See, now, I can’t do that,” apologized a woman.

  I was in PR mode. I showed them what I was knitting and explained that it was made from the downy undercoat of the Arctic musk ox. I let them touch the fiber and I smiled as I watched their expressions soften in pleasure and surprise.

  Having chatted with my quota of non-knitters for the day, I tucked my knitting into my bag and left. It was time to walk back toward town and begin Madrona in earnest. But I got distracted by an odd building on my left. It looked like a cross between a post office and an old Masonic temple, but with a pair of pretend Greek temples stuck on either side. Spotting a blue-and-white plastic OPEN sign stuck to the front door, I went inside.

  A lone man was working and rushed over to welcome me. It was a private museum, he explained. The founders, California real-estate moguls David and Marsha Karpeles, had amassed the world’s largest private collection of original manuscripts and documents. This was one of twelve museums they’d established throughout the country.

  We have this and this and this, he told me, rattling off names faster than I could register them. He kept running off and returning with more things for me to see, all photocopies. The rescue report for the Titanic. (“We also have a model of the Titanic, it’s over here, if you’ll follow me . . .”) President Nixon’s letter of resignation, signed with a ballpoint pen. The August 6, 1945, flight log from the Enola Gay. “See that?” he pointed to a notation on the log. “That’s where he dropped the bomb.”

  My guide became more and more mysterious as we went along, alluding to things in the collection that were far too important, too confidential, ever to be displayed. Eyes narrowing, he whispered, “Some very important people don’t want you to see things.” Then he straightened up and asked loudly, “So, what brings you to Tacoma?”

  Back outside, I gave up on waiting for the bus and headed downtown on foot. The road leveled out and offered a clear panoramic view of the waterfront. Steam from the factories mingled with passing clouds. I saw the massive robotlike cranes of the Port of Tacoma and the striking outline of Mount Rainier in the distance.

  From here, I walked back downhill toward the Theater District and my hotel. The bars had a restive frontier-town vibe, the marquee at the Old Pantages 1917 vaudeville theater advertising “Sweet and Spicy: A Valentine’s Day Burlesque.” The illuminated windows of LeRoy Jewelers—proudly serving greater Tacoma since 1941—looked cozy and inviting.

  As I got closer to the hotel, I saw more shawls, more smiling faces that greeted me by name. Knitters were arriving en masse now. Cars were double-parked alongside airport shuttles, valets helping unload suitcases, carry-on bags, tote bags, grocery bags, and spinning wheels. While many came from within driving distance, others had flown in just for the show. Inside, the lobby was now chockablock with knitters, sprawled on every sittable surface, clustered on couches and armchairs and coffee tables. They were checking into their rooms, they were at the bar, they were headed up the glass stairs and over to the elevators. Everyone was smiling, hugging, exclaiming, and petting one another’s handknits. This Brigadoon manifestation of the Pacific Northwest fiber elite had officially begun.

  A hand-drawn welcome sign, propped on an easel, was the only indicator of what was to come. At the registration desk upstairs, the scope of the event was laid out as clear as day in manila envelopes—each representing one happy person—stacked upright in plastic bins spread across table after table after table.

  The next few days unfolded as these events do, with early wake-ups and full classes of bright, engaged people having a glorious time. Mealtimes were a marathon for teachers and students alike, as hundreds of us descended upon the hotel’s restaurants, needing to be seated, served, and checked out in ninety minutes. Questions abounded. “Is the gravy on the poutine vegetarian?” “Will the Thai noodles take long?” And, of course, “Should we all just split the bill?”

  During the few off-hours, I made a quick perusal of the market, watching more knitters and spinners fall even deeper down the rabbit hole. Some three dozen vendors filled the room, each hand-plucked by Suzanne. I found mainstream, hand-dyed, and breed-specific yarns galore, as well as all sorts of needles and tools, bags, buttons
, spinning fiber, mugs, and even soaps. While many large events charge admission to their marketplace, or limit it to paid attendees, it is a point of community pride for Suzanne that this marketplace is free and open to everyone.

  Although the three-hour and six-hour and two-day classes had filled months ago, several dozen shorter mini classes were still being offered to late arrivals. But many clusters of friends skipped classes entirely, instead installing themselves at one of the large tables that had been set up throughout the hotel for this very purpose. People came and went, and soon each table was heaped with belongings.

  On Friday and Saturday afternoon, there were book signings, too. Unlike most other big events, the Madrona staff doesn’t stock and sell books as part of the signing, nor do they coordinate with any of the vendors to do so. Clever vendors will peek at the author list ahead of time and bring popular copies to sell in the marketplace, but otherwise, it’s just authors at a table in the rotunda by the marketplace, making themselves available to anyone who wants to talk or get something signed. It’s a low-key way to connect with readers, though it probably doesn’t make publishers very happy. Because most of my books weigh over a pound each, very few people bothered to schlep them to the show. Instead, I gave my scribble to anything that was presented me. A show program, a tote bag, even an outstretched arm was fair game.

  I wish I could tell you about the annual Teacher Talent Show for Charity, benefiting Doctors Without Borders, the Global Fund for Women, and Heifer International. I wish I could tell you what outlandish things we teachers agreed to do for this fine cause. But, alas, the whole evening was under strict media blackout—rules made clear many times by the evening’s organizer, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Nobody wanted to wake up the next morning and see their embarrassment broadcast all over YouTube.