Yarn Harlot (5 page)

This means that there’s a lot of love in a pair of socks. The first one is a triumph of knitterly cleverness. The knitter casts on the right number, not so many that the socks fall down, not so few that they cut off circulation and turn your toes blue; then he or she works ribbing or picot or something to keep them from puddling unattractively around the ankles. There’s the jaunt down the leg, perhaps with entertaining experiments in Fair Isle or cabling or lace panels. The heel flap, solid and practical—and then that miracle, the cunning three-dimensional heel (far simpler than it looks). The knitter picks up stitches for the gussets and then cruises down the foot (note: Marry small-footed persons), decreasing for the toe and grafting it shut, since the best socks are seamless. Feel the love? You should, since the sock knitter is only halfway there. The second sock of a pair becomes a deeply personal testament to stick-to-it-iveness as the knitter conquers the dreaded second-sock syndrome, surmounting the urge to cast on something new and exciting,
something that doesn’t come in boring, lackluster twos. When it is all over, when the socks are done, a knitter will have invested an average of twenty thousand stitches in the name of love and warm feet, knowing full well that the socks will wear out.

The knitter then gives the finished socks to a worthy recipient, who will, the first time that he or she puts them on, undergo a transformation, a moment of sacred joy, swearing off machine-made socks forever. And then—in a celebration of the knitter’s art, a festivity of yarn, an homage to knitting in the round and needleworkers everywhere—the recipient will walk big honkin’ holes in them.

That’s love. That’s why socks are special.

I
n general, I am a process, rather than a product, knitter. I like the feel of the wool, the smell of the wool, the ritual of sorting through patterns, choosing the right needles, and casting on. (This could explain a thing or two about the number of unfinished objects in the house.) I like the moment when the yarn tells you what it would like to be. I like getting past the first little bit of the knitting, to the point when I can see the pattern develop and start getting a sense of what I’m making. I like how much knitting is like a magic trick. You have string and sticks; you wave your hands about, and there you have it—a sweater, a sock, warm mittens, a blanket, a shawl. I admit that it can be slow magic. Sometimes you have to wave your hands around for a really, really long time.

Being a process knitter, I’m not often really attached to the finished product. I give away almost all of my knitting and seldom knit for myself. My darling wears only handknit socks. I wear socks bought at the local mall. He sports a pretty fancy Aran sweater that I designed just for him. I slog about in a
pathetically shabby store-bought cotton cardigan with a fraying sleeve that would give any “product” knitter the heebie-jeebies. I’m happy to give up any knitted thing. I had the pleasure of knitting it. I have a brief wave of knitterly pride when I finish it and I might go around the house for a day or two showing it off, but then I’m on to the next thing.

I even manage to feel pretty humble about my knitting most of the time. There are millions and millions of knitters in the world, and in other countries the most intricate and lovely things are made by mere children. I usually feel as if I’ve got no right to be particularly proud of the things that I make. Anybody could do it, if they knew how.

That might have all changed today.

I’ve been knitting the sheep shawl. It is my first large-scale excursion into lace. I’ve knit baby blankets and scarves of lace, but this is the big time. My mum (despite her complete loathing of knitting) loves sheep, and it’s become a Christmas tradition for somebody to give her something sheep-ish each year. (I am pretty sure that this stopped being fun for my mum about five years ago, when the living room became fully saturated with sheep paraphernalia, but a tradition is a tradition, and besides, shawls are useful.)

It began while I was on vacation in Ottawa. Trolling through a local yarn store, I saw a pattern for the sheep shawl. Being sharp as a tack, I quickly grasped that this shawl could fulfill my sheepy obligations. It was a beautiful triangular shawl. Well-placed yarn overs and knit-two-togethers formed the delicate outlines of sheep cavorting in a meadow. It had a delicate pointy edging, and the whole thing was an heirloom. I decided that I
could ignore my self-imposed yarn fast (besides, that’s a yarn fast, not a pattern fast) and buy the pattern. I did not buy the yarn to knit it, being sure I could find something in the stash. (We will conveniently forget the fact that I looked for yarn but didn’t see anything appropriate. Otherwise, I lose points for self-restraint.) Since the pattern was so reasonably priced, I also bought some other stuff because it’s irresponsible to incur a debit card service charge for just one pattern. Right?

Three days later I was a little bit lost in Ottawa’s rural hinterlands when I stumbled across a sheep/llama/alpaca farm. Like a creature possessed, I turned helplessly into the driveway. Where there are that many fiber-bearing animals, there will be fiber for sale. At the top of the driveway I found an older lady knitting socks in what was originally the garage but had inexplicably turned into a yarn shop, if rather an unconventional one. As fate would have it, sitting right on the table in front of me was a truly lovely dirt-cheap lace-weight alpaca, in exactly the right amount for the sheep shawl.

I wrestled briefly with the implications of it all—with buying yarn when I was officially on a yarn fast, using my family’s vacation money for yarn (not that I hadn’t done
that
before), and, most important, knitting the sheep shawl out of alpaca. But I decided it was just so clear. It was fated. Look at how it all fit together: I needed some new lace weight; I was lost in the boonies; I found yarn I could afford for the pattern I was planning—in a garage yarn shop? This was a no-brainer. I snatched the yarn up, paid in cash so as not to leave a paper trail, and raced back to my uncle’s farm (where we were staying) to cast on.

At first I struggled with the way the pattern was turning out. This being my first real lace pattern, I was shocked by how it looked. This was not the elegant gossamer thing in the photo. This looked like a pot scrubber knit from dental floss. It seemed too strange and “open.” I know now that knitting this—well—thread on largish needles is part of what makes the lace so fine and elegant, but at first all I could think was that I should go down one needle size, or maybe twelve. I struggled on, trying to believe that it’s got to be in the blocking.

This shawl took perseverance. The lace-point edging went on until I was bleary-eyed, and the i-cord edging along the top was like walking on hot coals. Casting off did nothing to take away the pot-scrubber image. I started to worry that I might have spent all those painstaking hours knitting something that only resembles a shawl in my imagination. This thing looked like an alpaca version of those oriental noodles that come in weird bricks, four for a dollar.

I was not happy.

Then I blocked it.

Why did no one tell me about blocking lace? This was easily the coolest thing that I had ever done. I soaked the shawl in the bath, then spread its still-ratty-looking folds on the floor. Ever so carefully I stretched it out, gingerly pinning down each edge, each point, each wee cavorting sheep. Two hundred and eleven pins later, the curdled mass opened out into the most elegant, delicate, remarkable shawl. I felt like a hero. I felt like a knitting genius. I stroked it lovingly as it lay pinned to the carpet in the living room. I wanted to leave it there forever, so that all who saw
it might know the joy that I felt at this instant. This shawl was my magnum opus. I was so impressed with myself that I had to go for a little walk to keep myself from unpinning it before it dried.

When it was actually dry, I found that I was, in reality, feeling a little nervous about taking out these strategically placed pins. What if it reverted to the Chinese noodle state when I picked it up? Maybe I hadn’t done the magic right. I finally decided that it was best to unpin it right then, while no one was home. Then if it didn’t work I wouldn’t have to show it to anyone. I could just make up some story about a big bird getting into the house—yeah, that’s it, a big bird swept down into the living room. I tried to fight it off with a knitting needle but it was too big and too angry. I was desperate; I fought for what seemed like hours, but I couldn’t stop it from taking the shawl. I’ll tell people that I’m devastated about losing it, but at least I escaped with my life.

Alibi in place, I unpinned the shawl.

It was still magic. It was a thing of beauty. It was … there are no words. I decided instantly that lace knitting is very, very, very cool. I also decided that I didn’t want to give it away. My mother didn’t know about the shawl. I could just keep it. I’d need to remember never to wear it in front of my mother, which might be a little difficult, given that I never wanted to wear anything else ever again.

Suddenly, in that very moment, I was no longer generous, or even a process knitter. It was all about the product and I wanted it to be
mine.

I also experienced a remarkable wave of knitterly pride. I was no longer humble. I wanted to show people. I looked
around. No people, and the cat wasn’t impressed. I was alone.

I listened carefully; there were people on the street. Aha! My neighbors! Now I didn’t know these neighbors very well, in fact, I didn’t even know their names, but they seemed like nice folks. I was sure that they would want to see this shawl.

I didn’t even stop to put on my shoes. I was on a high of rabid knitterly smugness. I rushed outside with my shawl, holding it aloft like the Olympic torch.

My neighbors looked surprised as I rushed up with this piece of knitting. Well, surprised might be a generous way of describing the look on their faces as I came bolting out of my house with knitting held aloft and ran excitedly down the street toward them, a barefoot crazy lady, yelling, “Hey! Hey, you! Want to see something really cool?”

They really were interested, and they asked me if I made it, and they gushed about how soft it was and said it sure was impressive, and wasn’t I talented. Conceivably, they were thinking that it was safer to humor the nut ball with the knitting. But it made me feel good. I was prepared to believe that they meant every word.

I thanked them for their time, apologized for seeming crazy (they smiled and nodded, but they did think I was crazy), and I turned, temporarily pacified, to go back into the house to phone everyone that I knew to tell them that I was the best knitter in the world. I was a fine practitioner of this highly skilled art. I was proud to be a knitter.

As I walked away I heard my neighbor behind me as she said to her husband:

“Well, now, wasn’t that some fancy crochet?”

Dear Famous Designer,

I’d like to apologize for all the things that I said about you last night. I was upset about my failure to accomplish your latest sock pattern, and I may have misdirected my anger. I know that there is no way that you heard what I said about you, but trust me … I owe you an apology.

When I cast on your entrelac socks (from your latest collection,
AbFab Socks to Die For)
I may not have had the best attitude. I’m sorry that I called the start to your sock “dumb-ass.” It was really just that I thought that starting a sock with that little square and picking up stitches around it so that I got a round toe, was … well, I guess I owe you for the “colossal waste of time” crack too. I deeply regret that I did not trust that you might have a reason for making a toe that way, I’m sure that it’s my fault that I don’t have toes as round as yours. It’s probably just a little birth defect.
Now
that I’ve knit a little ways on the entrelac part I see where you were going with that particular technique. It turns out that you aren’t “out of your freaking mind,” as I
said you were. I guess I deserve the trouble I’m going to get into when I’ve got to work out how to position the heel, considering that it’s pretty round too. You really did think it through. Sorry for doubting you.

After I so carelessly abandoned your toe structure for my own and got to the part where you knit the cute little triangles for the foundation of the entrelac, I’m afraid that I was perhaps a little rash when I said (sort of loudly) that you were “a few jalapeños short of a zippy salsa.” It turns out that I misinterpreted an instruction that was actually very clear (if you are drunker than a wood louse in a rum barrel). Mea culpa.

Mostly, I feel that I must apologize for the … er … “episode” that I had when I got to the instruction for the first proper entrelac rectangles after the little triangles. After an hour of trying to follow the directions to knit one stinking little inane rectangle I may have said some things about you that were unladylike. (My husband, Joe, reminds me that my comment about you and “the horse you rode in on” was particularly callous. Sorry about that.) I eventually trashed your directions and did some other thing that worked out fine. I looked around online to try and find corrections or errata to your pattern but I didn’t find any. Most likely that means that my problems with your instructions are my fault again, and that the tension headache and throbbing vein in my forehead are only what I deserve and not actually the end result of any substance abuse problems on your part, whatever I may have implied.

Finally, and with the most sincere of regrets, I have to take back every single nasty thing that I said about you and your pattern when I ripped the entire thing out at two in the morning and swore off entrelac, your pattern (regrettably), you yourself, and any children you may ever have. I was deeply, deeply wrong to curse your entire
lineage. I must admit that I’ve discovered that I don’t care for entrelac. Well, that’s not entirely fair. While I may have said a thing or two about how I would rather have a root canal without anesthetic than entertain the prospect of knitting those crazy little squares again, what I
really
meant was that I don’t like it in this application.