I knit. Quite a lot. My mother taught me when I was a child. I remember sitting on a train during a Girl Scout trip to New York knitting argyle socks for someone….no idea who. I think I was too young for a boyfriend (things were much slower in those days).
During the next twenty years I knit a gorgeous chocolate brown cable sweater for a guy, with only one sleeve left to go when we broke up. I think that the moths took care of disposing of that over time. I began to take seriously the urban legend that if you knit a sweater for a man, the relationship is doomed. In 1974 however, throwing caution to the winds, I started a black cable knit sweater for Rudy. He’s one of the guys who throws everything in the washing machine, so it had to be acrylic. Acrylic in those days wasn’t the kind of soft cashmere-y stuff you can find now, but it was turning out to be a grand-looking sweater. I was knitting both sleeves at once expecting to finish on Christmas Eve, when the house burned down (that’s definitely a story for another time). Because it wasn’t finished, it wasn’t wrapped and was in the only place in the house where it wasn’t harmed, which was on a dining-room chair pushed under a round table with a non-flammable tablecloth. After years of airing it out, it stopped smelling like burning plastic and I put it away and didn’t come back to the black pile for twenty years. I found a pattern stitch book and recreated the complicated pattern on the sleeves. But I never really got into it…that acrylic yarn just felt like…well, 70’s acrylic. When I started knitting a lot again three years ago, I threw it out, finally. It hadn’t had the famous chilling effect on our relationship. Rudy and I have been married for twenty-seven years. Maybe it was because he was never able to wear it.
In the intervening 20+ years of not-knitting, I had bought some deep wine-colored yarn at Old Deerfield Village, and my youngest daughter (also a knitter) sent me some rose-colored wool from the Black Sheep Wool Co. It sat for years in a hatbox, miraculously untouched by moths. On a whim, three summers ago, I started a sweater for myself with the idea of using up the yarn. As I knit, I thought it lacked….something. So I took myself off to a yarn shop for the first time in maybe 30 years to buy some white yarn. There was this great Peruvian cream color, and a lovely purple, and….and….if you’re a knitter you know the drill. The result was a striped four-color pullover and the beginnings of my stash. Since then, lots of lovely yarn of all kinds, two complete sets of bamboo needles in all sizes, regular and double-pointed. Then circular needles, needles and yarn from consignment stores, stitch holders, pins, a blocking board, rulers, measuring tapes, needle holders, a needle case. Since that summer three years ago, I have made fourteen sweaters (fifteen, if you include the baby sweater I made for my new niece), and sundry other things….a baby quilt, knee warmers, two pairs of socks, a fish toy for the new niece (don’t ask), a lace scarf, and a bunch of hats.
Every October my twin grandchildren and my daughter come to visit from Arizona, where she is a lawyer for the Navajo Nation. Both my daughter Sylvia and granddaughter Elizabeth are also knitters, so there’s always a trip to a yarn store in the offing. Two Octobers ago, then 10 year old Elizabeth picked out a Rowan Big Wool pattern for a jacket, some size 13 needles and some very bulky bright orange yarn, along with wooden buttons which cost the earth (Nona pays). She started knitting the same day and finished half the back by the time they returned to Flagstaff. Apparently that was the end of it. This past February, my husband and my other granddaughter, Heidi, who is 23 and lives with us, travelled to Flagstaff for a few days, to help Sylvia finish her kitchen. While we were there, I found the project lying around and offered to knit it (a much easier task than painting ceilings!). I hadn’t quite finished it by the end of our stay, so I brought it back to Cambridge to finish it up. I sent it off to AZ, Elizabeth sewed on the buttons and wears it constantly.
Her mother asked for one for Christmas. And it’s such a quick pattern that I’m happy to comply. I ordered a ton of bulky yarn on-line. (I have to be careful or I would bankrupt us. I have never found a hank of yarn on sale that I didn’t have to have). It all arrived this summer while I was in the middle of two other sweaters….beautiful hanks of amethyst, burgundy, russet, black and white.
Several weeks ago, I realized that I needed to get started on Christmas knitting, so I abandoned for awhile: a cotton boat-necked pullover of a sort of elastic yarn (meant for socks) in the most heavenly blue color, and a heavy cotton jacket with intarsia squares, stripes and flowers. Both of them slow and labor intensive. The jacket is highly patterned (and I’m making it up as I go along, roll over Kaffe Fassett!), so I really have to pay attention. The blue one is TV knitting, simple, but many stitches to the inch. I started on the Rowan pattern with the new amethyst bulky yarn, and it was finished in no time. If one were really diligent, one could knit it in a weekend. Today I will sew in the raglan sleeves, and then I can knit the collar. I will mine my huge button box for beautiful buttons. I’ll sew the side and sleeve seams, and hide it when Sylvia and the grandkids come to stay. My present TV knitting is an alpaca multicolored scarf in a lace pattern. I really love knitting. I love giving knitted things for Christmas. I hope my relatives and friends like getting knitted things for Christmas, but even if they didn’t, I’d probably keep on knitting anyway.
During the next twenty years I knit a gorgeous chocolate brown cable sweater for a guy, with only one sleeve left to go when we broke up. I think that the moths took care of disposing of that over time. I began to take seriously the urban legend that if you knit a sweater for a man, the relationship is doomed. In 1974 however, throwing caution to the winds, I started a black cable knit sweater for Rudy. He’s one of the guys who throws everything in the washing machine, so it had to be acrylic. Acrylic in those days wasn’t the kind of soft cashmere-y stuff you can find now, but it was turning out to be a grand-looking sweater. I was knitting both sleeves at once expecting to finish on Christmas Eve, when the house burned down (that’s definitely a story for another time). Because it wasn’t finished, it wasn’t wrapped and was in the only place in the house where it wasn’t harmed, which was on a dining-room chair pushed under a round table with a non-flammable tablecloth. After years of airing it out, it stopped smelling like burning plastic and I put it away and didn’t come back to the black pile for twenty years. I found a pattern stitch book and recreated the complicated pattern on the sleeves. But I never really got into it…that acrylic yarn just felt like…well, 70’s acrylic. When I started knitting a lot again three years ago, I threw it out, finally. It hadn’t had the famous chilling effect on our relationship. Rudy and I have been married for twenty-seven years. Maybe it was because he was never able to wear it.
In the intervening 20+ years of not-knitting, I had bought some deep wine-colored yarn at Old Deerfield Village, and my youngest daughter (also a knitter) sent me some rose-colored wool from the Black Sheep Wool Co. It sat for years in a hatbox, miraculously untouched by moths. On a whim, three summers ago, I started a sweater for myself with the idea of using up the yarn. As I knit, I thought it lacked….something. So I took myself off to a yarn shop for the first time in maybe 30 years to buy some white yarn. There was this great Peruvian cream color, and a lovely purple, and….and….if you’re a knitter you know the drill. The result was a striped four-color pullover and the beginnings of my stash. Since then, lots of lovely yarn of all kinds, two complete sets of bamboo needles in all sizes, regular and double-pointed. Then circular needles, needles and yarn from consignment stores, stitch holders, pins, a blocking board, rulers, measuring tapes, needle holders, a needle case. Since that summer three years ago, I have made fourteen sweaters (fifteen, if you include the baby sweater I made for my new niece), and sundry other things….a baby quilt, knee warmers, two pairs of socks, a fish toy for the new niece (don’t ask), a lace scarf, and a bunch of hats.
Every October my twin grandchildren and my daughter come to visit from Arizona, where she is a lawyer for the Navajo Nation. Both my daughter Sylvia and granddaughter Elizabeth are also knitters, so there’s always a trip to a yarn store in the offing. Two Octobers ago, then 10 year old Elizabeth picked out a Rowan Big Wool pattern for a jacket, some size 13 needles and some very bulky bright orange yarn, along with wooden buttons which cost the earth (Nona pays). She started knitting the same day and finished half the back by the time they returned to Flagstaff. Apparently that was the end of it. This past February, my husband and my other granddaughter, Heidi, who is 23 and lives with us, travelled to Flagstaff for a few days, to help Sylvia finish her kitchen. While we were there, I found the project lying around and offered to knit it (a much easier task than painting ceilings!). I hadn’t quite finished it by the end of our stay, so I brought it back to Cambridge to finish it up. I sent it off to AZ, Elizabeth sewed on the buttons and wears it constantly.
Her mother asked for one for Christmas. And it’s such a quick pattern that I’m happy to comply. I ordered a ton of bulky yarn on-line. (I have to be careful or I would bankrupt us. I have never found a hank of yarn on sale that I didn’t have to have). It all arrived this summer while I was in the middle of two other sweaters….beautiful hanks of amethyst, burgundy, russet, black and white.
Several weeks ago, I realized that I needed to get started on Christmas knitting, so I abandoned for awhile: a cotton boat-necked pullover of a sort of elastic yarn (meant for socks) in the most heavenly blue color, and a heavy cotton jacket with intarsia squares, stripes and flowers. Both of them slow and labor intensive. The jacket is highly patterned (and I’m making it up as I go along, roll over Kaffe Fassett!), so I really have to pay attention. The blue one is TV knitting, simple, but many stitches to the inch. I started on the Rowan pattern with the new amethyst bulky yarn, and it was finished in no time. If one were really diligent, one could knit it in a weekend. Today I will sew in the raglan sleeves, and then I can knit the collar. I will mine my huge button box for beautiful buttons. I’ll sew the side and sleeve seams, and hide it when Sylvia and the grandkids come to stay. My present TV knitting is an alpaca multicolored scarf in a lace pattern. I really love knitting. I love giving knitted things for Christmas. I hope my relatives and friends like getting knitted things for Christmas, but even if they didn’t, I’d probably keep on knitting anyway.
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