At Knit's End (14 page)

I will realize that it is a knitter's willingness to try new things and make mistakes that creates an “expert,” not just the years of experience.

 

A man is not idle because he is absorbed
in thought. There is visible labor and
there is invisible labor.

— V
ICTOR
H
UGO

I
know knitters who feel guilty for sitting and knitting when they should be “working.” What, I ask you, about knitting does not qualify as work? It is productive, it is thrifty, it is creating useful items for fellow humans, and it is a thoughtful and enlightening use of the intellect. True, it's not as exciting as doing the laundry, but really, what is?

Should I feel pangs of guilt, I will remember that just because something is fun doesn't mean it's a waste of time.

 

You know you
knit too much when …

You seek out forms of
exercise that you can do
while knitting, such as
riding a stationary bike.

 

Out of the strain of the Doing,
Into the peace of the Done.

— J
ULIA
L
OUISE
W
OODRUFF

T
here is nothing I can tell the non-knitter that explains the joy of a finished object. Running your hands over a beautiful sweater that you, yourself changed from useless yarn to a lovely garment with two pointed sticks and your cleverness … it's like knowing a fancy magic trick. It's an homage to your intelligence and patience and a moment of real and profound pride.

Even though I am very excited that I have finished this sweater, I will resist the urge to go next door and show it to my neighbors. Last time they weren't as impressed as I thought they would be.

 

To save time, take time to check gauge.

— E
VERY KNITTING PATTERN EVER WRITTEN

T
here are those knitters who believe that gauge is a vital component of knitting. They take time to check it at the beginning of every project, and they have a stack of swatches to prove it. For their diligence they are rewarded with garments of predictable size and shape. Then there are the rest of us, who occasionally take risks with gauge, neglect swatches, and live on the edge. For our lack of diligence, we are credited with inventing the “cowl neck” sweater.

If I neglect gauge, I will gracefully accept the consequences.

 

You know you
knit too much when …

Your friends, who cheerfully
used to call you an “enabler”
when you encouraged them
to purchase yarn, have
started calling you a
“pusher.”

 

Let's have some new clichés.

— S
AMUEL
G
OLDWYN

D
espite what we knitters know to be true, the non-knitting world somehow persists in thinking that a “knitter” looks a certain way. Most likely, this picture is one of an elderly woman, grandmotherly and polite, sitting in her rocking chair surrounded by homemade cookies and accompanied by a certain number of cats.

In reality, a knitter today is just as likely to be young, hip, male, and sitting at a “Stitch and Bitch” in a local bar. Several of today's best knitting designers are men, and a knitter is as likely to have body piercings as homemade cookies.

Despite our diversity, the tendency to be accompanied by a cat is an oddity among knitters that cannot be explained.

 

Friends don't let friends knit drunk.

— A
NONYMOUS

W
hen I was in college, there was a knitting club. I went a couple of times but quickly learned a valuable lesson. The club met in the university pub, and after a couple of episodes of drinking and knitting, I quickly realized that this was not the combination for me. Not that I didn't have a good time; it was great. It was simply that the hangover made correcting my wild drunken mistakes too painful to contemplate. The result was always two days of lost knitting time.

Should the temptation to knit at a party or pub overwhelm me with ideas of camaraderie and candlelight knitting, I will either order a soft drink or stick to garter stitch.

 

Ideas are the factors that lift civilization.
They create revolutions. There is more
dynamite in an idea than in many bombs.

— B
ISHOP
V
INCENT

H
ow grateful are we to the first person to think, “Hey, you know what would be a good idea? If we all didn't have to spin our own yarn. What if I invented a machine that would spin it for me? Then I could make enough to be able to sell it to people who just wanted to knit!”

I can remember to think kindly of the inventions and inventors who made it so that I can just go to the yarn shop instead of wrestling a full-grown angry sheep to the ground holding shears in my teeth.

 

Hide not your talents, they for use were made.
What's a sundial in the shade?

— B
ENJAMIN
F
RANKLIN

H
ow many times have you diminished knitting? Someone praised your work and you said, “Oh, it was nothing.” (Yeah, nothing. Sixty-seven hours knitting a cabled afghan, squinting into the dark wool and muttering suspicious things … nothing.) Or how about, “No, no … it was easy.” (Easy? Do you normally use foul language in the presence of decent upstanding wool? Normally have a twitch over your eye? Normally stay up late into the night just to finish one more row?) From now on I am telling the truth. I'm taking back knitting as a respectable art, one to be contended with.

The next time your knitting is complimented, raise your needles and repeat after me: “Thank you. It was a challenge, but I did it.”

 

I have learned to use the word ‘impossible'
with the greatest caution.

— W
ERNHER VON
B
RAUN

B
arb Hunt uses knitting to create replicas of antipersonnel land mines to raise awareness. Debbie New has knitted a boat and a grandfather clock. Janet Morton made a balaclava for a rhinoceros, a cardigan for a giraffe, and a remarkable “house cozy” that covered an entire cottage on Toronto Island, dressing the house for winter.

I have personally knit an Aran sweater for a 6'4” man with a 48-inch chest. Nothing is impossible.

 

You know you
knit too much when …

You have ordered in pizza
for dinner so you can have
more knitting time, even
though you don't really
like pizza. Double points
if you have done it twice
in one week.

 

Out of the mouths of babes …

— P
SALMS
8:2

A
fter several painstaking hours of teaching my youngest to knit, during which her patience with me was sorely tested, and I wondered why on earth I was trying to share this with her when she appeared not yet ready for the pleasures of knitting, my five-year-old finally warmed my heart by saying, “Hey, Mom, guess what? Knitting is fun!”

I will consider, during the less-than-rewarding phase of teaching a child to knit, that if I impale myself on my knitting needles I will miss hearing a very great truth.

 

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

— G
EORGE
B
ERNARD
S
HAW

M
y kids claim that there is a kind of knitting I do that they call “angry knitting.” They say that they can come into a room, look at the way I am knitting, and know that something has pushed me close to losing my temper.

I know this is nonsense. I am an expert knitter, and I do not let my emotions alter my knitting style. I am eternal and unchangeable, and I am sure that there is no more “angry knitting” than there is “tender knitting.”

I am willing to consider that my emotions may affect my knitting, now that I have discovered the sleeve I worked the night my daughter came in late is so tightly knit that it easily measures 3 inches narrower than the other.

 

With great power comes great responsibility.

— U
NCLE
B
EN
P
ARKER
,
from Marvel's comic
Spider-man

I
find, as I know many other knitters do, mistakes in a knitting pattern to be unbearable. Designers hold our precious knitting time in their hands, and there is nothing that can be done to make it up to a knitter who has just spent 57 excruciating hours questioning her own sanity and ability, developing a tic, and cursing at the cat, while ripping her yarn threadbare trying to knit something that has an error in the pattern.

When I run the world, test-knitting a pattern before selling it will be law. I'm not sure what the punishment for breaking this law will be, but it will take at least 57 hours.

 

My theory is that men are no more
liberated than women.

— I
NDIRA
G
ANDHI

I
was teaching a children's knitting class in the rear of a toy shop. Halfway through class a little boy shopping with his mother wandered over and approached an 11-year-old boy happily and expertly knitting a potholder.

“Hey!” he laughed, “boys don't knit!” “Clearly,” said the manly young knitter, “they do.”

I will take care not to pass on any gender biases I may have to the next generation.

 

Generosity is giving more than you can,
and pride is taking in less than you need.

— K
AHLIL
G
IBRAN

K
nitting for charity is a lovely, lovely thing. There are knitters who knit hats for preemies, warm clothing for children, pads for animal shelters, blankets for the war-torn, chemo caps for cancer patients, and many, many more. The generous knitter can find a multitude of ways to turn her knitting into a good deed. I want to make a difference in the world, too, and I've tried knitting for charity. That said, when after six months I had knit only a hat and a blanket square, I realized that a charity may need my yarn money more than my slow knitting.

Should I be unable to knit fast enough or often enough to make a difference with my knitting, I will remember that most charities could really use my time and money, too.

 

You know you
knit too much when …

You hear about a breed of
“miniature sheep” that
grow to be only 16 inches
in height and weigh only
50 pounds, and immediately
start trying to figure out
whether you can convince
your spouse it's a dog.