At Knit's End

by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

  AT KNIT’S END

  At Knit’s End

  Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much

  STEPHANIE PEARL-MCPHEE

  The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by publishing practical information that encourages personal independence in harmony with the environment.

  Edited by Siobhan Dunn and Deborah Balmuth

  Cover design by Kent Lew

  Cover illustration © Kent Lew

  Text design and production by Jennifer Jepson Smith

  Copyright © 2005 by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with appropriate credits; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other — without written permission from the publisher.

  For additional information, please contact Storey Publishing, 210 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247.

  Storey books are available for special premium and promotional uses and for customized editions. For further information, please call (800) 793-9396.

  Printed in the United States by Versa Press

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Pearl-McPhee, Stephanie.

  At knit’s end: meditations for women who knit too much/

  Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 1-58017-589-9 (alk. paper)

  1. Knitting—Quotations, maxims, etc. 2. Knitters

  (Persons)—Quotations. 3. Knitting—Humor. I. Title.

  TT820.P373 2005

  746.43’2—dc22

  2005004007

  For Joe, Amanda, Megan, and Samantha,

  who have never said one word about all

  the yarn. I love them to distraction.

  The Path to Knit’s End

  In High Park, near my home in Toronto, there is a paved circle with a complex path painted on it, completely surrounded by trees and gardens. Grenadier Pond sits to one side and an elaborate castle playground is nearby. I have walked by it many, many times and my children have always played on it, leaping from one path to another, running the fancy route laid out by the faded painted markings.

  When I was finishing this book and had only the introduction to write, I walked through High Park, taking my usual peaceful path through the trees. I was a little angry with myself. I was almost done with the book, and I liked it. Writing the intro at the end seemed silly and redundant, and I was frustrated that I hadn’t had the good sense to write it at the beginning when I should have. Writing the intro at the end was a critical error, like knitting the collar of a sweater first, then trying to make all the other pieces fit. How could I possibly go backward to the introduction?

  I walked by the paved circle and absent-mindedly looked over at it. An elderly lady stood outside the circle. She bowed, then deliberately walked the path marked on the circle. I noticed then that the circle was not a maze, as I had thought. It was instead a looped circular path to the center; there were no wrong turns, there was no chance for confusion. She followed the markings to the exact middle of the circle, and she stood there. I waited. What was she doing? She bowed four times, once in each of the four directions, then peacefully and purposefully retraced her steps back out of the circle. She bowed deeply then, and walked into the woods. I was astonished. She had used this circle in a way that my children and I hadn’t imagined. What was a playground to us was clearly a spiritual experience to her.

  I walked to the circle and looked around me. A sign that I had never noticed stood nearby. It announced that this was a labyrinth. One walked the route laid out on it, and its quiet, perfect path afforded a chance for spiritual reflection and meditation.

  I felt horrible. I had let my children run on it. Here was this incredible, deep, meaningful thing and my children had tramped all over it, laughing and screaming like it was a common plaything. I was mortified. I mentally tried to count how many times we had defiled the thing. Had people who were there to use it for its intended purpose seen us? Were they offended? I turned into the woods to walk home.

  That’s when it hit me. The labyrinth was like knitting. It was like the book. It was my intro done backward. There was no wrong way to use it. It was all right for the kids to run on it; it didn’t have to be a meditative experience for them. Like knitting, it was okay for everyone to have his or her own experience of the thing. It could be a powerful, spirit-moving experience that gave you a better sense of self, it could be a creative outlet, or it could just be fun, or funny.

  There’s a lot of humor in knitting, though I know you wouldn’t think it to see yarn just sitting there. No matter how it is for you, it is enough that knitting is just there … like the labyrinth. We can each use it in our own way. So take this book and your knitting and do your thing. There are no wrong answers; there is no right way. We are all knitters.

  There is a certain majesty in simplicity which

  is far above all the quaintness of wit.

  — ALEXANDER POPE

  It is some kind of miracle that all knitting is constructed of only two stitches: knit and purl. Sure, you throw in some yarn overs, and sometimes you knit the stitches out of order, but when it really comes down to it, knitting is simplicity. The most incredible gossamer lace shawl … the trickiest aran … a humble sock … each just made with knit and purl.

  Know these two stitches; Rule the world.

  Fate laughs at probabilities.

  — EUGENE ARAM

  The chances of running out of yarn on a project are directly related to the difficulty that you will have getting more. For example, if you purchased the yarn for a dollar at your local yarn shop, and the owner has set aside an extra 10 balls for you, you are going to have plenty, even without going back. If, however, you purchased the yarn in Italy on a once-in-a-lifetime trip and it was very expensive, you are absolutely going to run out, regardless of careful planning.

  I will always buy extra yarn. I will not try to tempt fate.

  Knitting:

  construction of a fabric made of interlocking

  loops of yarn by means of needles.

  — The Columbia Encyclopedia,

  Sixth Edition, 2001

  Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?

  I will resist the urge to underestimate the complexity of knitting.

  No, it wasn’t an accident, I didn’t say that.

  It was carefully planned, down to the tiniest

  mechanical and emotional detail.

  But it was a mistake.

  — NEVIL SHUTE

  Everyone has one — a knitting monstrosity. It is not a surprise to me that everybody has one of those “What was I thinking” sweaters, because I have several. What is a surprise is how long the knitter must have ignored the writing on the wall. To get a finished monstrosity, hours and hours of patient denial must be put in. It is a knitter’s unfailing and remarkable ability to believe, even when something begins to look monstrous, and keeps looking that way through all the knitting, that somehow it can overcome anything and will be beautiful in the end … that is the real surprise.

  Not every project is meant to be.

  What we love to do we find time to do.

  — JOHN L. SPALDING

  Everybody tells me that they would love to knit, but they don’t have time. I look at people’s lives and I can see opportunity and time for knitting all over the place. The time spent riding the bus each day? That’s a pair of socks over a month. Waiting in line? Mittens. Watching TV? Buckets
of wasted time that could be an exquisite lace shawl. Eating, sleeping, and laundry? Sweaters.

  There is practically no activity that cannot be enhanced or replaced by knitting, if you really want to get obsessive about it.

  I just thought of something funny…

  your mother.

  — CHEECH MARIN

  There is absolutely no escaping it. The daughters who once thought me clever, beautiful, and fun-loving have finally reached an age where they care about what their mother is doing in public. They ask me if I really need to wear “that” or if I could try not to speak to their friends. They have concerns about the way I laugh and my “dorky” shoes. The worst thing, worse even than the coffee spilled on my jeans or the way I forgot my lipstick again, the proof that I care nothing for their social standing is the knitting.

  “Mother,” my 15-year-old groans as I take out my sock at the concert. “Could you pretend to be normal?”

  I will continue to freak out my children by knitting in public. It’s good for them.

  I love deadlines. I especially love the

  whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

  — DOUGLAS ADAMS

  It is a peculiarity of knitters that they chronically underestimate the amount of time that it takes to knit something. Birthday on Saturday? No problem. Socks are small. Never mind that the average sock knit out of sock-weight yarn contains about 17,000 stitches. Never mind that you need two of them. (That’s 34,000 stitches, for anybody keeping track.)

  Socks are only physically small. By stitch count, they are immense.

  When confronted with a birthday in a week I will remember that a book can be a really good present, too.

  Any activity becomes creative when the doer

  cares about doing it right, or doing it better.

  — JOHN UPDIKE

  Looking at the work in the gallery I am quietly astonished. The work is so beautiful that I am stunned into standing quietly in front of it for some time. It is a wall hanging by knitter Debbie New, and it depicts the Madonna and Child. It is not knitted in rows, but in a breathtaking spiral freeform technique. The colors and textures of her yarn are applied in a way that makes oil paints look limiting. Debbie New’s work answers the question “Is knitting art or craft?” Standing in front of it, with my lowly sock project in my pocket, I am torn between striving to elevate my own work and dropping it into a trash can on the way out.

  Knitting is a unique practice in that its artistic value rests only in its application.

  Not all who wander are lost.

  — J. R. R. TOLKIEN

  It is a little known fact that much like birds, who can always find north, knitters can always find yarn. They can often be found seemingly wandering a store, with no clear goal, driven only by the vague feeling that there is something good nearby. Similarly, when driving through a town that they have never been in, they are often moved by forces unknown to stop for coffee or a restroom break eerily close to the only yarn shop for a hundred miles.

  Respect your inner compass. It points to yarn.

  If necessity is the mother of invention, then

  resourcefulness is the father.

  — BEULAH LOUISE HENRY

  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.

  — BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

  My 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.

  — THOMAS A. EDISON

  The 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. MENCKEN

  Some 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.

  — FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

  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.

  — LOUISE BEAL

  When 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.

  — RITA RUDNER

  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 n
ot I knit.

  — ROBIN GREEN AND MITCHELL BURGESS, Northern Exposure

  Russell Crowe (actor)

  Bob Mackie (designer)

  Rosie Greer (football player)

  Laurence Fishburne (actor)

  Isaac Mizrahi (designer)

  Until 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.

  — CONFUCIUS

  Mohair 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.

  — MURPHY’S NINTH LAW

  Felting — 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.

  — GILDA RADNER

  There 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.