Knitting Rules! (13 page)

I know this knitter … now, usually I change the names of knitters when I write about them, but that's because it's so often a story about disaster, a failure to think ahead, or them getting their arse kicked by a project in the worst way, and it's only fair not to give their real names. This time, though, because I'm going to speak of this knitter in the most glowing terms, this time I'm going to be honest and tell you that this knitter's name is Diane.

Diane is the rarest of knitters. Whenever I hung out with her, no matter where we were, Diane had not only everything she needed (something I admire, as I never have everything I need), but everything anybody else might need as well. You could be anywhere with Diane — a coffee shop, a yarn store, the bus — and no matter what you needed for your knitting, Diane had it. You would realize that you'd forgotten your scissors and be reconciling yourself to the fact that you were going to have to gnaw off a strand of mohair and whammo — Diane would pull scissors out of her bag. Wondering if you had knit eight inches? Diane had a tape measure. Grafting a toe? Diane had a darning needle and a small card outlining the steps. It was incredible. She was, and remains, the best-prepared knitter I ever met.

Considering my chronic lack of preparedness, and the yarn inevitably stuck between my teeth because I couldn't find my scissors, I've taken careful note of what Diane carried with her.

The bag itself is worth mentioning. It took me a long time to come around to the idea of carrying a knitting bag. I'm more of a backpack kind of gal, and it was many, many years before I saw the wisdom of carrying a bag specifically for knitting. The advantages of putting together a knitting bag are multifold.

A measuring tape
. You can't have too many; they have a tendency to flee the scene. Tuck one (or two) in your knitting bag, but have a dozen or so scattered around the house to improve your odds.

A notebook and pencil
. Use them to jot down what row you were on, the phone number of the nice knitter you met in the shop, and any alteration you made to the pattern. (Trust me: A scrap of paper or the back of a receipt does not suffice.)

A photocopy of your pattern.
Copyright law allows you to make a working copy for personal use. This is a good idea. You can scrawl notes all over it and when (not if …) you lose it, it's not as heartbreaking as losing a whole pattern book. Additionally, the fates are kinder to photocopies. The knitting goddess can never quite resist giving you a smack and seeing how you'd cope without a pattern. If
you were Diane, you would also have the pattern tucked into a plastic page protector, but this is advanced level.

A crochet hook
. This is a big help for picking up dropped stitches, working provisional cast-ons, and fishing your DPN out of a crack in the sofa.

An extra set of needles
in the size you're using. You know why.

A set of needles
a size larger and a size smaller than the ones you're using. You'll be grateful for these when you realize a desperate gauge error kind of late in the game and you're in a place where you can't buy more needles. (When I run the world, there will be no place where you cannot buy needles, but I digress.)

A needle gauge
. This invaluable little piece of plastic or metal can help you with three things: converting needle sizes among metric, UK, and U.S. sizes; figuring out if you have four matching DPNs; and measuring things when you have no tape measure, since they usually have a small ruler on one side. See
measuring tape
above.

A darning needle
. This is a good one. Other stuff you can rig if you need to, but there's really no way to sew a seam without a darning needle.

Stitch holders and coil-less safety pins
. I won't insult you by telling you what stitch holders are for. Coil-less safety pins function the same way; they hold an individual stitch or two; mark a row for decrease; or remind you which is the right
side of your work if you're using fuzzy yarn, doing garter stitch, or combining knitting and a cocktail.

Stitch markers
. These are invaluable for newcomers to lacework. Stitch markers make the divisions between repeats obvious, mark a line of decreases, or tell you when you are halfway across large rows — very motivating.

Sticky notes
. The unsung heroes of knitting, I use them to mark where I'm at on a pattern or move them up a chart as I work it. I used to cross out or highlight rows, but that system has its drawbacks if you have to yank back six rows.

Row counter
. This little device is a spool-shaped bit of plastic that either fits on your knitting needle or dangles from it. It usually has two numbered dials you can turn to count rows 01 through 99. Darned handy for working stitch patterns that are different on every row or patterns that would have you work “25 rows before you begin shaping.”

A row counter beats the pants off my seemingly brilliant system, which involved setting out 25 candies and eating one at the end of every row. When the candy was gone, I had worked 25 rows. Problems emerge when on a knitting marathon and working 245 rows (in which case I ended up nauseated), or if you have children or a spouse with a sweet tooth (in which case all of your knitting ends up oddly short as your counters go missing).

If there was just one thing I would have you carry around, just one thing you could have with you that would save
you more pain and knitting heartache and give you back simple happiness and peace of mind, just one thing I would take with me if my house burst into flames and I had time (after saving the people; you know I would take the people first … the people
and
that skein of blue silk I love), it would be the knitting notebook. Mine isn't anything fancy or special — it's just a spiral-bound book of graph paper. I carry it with me whenever I'm knitting, and we have come to have a deep and meaningful relationship.

It's because of the knitting notebook that I can make two socks the same without driving myself insane as I squint and curse. I make notes of how many stitches I cast on for the right mitten so I can do the same for the left. It's because of this notebook that I can remember how it was that I changed the top of the first sleeve and how to do the same to the second one. The knitting notebook is where I write all of my knitting math and make notes of the gauge and needles I'm using, and it's where I note how many meters of yarn I need for that shawl I'm thinking about, if I see something good in the yarn shop, I can get the right amount. Mine has graph paper so I can draw simple charts for Fair Isle and intarsia, or invent (sometimes by accident) a new pattern for lace.

The notebook also holds invaluable notes like “Susan says the new Smithers merino is crap,” and “Sale in yarn shop on June 21.” The knitting notebook is especially useful to multitasking knitters; if you get in the habit of writing down how many of the 12 sleeve decreases you've done on the blue sweater, you don't have any trouble when you pick it up again seven months (or years) from now, after you got distracted by three shawls and a pair of socks.

Some knitters take it even further and these days they're my heroes. They're the ones who keep a project journal, a sort of scrapbook where they record the details of the project, the pattern used, a snip of the yarn, one of the ball bands, what they thought of that yarn, what changes they made to the pattern, the measurements of the finished item, and the recipient. With the overachieving knitter, there's also a photo of the finished garment.

When I was a young mother with three daughters under five, there was this other mother down the street. She had three kids, too, and we should have felt a certain kinship, sailing along as we were in similar boats, but she drove me nuts. This woman (whom we shall call “Martha” for the sake of this story) kept perfect house. Martha never had to give the cat a can of tuna because she'd forgotten to buy cat food. She never sent her kids to school with mud stains on their pants and told them to tell other people it was “paint from arts and crafts.” She certainly never took home a screaming kid from the park
for whacking some other kid. Her house was immaculate and her spices were alphabetized. (She wasn't a knitter.) I hated her. She made me feel like I was doing a crappy job.

I can admit, now that I'm mature and accepting, that I sometimes have some negative feelings about these journal-keeping knitters. I feel about them (in my weaker moments) the way I used to feel about Martha. I'm trying to be a better person.

For most knitters, myself included (though things may be worse at my house, as I have a love of books as well as of knitting), there is only one thing we struggle to manage as much as yarn. It isn't tape measures, notions, or scissors — those manage themselves by disappearing at regular intervals to keep us from being overwhelmed. It's patterns, knitting books, and magazines. (I think it's ironic that a knitting-book author is about to suggest ways to manage the problem; I'm part of the problem and it's therefore doubtful that I can be part of the solution.) I'm certainly — being a knitting-book writer — not going to suggest that buying fewer of them is the answer. I do, however, have some ideas.

I keep all patterns. I don't know why. Say I've just finished a sweater where the pattern had a thousand mistakes, was poorly written, drove me insane, and produced, in the end, a sweater that lacked style and grace exactly the way a bag of hammers does. Instead of doing the logical thing, which is taking it into the living room, standing before
the roaring fireplace, and, knowing fully and completely that I will never, ever knit that pattern again (nor would I wish it on my worst knitting enemy), casting it into the flames along with a few choice words about the designer and the horse she rode in on. Instead of this, I'll take it upstairs and put it on a shelf.

I'm compelled to keep it. It's a knitting pattern and therefore, even if it makes me want to stick knitting needles in my eyes, it has inherent value and I have to put it on the shelf. I will never knit it again. I will never lend it to another knitter. In all likelihood, I will curse its presence on the bookshelf when I run out of room for other good patterns, but I will keep it.

I'm not proud of this, but I know I'm not alone. So, for those of us who can't part with patterns, here are a few ways to store them:

Method 1

Get a stack of file folders
. Label one
socks,
another
hats,
one
sweaters — kids,
and so on. Put the folders on the shelf. When you go upstairs to put a pattern on the shelf (or instead of making a stack of them on the bedside table), file it in the appropriate folder. This is also where you put the 8,000 patterns you've printed off the Internet. Start early. If you're an established knitter who adopted the “stack” system early, I don't know what to suggest for you, except maybe paying some 10-year-old to sort them. Don't attempt to convert the system yourself unless you're the “Martha” sort of person described earlier in this chapter. (That's pretty funny actually, since if you were the Martha sort of person, you wouldn't have had the stack system in the first place.)

Method 2

Some knitters (though I'm not one of them, and this works only with patterns you haven't used yet) put the pattern in the stash
beside the yarn for the project. This works pretty well. It means you have to manage only the pattern you're finished with (and most knitters have more patterns they “are going to use” than they “have used”), and has the bonus of reminding you what your intentions were for the 12 skeins of green wool anyway.

Method 3

For the “Martha” knitters out there, you can go completely over the top and employ a system of binders and plastic page protectors
and file the patterns by type, weight, and designer the minute you finish with them or even bring them into the house. What I really like about this system is that when (not if) you spill coffee, tea, or red wine on a pattern, you can just wipe it off the plastic page protector and still read the chart.

The last time I was in the bookstore by my house I wandered over to the magazine rack and counted seven different knitting magazines on the shelf. I had none of them. Now you can't just haul off and buy seven knitting magazines … you need to be a little discriminating.
I have criteria that I apply to my knitting magazines to help keep buying binges under control.