At Knit's End

by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

  Most people want to be delivered from

  temptation but would like it to

  keep in touch.

  — ROBERT ORBEN

  I sign up for every yarn catalog I can. I get them in the mail, I pore over them, I drink my coffee, and I imagine ordering lovely things from all the wonderful places. The interesting thing is that I continue to get the catalogs, even to renew my place on the mailing list … from shops that carry nothing I would ever use. I even get catalogs from shops that I openly mock, and if these shops stop mailing me the thing (presumably because I have never bought anything), I will phone and insist that they begin mailing it again.

  Never look away from a yarn opportunity.

  Some are kissing mothers

  and some are scolding mothers,

  but it is love just the same.

  — PEARL S. BUCK

  On very cold days, when I pull my daughter’s hand-knit sweater over her head or when I watch her play in the snow with warm mittens on, I feel like a good mother. There is just something about knowing that my children are warm because I knitted them something that feeds my motherly soul.

  I hope that it makes up for all the times I said I’d help them after “one more row.”

  If you’re crazy, there’s two things you

  can do to make yourself feel better:

  one is to get yourself cured.

  The other is to make everyone you

  have to deal with crazy.

  — ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  Have you ever wondered whether some designs are really just complicated jokes? I mean, maybe the designers didn’t really plan for anyone to ever knit them. Perhaps they are sitting by a pool, far away, chuckling to themselves at the very thought of you suffering a breakdown trying to knit their patterns.

  I will resist the urge to try and look up their phone numbers to ask them.

  My second favorite household chore is ironing.

  My first being hitting my head on the top

  bunk bed until I faint.

  — ERMA BOMBECK

  My knitting is in a constant state of competition with the household chores. After years and years of painful juggling, I have almost completely decided to give up on the housework. The way I see it, I can always clean up the house when I am old, but I’ll never get this knitting time back.

  Remember, dusting requires the same arm movement whether it has been a week or a month.

  Black holes are where God divided by zero.

  — STEVEN WRIGHT

  Every knitter knows about the knitterly version of a black hole. This is an error in the time-space continuum centered around the process of knitting your sweater. Every knitter knows when he has found it. You measure your knitting and discover that it is 12 inches long. You knit for an hour, remeasure, and discover that your knitting is still 12 inches long. You knit what must surely be 200 rows, measure again, and discover that your knitting is 12 inches long. Science has yet to prove that a woolly black hole exists, but it’s only a matter of time.

  You are not crazy; you are experiencing a scientific mystery.

  It’s easy to stop making mistakes.

  Just stop having ideas.

  — ANONYMOUS

  The first thing you should think when you notice that you used the wrong yarn color 12 rows back on your complex Fair Isle sweater is that there is no shame in knitting an “interpretation” of a pattern.

  I am so creative that innovative design happens by accident.

  Measure twice, cut once.

  — CARPENTER’S RULE

  Many Fair Isle sweaters incorporate “steeks.” This technique allows the knitter to knit the body of the sweater completely in the round, without dividing the work into a front and back and having to work back and forth. The knitter works straight up to the shoulders, returning later to cut openings for the sleeves. The instructions sometimes ask the knitter to sew a row (or two) of stitching around this opening, but if the sweater is worked with wool that clings well to itself, the steek is simply cut open with no preparation.

  No matter which method you use it is normal to feel varying levels of nausea, hysteria, and dizziness during the process of cutting into a sweater.

  Control thy passions, lest they

  take vengeance on thee.

  — EPICTETUS

  In case you were wondering, if you are making a Norwegian sweater and you measure the sleeve to determine your armhole depth, and then very, very carefully mark that depth onto your sweater body, then take out the sewing machine and carefully sew two lines of stitching around your steeks, then discover that you made them the wrong length because you measured only one of the sleeves and that sleeve is inexplicably 4 inches wider than its mate … it takes 17 hours to unpick that machine stitching.

  I will try to recognize that cursing for the entire 17 hours will do little to help.

  That it will never come again

  Is what makes life so sweet.

  — EMILY DICKINSON

  Occasionally, while knitting something particularly yummy I feel about my knitting as I do about a good book. I look and see that there are only a few pages left and feel sorry that there won’t be more of it. The same goes for a brilliant yarn. In fact, I’m often reluctant to knit up my favorites, because when I am done knitting them, I won’t have the yarn anymore. Sure, I’ll have a sweater, but it’s not the same. The yarn will be gone forever.

  I will resist the urge to hoard my favorite yarns forever, constantly trying to determine whether the projects they are intended for are “worthy.”

  I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

  — WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  I am sitting alone in the darkened living room. It is 4:00 A.M. on Christmas morning, and my family will be up in a few hours to see what Santa has brought. I am frantically knitting. It is the same every year; over and over I am brought to my knees by this enormous knitting deadline and end up weeping into my eggnog, trying to finish knitting presents by daybreak. There must be something wrong with me. Christmas isn’t a surprise; it’s on the same day every year. Every year I tell myself, this year will be different.

  Then every year, it’s me and Santa, down to the wire.

  I will try to recognize that some people on my list would prefer that I were coherent, healthy, and sane on Christmas morning, rather than delirious but finished with the damn hat.

  If the minimum wasn’t acceptable it

  wouldn’t be called the minimum.

  — GEORGE MUNCASTER

  My husband, in an incredible show of love, is knitting me a sock. He has been working on it (on and off) for about five years, painstakingly knitting round after round. He curses, rubs his eyes, drops needles, and complains bitterly about the impending heel (he probably has another two years before he has to worry about that), but he is knitting. He has always referred to this process as knitting me “a sock,” and the perceptive among you will note that “sock” is singular. He has never promised a pair.

  Should my husband ever finish my “sock,” I will wear it proudly (and singularly) for all of my days. He is my mate; my sock doesn’t need one.

  When you see a married couple

  walking down the street, the one that’s

  a few steps ahead is the one that’s mad.

  — HELEN ROWLAND

  My husband, lovely and patient man that he is, has sustained several injuries related to my knitting. He has a small scar on his foot, the result of a puncture wound incurred when I left my sock knitting on the floor. He cringes when he thinks of the darning needle accidentally left on the couch seat when I was making his sweater, and he flinches visibly when he thinks about the various times he has been accidentally stabbed with sundry and assorted knitting needles or been tripped by careless yarn placement. My friends think he tolerates this out of love. My knitting friends know better.

  He is doing it for the sweaters.

  I’m not obsessed, I’m just highly preoccupi
ed.

  — ANONYMOUS

  Self-patterning sock yarn is very, very neat. It is dyed to produce stripes or a pattern meant to resemble Fair Isle when you knit it up. It can be fun and interesting to work with, but be warned. For those inclined to be obsessive, it can lead to a dangerous fixation with making sure the two socks match. Many a fine knitter has gone down the twitchy path of trying to compensate for dyeing errors or normal variations in the yarn in order to come up with two socks that are precisely the same. I have no proof, but I suspect that this may be a yarn manufacturer’s idea of a joke.

  I will accept that some sock yarns simply produce fraternal rather than identical twins.

  Swift:

  a twirling reel used to hold a skein

  of yarn as it is wound into a ball.

  A swift is a tool used to replace your friends and family. Clever knitters will procure one the first time their mates or children refuse to hold the skein of yarn for them, thus reducing the number of yarn-related disputes in the family environment. Swifts also reduce knitter injury by eliminating awkward and dangerous attempts to hold your own skein of yarn with your feet while winding with your hands. There are anecdotal reports that swifts may reduce tangling and cursing related to using household furniture for swiftlike purposes.

  To save time, sanity, and my marriage, I will consider purchasing the right tools for the job.

  Think for yourself and let others

  enjoy the privilege of doing so too.

  — VOLTAIRE

  My friend Sharon proudly pulled out her first project: a red sweater. She was halfway up the back, and she held out the knitting to me, smiling. Sharon explained that the sweater was done in stockinette stitch, but it looked funny to me. On closer examination I discovered that Sharon had twisted each and every stitch. The stitch was pretty, but it wasn’t stockinette. I praised the sweater, then showed Sharon the mistake she was making and pulled out my knitting to teach her how to make a proper stitch. Sharon was uninterested. “Don’t you want to be a better knitter?” I queried.

  “I just want to knit,” she replied. “I don’t have to be good.”

  I will respect that not everybody needs to be perfect. Sometimes, just knitting is enough.

  I have a hat. It is graceful and feminine

  and gives me a certain dignity, as if I were

  attending a state funeral or something.

  Someday I may get up enough courage

  to wear it, instead of carrying it.

  — ERMA BOMBECK

  5 reasons to knit hats:

  They are a small project. You can go nuts with a fiber you usually couldn’t afford, such as cashmere or alpaca.

  A great deal of body heat is lost through the head.

  A great hat can make up for bad hair.

  They can be knit fairly quickly and, as a bonus, children’s heads grow slowly compared to the rest of them.

  Normally timid dressers (even male ones) will often wear a wild hat. Your inner artist can be fully released through hat knitting without the fear that it will never be worn.

  Whoever said money can’t buy happiness

  simply didn’t know where to go shopping.

  — BO DEREK

  There is a segment of my stash that I cannot explain. If you knew me, and you looked at this yarn, you would think that I had gone to the yarn store drunk. There is pink chenille (I wouldn’t be caught dead in this pink, and I hate chenille), there is heavy cotton (cotton is my enemy; knitting it makes my hands hurt), and so on. I offer this only by way of explanation. It turns out that I will buy any yarn, even yarn I will never use, if the store discounts it by more than 50 percent.

  Do not be tricked. Not all yarn is meant to be yours, no matter how good a deal it is.

  The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

  — HERBERT SPENCER

  My mother is an avid garage sale shopper. She enjoys finding little treasures and getting good deals. She loves a $2 lamp the way that I love knitting. She called me one weekend after making her neighborhood rounds and described some yarn she had seen at a sale. “It was a lovely green,” she said, “and the label said 100 percent Shetland wool… there were 12 skeins for $4.” The world swirled around me excitedly. “Did you get it?” I asked, suddenly understanding completely what my mother sees in garage sales. “No,” she replied, “I wasn’t sure if it was good wool.”

  Educate your family and friends. Teach them this: there is no such thing as “bad” $4 wool.

  You know you

  knit too much when …

  You find yourself stalking

  a man in the grocery store,

  not because he’s really

  good-looking, but because

  he is wearing an Aran

  sweater with a cable you

  are trying to work out.

  I have long been of the opinion that if

  work were such a splendid thing the rich would have

  kept more of it for themselves.

  — BRUCE GROCOTT

  Knitting has many rewards. Sometimes it is the joy of wondrous creativity, of taking yarn and needles and making a new and beautiful thing out of nothing. Sometimes it is figuring out something tricky and clever, solving a problem with your wits and your wool. There is even the joy of clothing your loved ones or wrapping a baby in a blanket you made yourself. Sometimes, though, it is the pride of having slogged through 26 inches of plain boring garter stitch, row after mind-numbingly plain row, and coming out the other side with your sanity and desire to remain a knitter intact.

  I will pride myself on my stamina as a knitter.

  He who would travel happily

  must travel light.

  — ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY

  It used to be that when I traveled, I packed lightly enough that I would have room left in my suitcase to bring back souvenir yarn purchases. Then I met a brilliant woman who was shopping wholeheartedly at a sheep and wool festival, and I kidded her about needing to buy another suitcase to get it all home. “No way,” she said. “Tomorrow before I get on the plane I’m going to mail it all to myself.”

  Respect your fellow travelers. They have much to teach you.

  They’re here for a long, long time.

  They’ll have to make the best of things,

  it’s an uphill climb.

  — SHERWOOD SCHWARTZ

  AND GEORGE WYLE,

  “Ballad of Gilligan’s Island”

  Imagine this: You are shipwrecked on an island with only the knitting that you had with you on the boat.

  When you are done knitting it, and have nothing more to knit, do you unravel the work and start again, just to have something to knit? If so, you are a process knitter. You knit for the pleasure of knitting.

  If you imagine that, upon finishing, you put on the sweater and go look for wild grasses that you could knit into a tent or a hammock, you are a product knitter. You knit for the pleasure of the finished item.

  I will respect my type and pack for boat trips accordingly, because you never know.

  Just say no to drugs.

  — NANCY REAGAN

  North America spends billions of dollars each year giving us the message that some drugs are a slippery slope. One taste of a seemingly harmless substance can lead to wrack and ruin for some people. Yet, no one ever tells a knitter that one taste of the luxury fiber qiviut can lead to an unreasonable desire to stalk the wild musk ox under the Arctic moon, trying to get just a little bit more.

  I will be careful to limit my exposure to exotic and fabulous fibers. It’s a slippery slope.

  Your best teacher is your last mistake.

  — RALPH NADER

  I cannot count the number of times that after using the “long-tail” method to cast on, I have picked up the tail and begun knitting with it instead of the working yarn. Luckily, this is a mistake that you realize pretty quickly. Once, however, after finishing one ball of yarn and intending to begin an
other, I very, very carefully spliced the working yarn to the long tail. You don’t forget that as quickly.

  I will remember, while I am undoing my mistake, that the ability to make a really sturdy splice is a double-edged sword.

  People seem to enjoy things more

  when they know a lot of other people

  have been left out of the pleasure.

  — RUSSELL BAKER

  At my favorite yarn shop there was the best yarn ever. It was soft, it was cheap, and it moved through a range of colors in each skein, providing me with endless entertainment. I made a shawl from it, and the shawl became one of my favorites. I was very proud of it, but I showed it to no other knitters. The yarn had been discontinued and I couldn’t afford to buy it all, but I knew that if my knitting friends discovered it, they would buy it and there would be less left for me. I purchased the remaining stock over the course of a few months, then showed off my shawl. I’m not proud of what I did, but the important thing is that I got all the yarn.

  I will strive to be a more generous person, but I might not start with this yarn.

  I have noticed that the people who

  are late are often so much jollier than the people

  who have to wait for them.

  — E.V. LUCAS

  If the world were run by knitters, then it would be laid out with bars and libraries next to yarn shops so that your mate would be happy to pop next door and wait for you.

  Until knitters run the world, I will accept that asking my mate to drive me to the yarn shop might not be to my advantage.

  You know you

  knit too much when …

  You discover that the

  airline you booked your

  flight with does not allow

  knitting needles on board

  and you seriously consider

  changing carriers, because

  you don’t know whether

  you can sit for seven hours

  without knitting.

  Let us watch well our beginnings,

  and results will manage themselves.

  — ALEXANDER CLARK

  There are several methods for ensuring that you cast on the right number of stitches. Some knitters use stitch markers placed every 10 stitches; others make notes on a piece of paper at regular intervals. I cast on the approximate number, then count them as many times as it takes to get the right number twice.