Live Like You Mean It
I don't love this photo of me, but it's a good one of Mom. From the rehearsal dinner before Mr. Trask's and my wedding.
Looking for the results of the stash giveaway? Don’t despair; I’ll post the winner’s name, and another giveaway, tomorrow.
Those of you who know me in real life, and some of you who read this blog regularly, know that my mother died a while ago – 3 years ago today, in fact. Grief over losing a parent is different from grief over a grandparent, I find – with it comes a fear of one’s own mortality. Parents are meant to die before children, and in that way the loss is not as piercing, I imagine, as that of losing a child or even a friend or lover. But losing the people who showed us the world, who taught us how to live, puts us in a more adult role almost immediately. Suddenly, we are to learn how to live on our own, without anyone else; suddenly, there is no generation that stands between us and death. For me, anyway, the experience was one tinged with the sense that I could be next.
An unfortunate detail of her death is that it was almost exactly a year after Mr. Trask’s father’s sudden death. Both Jane Lawton and Dick Trask were in their early 60s, and both deaths were sudden. Mom and Dick were both larger-than-life personalities, friendly and generous and funny. It’s odd, to say the least, when such a personality is suddenly gone; when two are gone in the space of a year life begins to feel eerie and dangerous.
Now, those of you who are here just for the knitting may be gone already, clicking over to some less maudlin blog for today, and I understand that completely. Go! Be free! Read Yarn Harlot or Mason-Dixon or the fibre space blog!
…Okay, those of you who are still here, this is my point: knitting as a career (rather than a hobby) started for me after Mom died. It’s not something I set out to do, but I did start just jumping into the ocean, rather than dipping in my toes, with a lot of things after she died. Both Mr. Trask and I felt like we’d received a great big postcard from the universe that read, “Life Is Short.” So – we both started leaning into career changes, creative challenges, taking on projects that we wouldn’t necessarily have considered before. For me, this included writing knitting patterns and teaching people to knit. I never thought of knitting as becoming part of my livelihood, but it is now.
This isn’t to say that one should just barrel through life when faced with a scary moment like a parent’s death. I had to slow down to grieve; I had to give myself space and time before I was ready to return to my regularly scheduled life. But I am saying that her death made me a little less fearful; I feel I might not have time to be scared any more. That’s been a good thing for me, because often in my life I have been paralyzed by fear and wishful thinking. Today, I am trying to replace fear and dreaming with faith and slow, steady action.
At Mom’s memorial service, I told a story that I have thought about a lot between then and now. The first time I went to England by myself, for an undergraduate semester abroad, I was terrified. I was, in fact, tearful and positive that I couldn’t go. “I’m just going to stay home,” I explained to Mom on the day of my flight. “I won’t like it anyway, and I can’t do it.”
Now, there were lots of things I loved about England – theater, afternoon tea, the history of great writing – and Mom reminded me of that. I was still pretty sure it wasn’t going to work out for me and England, and I told her so. “Well,” she said, “I can see you’re on the fence here.” [I was not.] “So we’ll just pack your bag while we talk about it, because I wouldn’t want you to decide you want to go and not be able to because you weren’t ready.”
We packed, and I cried, and explained in greater and greater detail how going to England would be the worst possible thing for me, and indeed might even be the death of me. [I was 20 years old. There was a lot of drama.]
Mom remained calm. “Well,” she said, “let’s just get in the car, and we’ll keep talking about it, and if you change your mind on the way then we’ll already be at the airport and you’ll be able to get on the plane. I’d hate you to decide you want to go, but not be able to because you weren’t at the airport.” I was so distracted and teary, thinking about how horrible England was, that this seemed reasonable to me. We got in the car, and talked about England some more, and I cried a lot more, but I was still unconvinced by the time we got to the airport curbside check-in.
“Well,” she said, “just hop out and check your bag, and I’ll meet you at the gate and we’ll keep talking.” Again, I complied.
When she met me at the gate (I bet you thought she was going to just drive off and leave me there, didn’t you?), I said, “I really don’t think I can go,” and she said, “But you have to go now – your bags are checked!”
That sneaky woman.
So – I went to England, and I was homesick sometimes, and I loved it sometimes, and I wouldn’t be the person I am today if she hadn’t eased me along from my bags to the car to the airport. I am so grateful to her for showing me that I could do something even if I was afraid of it. That has been true for me in knitting and in writing and in so many other parts of my life. Right now, with a huge deadline heading my way, there are days when I want to lie on the floor, cry, and/or hide from the world. But instead I remember how she eased me along, and I just look at doing the next right thing, over and over.
As we move into the holiday season, think of some exciting challenge you can set for yourself. Maybe the 29 Gifts in 29 Days idea appeals to you, or maybe you want to get Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac and follow her instructions for a pattern each month for a year. Maybe you just want to learn to knit lace, or to knit a sweater. Maybe you want to learn to design your own shawl or how to tech edit. Or maybe your goal is to unclutter your house or to learn to cook or to get a different job. Whatever it is, post it in the comments! Then break it into little pieces and just follow the path you need to take. After all, I’d hate you to want to make a sweater and not be able to make one because you didn’t have the yarn.
If you made it this far – thanks for reading! More yarny goodness tomorrow.
The Knitting Pantry, Phase II, and Stash Giveaway III
Want some Mirasol Tupa? Comment on the blog before Nov. 29!
The Knitting Pantry Posts begin here and continue here; Phase II of the knitting pantry is for those who have graduated from scarves to hats, mittens, and maybe even baby sweaters.
So you’re an intermediate knitter. You are starting to realize that you need a plastic container or two for your yarn, and when someone told you you could use a flower vase to hold your straight needles you gave them a great big hug. More than that, you’re starting to wonder about design (come on – you are, right?). Could you make a scarf in a particularly cool ribbing you just saw? Would you be able to add some lace edging to the hat you just finished? This is an exciting time to be a knitter: the world is your oyster (and so is your local yarn shop).
Your Knitting Pantry should include:
Needle Containment. You’re starting to have a nice collection of needles, but if you aren’t careful you’ll end up with multiples. Needle wrangling is essential to knitting serenity. Whether you use needle cases like those made by Della Q and Lantern Moon, or find a lower-profile case maker on Etsy, or even just shove them into your flower vase and use an iPhone app to remind yourself which needles you own (try Vogue Knitting or KnitMinder), your needle plan needs two components: a way to keep your needles safe, and a way to remind yourself which needles you own. Needle cases will allow you to see which needles you own and aren’t using, while needle inventories (which also could just be an index card in your wallet) give you an idea of the whole range you have, whether or not they’re stuck in that unfinished sock you put down three months ago).
Yarn Strategy. The big issues that confront all knitters: what do I do with my yarn, how much yarn is it okay to have, and how do I keep it safe? Airtight plastic containers work best for me; I like the shoeboxes from The Container Store. They come in packs of 20 and they stack. I put yarns of similar colors or similar gauges into the same box; sorting by gauge is interesting, because it forces me to combine colors I’d never thought to put together. If you don’t have enough yarn to fill 20 shoeboxes, you can use the rest of the boxes for shoes (and pat yourself on the back for being a restrainer yarn purchaser).
Stitch Dictionaries. If you find yourself starting to wonder whether you can make a scarf with some kind of lace edging or a pair of socks with a diamond pattern on them, it might be time to start trying to design your own patterns. Stitch dictionaries are just what they sound like: collections of all kinds of knitting stitches, from lace to colorwork to simple knit-and-purl combinations. Barbara Walker‘s books are classics; she single-handedly collected four volumes of stitch patterns. [Check out my post on her miniature knitting, too. The woman is a genius.]
If you’re an intermediate knitter, what do you want to learn to knit the most? What knitting accessory helped you most at this stage? Let us know, in the comments.
And finally…drumroll please…we get to:
Stash Giveaway III. You know you want it! The Mirasol Tupa (rav lnk) pictured above was purchased at fibre space last spring, when I thought I had all the time in the world to make various and sundry scarves, hats, smaller objects of all kinds. The yarn has been stored in a plastic container in our non-smoking, one-cat home since then. If you read my post about Mirasol Sulka last winter, you know how obsessed I am with this company – and the Tupa is gorgeous. With a content of 50 percent wool and 50 percent silk, it would make a beautiful beret or pair of mittens. Two skeins of navy blue and one of pink – just begging to come home with you. Comment on any post on this blog by 10 a.m. EST on Monday, November 29, and you’ll be entered in the random drawing to win. Ooh, aah!
Knitting…for Barbie?
What would you knit for Palm Beach Breeze Barbie?
There’s an interesting new aspect to the story of Barbara G. Walker (knitter, mythologist, feminist, genius) making its way around the internet: Walker’s hand-knit doll costumes. Kristina McGowan, author of the beautiful book Modern Top-Down Knitting, met with Walker a few years ago and took photos of some of the Barbie (and other) dolls for whom the top-down knitting goddess had made elaborate costumes. [In her article, McGowan also admits to finding great peace and calm while reading craft books…the only other person I’ve heard of who talks about this. I feel a little less crazy now.]
“I thought clothes for an 11- or 12-inch doll should be miniaturized in proportion, and shaped to the doll’s figure,” Walker explains in an essay on the Schoolhouse Press site. “So I bought a couple of Barbies and began experimenting with materials like fingering yarn, fine boucle, thin cotton, silk and metallic threads, even sewing thread, on needles size zero or smaller.”
Now, this is truly knitting like you mean it: making fitted clothing for an unreasonably curvy, 12-inch plastic doll. And just in case you are starting to resent Barbie for getting something else you always wanted to have (besides the journalism career, the large breasts, the enormous shoe collection, the devoted boyfriend, and the pink townhouse)…we can see from a slideshow posted recently by Schoolhouse Press that Walker didn’t limit herself to Barbie dolls. If you check out the Schoolhouse Press slideshow, you’ll see that she made costumes for Jaime Sommers (the Bionic Woman, though she looks kind of manly in doll form), Hugo Drax of the James Bond film Moonraker, and (my personal favorite) Dr. Kate McRae of The Black Hole.
This does make me sad that I gave away my Audrey Hepburn Barbie…but you can’t keep Holly Golightly from roaming, can you? So – for whom will you knit, doll-ways? Justin Bieber? Jack Bauer? Mego Joker? Mad Men’s Joan Holloway? And those are just the Js! I kind of want to make a sweatshirt and yoga pants for Tribute Barbie, so she can shrug off that evening gown and lie on the couch for a while.
Your Knitting Pantry, Phase I: Gauge Addendum
Susan Bates Knit Chek: Don
Susan Bates Knit Chek: Don
…or Gauge: Why It’s Important, and How I Know How Jared Flood Knits
Isn’t it just always the way – you think you’ve written down everything you should, and then you realize you’ve forgotten one of the most important things.
The Susan Bates Knit Chek (pictured above, available at your local yarn shop) is one of my favorite knitting tools of all time – it makes it much easier to measure the gauge one is getting when knitting in a particular yarn with a particular pair of needles. Why is gauge so important? I’ve explained this before, but since it is the difference between a beautiful finished object and a year of therapy, I’ll do it again. Here is my 30-second explanation:
1. Everyone knits at a slightly different gauge. To pick two people at random: I knit much looser than super-famous, amazingly cool designer Jared Flood (rav lnk). How do I know this? Not ’cause Jared and I knit side by side and compare stitches; I’ve taken a class or two from him, but Jared Flood would not recognize me on the street (sad for me). But I know he knits more tightly that I do because on every one of his patterns he lists his knitting gauge using a particular yarn and a particular set of needles. Usually, when I knit with that yarn and those needles, I get a looser gauge than he does. So…I have to go down a needle size or two to match him before knitting any of his patterns.
2. “But wait!” You want to say to me. “What if you just knit in the needles and yarn Jared recommends? You’ll just have a bigger sweater, right?” Unfortunately…only sort of. The knit stitch is not square. It’s fatter than it is tall. What this means is that, when a knit stitch gets bigger (like if you use a larger needle than is called for, or knit more loosely), it gets fatter faster than it gets taller. And THAT, my friends, is why my first two sweaters look like crop tops for someone taller than I am. Some day, if you ask nicely, I’ll post some photos.
3. Since we can’t just size our way out of gauge problems (“Hey, it doesn’t fit me, but it will fit Mr. Trask!” is only an option if Mr. Trask keeps working on his crunches) we have to knit a gauge swatch to match our gauges. When Jared or any other designer finishes working on a design, he knits a gauge swatch with the needles and yarn he used, and that’s the gauge you must get in your yarn before you start working on your project.
OK, that took more than 30 seconds. But friends don’t let friends skip gauge swatching. Any questions? I will happily answer them, for I am The Evangelist of Gauge Swatches.
Anyway, buy something that helps you measure gauge, like the Susan Bates Knit Chek or another similar item. Also, if you are a Phase I knitter and you don’t know about the online resources below, find a way to get them into your virtual knitting pantry (Firefox bookmarks, whatever):
- Knitting Help: Learn to Knit Videos (scroll down for gauge explanation), Knitting Glossary. This site has an enormous collection of videos showing all kinds of knitting techniques. If you can’t remember how to do the long tail cast-on, or if you’ve never learned how to knit two together through the back loop — this site is your new best friend (but I was your old best friend, right?).
- Ravelry (free registration! Plus, friend me – my username is KnitLikeYouMeanIt – send me a note and tell me who you are…). This is the miraculous online community that brings knitters together, collects information about patterns and yarns, tells you where you can buy the yarn that isn’t at your local yarn shop, and even helps you find that one ball of yarn in that particular dye lot that you must must MUST have to finish your project. Sign up and hop in!
Okay, that’s it for Phase I. If you think anything else should be added – tell us in the comments!
Your Knitting Pantry – What Every Knitter Needs
The Knitting Pantry: What do you need besides sticks and string, hands and tea?
…not to mention the results of Stash Giveaway II (below).
A while back Lynn of Cackalacky Foodie posted a response to a desperate question I’d asked her at one point: what should be in one’s pantry at all times? [Hey, look, I’m famous! …well, internet famous.] I started thinking about what is in my knitting pantry, other than yarn and needles and about a thousand pairs of scissors (do you all have the same problem I do with scissors disappearing?).
So…this is only Phase I of the pantry, for the beginning knitter, the one who is making scarves and perhaps a hat or two. The knitter just at the beginning of her addiction, who still has money in her wallet and space in her house.
Phase II will be posted next week; if you suspect you are a Phase III knitting addict like me, do post an admission of such in the comments so we can commiserate and come up with the Phase III list together.
- Stitch Markers. From cute to functional, stitch markers are a must. You pop them onto your needle between stitches to identify the beginning and end of section of your knitting (a pattern repeat, a series of decreases, even a sleeve or back of a sweater if you’re knitting it in the round). You’ll lose them, find them, lose them again…you can never have too many. You can get them in your local yarn shop, make your own, or explore the enormous range of handmade stitch markers on Etsy. I like the simple rubber circles for everyday knitting, but I’ve been known to get all fancy with them, too.
- Row Counter(s). Whether you use one of the iPhone apps available for this (StitchMinder is my choice) or the spiffy Kacha–Kacha from Clover, you’re going to need to count rows at some point in your knitting career. Don’t assume you’ll remember how many you’ve done; I promise you, that will lead to tears. Like a good pair of scissors, row counters tend to disappear and reappear, so you might want to get more than one.
- Tapestry Needle(s). I like the Clover Chibi (another cute name from Clover), mostly because they come with a little case that makes it harder to lose my needles. [Also, when I was little my mother told me this story about a friend of hers who was hemming a skirt, dropped the needle, knelt down to find it, and stood up to discover she’d knelt on the needle and the thread was sticking out of her knee because the needle was in her knee. Sewing lessons with my mother: sometimes scarier than Halloween. Anyway, the Chibi case also keeps me from kneeling on any rogue needles, or so I believe.] The bent tip Chibis are made that way to make it easier to insert the tip into knit stitches, or so I’m told.
- Crochet Hooks. Don’t give me that line about knitters and crocheters being like the Hatfields and the McCoys. Crochet hooks are indispensable for picking up dropped stitches (and, hey, you can learn to crochet, too!). Get a few different sizes, since you’ll want one that roughly corresponds to the size of your needle when you’re using them to correct knitting errors.
What You’ve Really Been Waiting For
OK, people. The results of the latest stash giveaway: Congratulations, Michelle! Michelle’s daughter Annika is the real winner here – she’ll receive the Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock from last week. Yay for young knitters! I will post a new yarn giveaway this week, so get your comment fingers all limber and things. Just to practice, why not comment on this post as well? Tell us what’s in your knitting pantry.
Stash Giveaway I is Over; Long Live Stash Giveaway II
Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Yarn: Comment on the Blog and Win!
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winnah! Anne has won the Wensleydale Aran from Cross Lanes Farm. We of course will require her to send us photos of her knitting with it, and even of a finished object if she gets that far (we don’t want to put any pressure on her, people).
[How did I select the winner, you ask? I numbered the posts and got the Random Number Generator to generate me a random number. Isn’t the internet cool?]
Don’t despair, though, because today is another day, and the next seven days are another Stash Giveaway Week. Leave a comment on the blog between now (Friday at 7:15 a.m. EST) and next Friday (at 7:00 a.m. EST) and you could win the lovely Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock yarn (rav link) pictured above. One skein of Flamingo Stripe and one of Amethyst Stripe have been stored in airtight containers and are waiting for you in my non-smoking, one-cat home. These were purchased at the sadly now-defunct Knit Happens in Alexandria, Va., and spent some time hibernating in my stash before demanding that they be let out into the great world to become socks for some lucky knitter.
You’ll notice that these are two different colorways. Each colorway should make two socks for the average person (as in, one who doesn’t have feet as large as Mr. Trask’s), but you are encouraged to make four and mix and match your socks. They can be fraternal twins! Those of you who have met me in person know that my socks rarely match. [I do like them to have similar weights, though.] So make one pair for yourself and one for a friend…or keep them all for yourself. It’s not selfish if you’ve made them with your own two hands.
The rules are the same as they were last week: comment on any post on this blog in the next week, and you’ll be entered to win. Good luck!
State of the Stash
First on the Block: Cross Lanes Farm Wensleydale Aran. Comment on the blog for a chance to win!
My awesome knitting student Consuela has been e-mailing me over the past few weeks about her progress on the homework from our sock class at fibre space. Last week, she wrote me what she called the “State of the Sock.” I laughed out loud at that…and then realized that I have something that needs a grand overview (and revision): my stash.
The state of our stash, ladies and gentlemen, knitters everywhere, is strong. The sock yarn is varied and plentiful, while the heavier-weight yarns, for the most part, are in enough quantity to make larger garments; and the plastic containers continue to keep all of our wool safe and clean. More importantly, the stash is a deep stash. Whenever the next snowpocalypse comes and we finish all our outstanding projects, we will be able to cast on in whatever yarn our little heart desires — and we’ll probably have a choice of colors, too.
One might wonder, however: can a stash be too strong? Is there a point at which we as knitters must ask ourselves: when is enough sufficient? And where are we going to put all of this yarn?
I know these are difficult questions. I know I’m going to be the bad guy here. But it must be said: is the pursuit of stash variety and yarn security enough? Have we not lost sight of our true love, knitting, in the name of a cruel mistress: yarn acquisition? Yes, yarn is a part of knitting. But so are needles, and so are patterns, and…we can’t keep throwing away clothing in order to have room for more yarn. If you love knitting, if you seek prosperous knitting, if you seek serenity in your home: Ms. Lawton-Trask, tear down this stash!
Yes, I have decided to liquidate part of my stash. Yes, it is difficult to imagine. But it’s also difficult to imagine living long enough to make something out of all the yarn in my stash. So I’ll be culling part of the stash, and earmarking some of it to be (wait for it) made into knitwear.
Yes, it’s the end of an era. But no, you shouldn’t be preparing to picket my house in protest. Instead, post a comment on the blog between now and next Friday for a chance to win the lovely Wensleydale Aran from Cross Lanes Farm (rav link) pictured above. Purchased at the glorious I Knit London, this yarn has been stored in an airtight plastic container in a non-smoking, one-cat household. I bought this during my first UK summer (2009), and it’s beautifully soft but strong. I’ll pick a winner randomly from all comments on any post on this blog that are made between today (Oct. 29) and next Friday (Nov. 5). What have you got to lose? Only a little more space in your home.
How to Knit Alone…and Together
Jennifer of Indulgent Health sent me this lovely video,”How to Be Alone,” because it includes some nice-looking knitwear and a scene of the main character getting to know someone else because she is knitting in public:
Yet another reason to knit in public, even if alone: it can lead to knitting together. Most of us who knit in public have had conversations with strangers about it at one time or another – but my favorite is the person who sees that I’m knitting and just smiles knowingly, or looks closely at my work to see what it might become. Knitters are part of a semi-secret community, and the more we strip away the secrecy, the more I believe we’ll be able to celebrate, not just our identities as knitters, but all of ourselves: the embarrassments and the little joys, the triumphs and the bruises.
[Yes, this is going to be One Of Those Posts in which I wax philosophical about knitting.]
I was a solo knitter for years. I didn’t have female relatives who taught me to knit; I didn’t have friends who knit; it didn’t occur to me to talk to anyone about it. That was fine, but I will say that the same thing was true for me about many other parts of my life. I think I assumed that people weren’t interested. Now, I’m not saying you people (or anyone) should be interested in every part of my day; God forbid. [And, hey, check out this interview with Simon Pegg of Shaun of the Dead and the Star Trek reboot to find out how he handles questions about his personal life.] What I’m saying is that I’d get letters from friends asking how I was and what I was doing, and I’d look at the pages in my hand and think,”They probably don’t want to hear from me. They’re probably just being polite.” Now, people, that is neither normal nor healthy.
[Yes, Virginia, I am writing of a time when people sent each other letters instead of e-mail. I was right on the edge of the switchover when I was in high school, but I was there.]
I’m glad that I’ve gotten beyond that as an adult. I’m glad that I tell the world about myself these days, even though explaining my knitting obsession doesn’t always make people think I’m more sane. In a weird way, I think being alone in public is like knitting in public: it lets other people know they’re less alone. Knitting in public sometimes leads to knitting together; being alone in public may lead to new connections, and certainly brings us to solitude rather than loneliness.
I have a friend, an Episcopal priest, who referred recently to having “a ministry of public imperfection.” She knows that we’re all imperfect, that we’re all trying to get through the day and that isn’t always pretty. So she lets people see that she isn’t completely put together, so they know it’s okay to be less than perfect themselves. I like this idea. Knitters around the world have taken on a ministry of public knitting in the last several years, especially since the advent of Worldwide Knit in Public Day (and, heck, the way the Internet brings us all together). Why not take on a ministry of public alone-ness as well? It may just let someone else know they aren’t as alone as they think.
One thing. I’m not saying being alone is easy. It seems that this video, with its sympathetic tone, assumes right from the top that being alone is uncomfortable. I have had to learn to be comfortable alone at times, just as I’ve had to learn to be with others. I think it’s a balance. Take a look at the pretty video and ask yourself: can I try to do something alone today, in case someone else might need to see me and feel less alone?
Stirling Yarn Shop: McAree Brothers
It’s long past time for me to tell you about McAree Brothers. As regular readers of this irregular blog know, Mr. Trask and I spent three days in Stirling, Scotland, this August for UK Knit Camp. We stayed in town rather than on campus (even the patient Mr. Trask was wary of staying in a dormitory surrounded by knitters), and right around the corner from our hotel we found the promised land, or rather a lovely yarn shop.
McAree Brothers is a fascinating place, half knitting wonderland and half haberdashery of school uniforms and other staples. In fact, I was drawn to it at first because I’d sustained a miserable shoe-and-sock-drenching moment in Edinburgh, and my second pair of socks was as soaked as the first had been, and they had these lovely woolly socks in the window of the haberdashery half, and…I just wanted dry feet, you understand. Then I saw the knitting window:
McAree Brothers: Knitter Heaven in Stirling
Rowan, Rowan, as far as the eye could see. I think I made a little noise. “I’ll tell you what,” said Mr. Trask. “I’ll go over to that coffee shop, and you can just find me whenever.” I’m not sure what I said back, but I do know he had to come back and retrieve me much later. I was standing in front of this:
Yarn. Yarn, and More Yarn. I think this photo is blurry from my hands shaking with the excitement of it all.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience, dear reader, but occasionally I come across a yarn shop that isn’t, well, entirely friendly. And this was true for me in the very first yarn shop I ever set foot in, when I tried to buy yarn and book for a Rowan pattern, way back when I was a teenager (that’s another story for another time, but I had to be very stubborn indeed to be allowed to purchase same). Somehow, that has turned into an impression that shops that carry Rowan yarn aren’t the kindest around. Well, McAree Brothers proved that wrong. The knitting half of the shop was packed with Knit Camp attendees, and yet the women working in the shop made sure to greet each of us. I heard them help many folks who were trying to find very specific materials for their classes, with great patience and enthusiasm.
The Divine Carol Meldrum...who introduced me to Sublime Organic Merino Wool DK. My life will never be the same.
One of the most exciting things about going to McAree Brothers was meeting knitting designer Carol Meldrum, who works at McAree and is as nice as cam be — funny, too. But what would you expect from the woman who brought us a book called “Knitted Icons,” with patterns to knit your own versions of Mr. T, Gandhi, and — yes — our own dear Queen Elizabeth II? Check ’em out on Ravelry!
Carol does much of her patterning for Rowan (can you say dream job?) and commutes to Stirling from Edinburgh each day to work and teach in the shop. Go find her patterns – they’re luuurvely. [Did I mention the knitted Audrey Hepburn? Or the crocheted Filigree Lace Choker?]
Carol showed me all around the yarn shop, encouraged me to pet the Sublime Organic Merino DK (which, as faithful readers will recall, became the two-day adventure UK Travel Scarf and its brother Heathrow), and didn’t bat an eyelash when I came back an hour later for more. A fellow yarn addict, indeed!
McAree carries most of the major European brands – Rowan, Sirdar (and its new line Sublime), Jaeger, Patons, and more. It’s well worth a trip to Stirling if you’re in Scotland. Heck, make a special trip just for some of that Sublime. It lives up to its name…and so does the sublime McAree Brothers.
Mad Men and the Retro of Knitting
The Ingenue Pattern, by Wendy Bernard, goes great with these vintage cocktail napkins.
I held out as long as I could. As Mad Men fever swept the nation, I resisted and resisted. I had watched the first few episodes with my husband, and I felt so sorry for poor Peggy Olson the secretary and Betty Draper the housewife…they were so trapped. I was certain they’d be trapped in the world of the late 1950s forever.
It was deeply depressing, I told Mr. Trask (perhaps with the back of my hand to my forehead, in despair): women had no choices back then. I thought of my mother, who was a teenager in 1959. I thought of my grandmother, who grew up on a farm in Oklahoma during the Great Depression, then taught in a one-room schoolhouse. It’s too awful, I told him, and I stopped watching.
Two years later, color me wrong. I dove into the series again this summer, after recommendations from one too many people whose taste I respect (including, yes, Mr. Trask). I am about to start Season Four, and those of you who have seen Season Three know: it’s not nearly as simple as I thought it was.
[I don’t want to get into spoilers, but Oh Please Watch! What an amazing show.]
I should have known it wasn’t so simple: my mother grew up and moved to Washington, D.C., from Oklahoma, and in the 1960s she was one of the first women hired by IBM in a non-secretarial role. Before her, my grandmother had been one of the first women in her family to go to college, and in her 60s (after my grandfather’s death) she traveled all over the world. She lived until she was 96, and was clear-headed until the end.
There’s been some discussion of how Mad Men appeals to our nostalgia for a past era, for a time when the country was a bit more starry-eyed than we are today. Certainly, that’s part of it. The beautiful dresses, the classic cars, the glitz of New York in the late 50s and early 60s are awfully appealing. And that’s part of what I love about knitting, too: reaching back to a bygone time, to a simpler (and yet more difficult!) way of getting clothes on our back, to times when women knit for themselves, for their families, and even for strangers.
But, for me, Mad Men is also fascinating for the flip side. I think some of us watch Peggy Olson going to an artsy party downtown and think: she’d be in her 70s or perhaps 80s now, but look how edgy she was back then! I think it reminds us of all our grandparents (even if they grew up long before Peggy did) and reminds us that somewhere, sometime, they were young and foolish like we are — they might even have been young and rebellious. Who knows?
To me, it’s not just that they were young once; it’s also that we’ll be old one day. No matter how bright and new and modern everything seems right now, someday, if I’m lucky, I’ll be telling someone 50 years younger than I am just how it was, back in the oughts or the tens of the new century. I’ll tell them where I was when Barack Obama was elected, where I was on 9/11, what it was like to only have a telephone in your house (or, my freshman year in college, only one for the whole hall of a dorm).
And that’s true for knitting, too. It’s not just that I’m reaching back to history: I’m reaching forward, too, leaving garments behind for later generations, teaching the knit stitch to someone much younger than I am. It’s all a continuum. In honor of that, I’m knitting the Ingenue Sweater (rav link) by Wendy of Knit and Tonic (now there’s a knitting blog Don Draper could get behind). Pick up the remote, tune to AMC (thanks for the correction, Chloe!), and join me.
Knit Like You Mean It. 