Yarn Harlot

by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

  Looking at the label, I swing back and forth between two possibilities: First, that there was an honest mistake on the label, something that was lost in translation, or second, (this is the one I prefer) that the makers of this yarn are just plain vicious, and spend their days laughing about the poor helpless souls like Ken and myself, reduced to tears and scotch by their not-funny joke.

  I remeasure the sweater after its brave journey into the dryer and back. Nuts. It’s still too big. I’m suspecting Ken’s tension was off, but can’t figure how. He was knitting to gauge all along, and the sweater was handled plenty before this happened, so you would think that it would have grown (at least a little—just to hint at the disaster lurking ahead). Somebody mentioned that superwash wool should be knit a little tighter because of this whole “not sticking” deal. Perhaps that’s the problem.

  Ken’s sweater is wider than it is long at this point … and it’s plenty long. I’ve come up with the following plan. My willingness to execute this plan is an indicator of how much I love him, and so I’ve told him. I will:

  Undo the shoulder seams (a thousand curses … my seams were beautiful).

  Rip back the neck and the shoulder straps.

  Rip back each and every piece of the sweater by one pattern repeat (this means that the sleeves will lose some of their increases … an added bonus) and reknit the neck opening to make it smaller.

  Somehow make it less wide, by taking a rather astonishing three or four inches off each side of the front and back. (I’m telling you, this puppy is big. The shoulder seam sits at my elbow. It needs this much shrinking to become an oversize sweater.)

  This last one is the killer. I know that cut-and-sew is probably what you are all going to suggest. I have some concerns about that. (Ha! Concerns! Obsessive, neurotic, quaking phobias are more like it!) My concern is that the same quality that makes the superwash all stretchy when wet—this slipperiness—is going to mean that it’s likely to unravel. Part of what makes cut-and-sew with ordinary wool not so scary is that the wool holds onto itself. This (insert expletive of your choice here) yarn is not going to do this … right? So what if I sew, serge, whatever, down the sides and I miss one little strand and the whole thing just … well… imagine the horror! Ken and I would never recover. Professional help, that’s what we’d need. Our friend Lene estimates that electroshock therapy might be a start.

  For those of you concerned about Ken’s mental health, know that he’s taking this rather well. I called him at work a couple of times to prepare him. This was a really good move, since, by the time he saw it, it had made its trip to the dryer and wasn’t as bad as he had imagined. He’s currently kicking himself for coming up with this idea in the first place. Admittedly, while I’m sure that this will work out, a gravy boat does seem like a better wedding present than matching sweaters at the moment.

  Here’s the astonishing thing: Wouldn’t you think that, given the litany of terrors this sweater has unleashed upon Ken, it would be years—perhaps never!—before he’d consider knitting another of these? Guess again. The brave and dear man currently has the exact same sweater on needles (in another yarn, thank heavens) and is attempting to finish it in a month in case the whole repair process on the first one doesn’t work out. He’s completely deluded, of course, but it seems to be giving him hope. Imagine trying again. It’s a wonder he’s sober, never mind knitting.

  June 1

  Where Do We Get the Strength?

  It’s been a harrowing weekend here. Ken and I finally accepted that cut-and-sew was our only option for narrowing the sweater. I lack words for the kind of terror that statement inspired in me. Three little words … and all I could see was this sweater unraveling from the cut sides into a wad of wool that resembled those freaky snack noodles that come in bricks.

  Some of the reassurances from other knitters have not been confidence-inspiring. One knitter told me to be sure and run two rows of stitching as this “helps keep it from unraveling.” Helps???!!!??? Oh Lord! The room spun around me. In a fit of neurotic panic, I decided not only to run two rows of stitching one stitch apart, but also to serge down the side. (The serger would bind the edge as it cut the extra knitting off.) Overkill, you say? I think not.

  The die was cast: Mine would be the hand of death. I sat at the sewing machine and launched in. I used twenty-two stitches to the inch—don’t laugh, I was freaking!—and ran down the sides twice. That done, I took out the serger, threaded the temperamental thing, and raised the sweater. Suddenly, with no warning, I lost it. A fit of nervous laughter overcame me. Ken, hovering and looking pale, announced a sudden need for the bathroom and took off. Abandoned, I began. After the first harrowing few inches, I calmed somewhat. The sweater was not unraveling into one big unrecognizable mess, and the edge looked okay. “Hey!” think I, “This isn’t so bad.” A wave of relief washed over me. Ken returned. He paled when he saw the scrambled mess that the serger was cutting off, but rallied somewhat.

  Apparently, we got comfortable too soon. Just when I was on the brink of relaxing right into it—well, relaxing as much as one can while slicing up a sweater that took three months of Ken’s life—disaster struck. The serger, for reasons known only to itself, decided to stop binding the edge but continued to cut. In essence it became a sweater cutter, not a serger. Imagine this for a minute. I’m serging away (or so I think), carefully watching the knitting going into the serger—I want it to be neat after all—when suddenly I happen to glance at what is coming out of the serger. A SLICED AND UNRAVELING SWEATER, that’s what. It did not occur to me that it wasn’t going to unravel very far, not with those two other rows of stitching, but I didn’t think of this while all the air was going out of the room. Stunned, I began to gasp. I might have moaned. I’m not sure. What is sure is that I made enough noise to bring Ken from the other room. He came in slowly. I can only imagine what the dear heart was thinking, but he couldn’t have imagined how bad it was.

  At this point, I’m a little shaky on the details. I tried to reserge over the edge, but the serger had stopped trying and I was losing it. I began to cry, and to laugh hysterically (when overwrought I tend to combine the two); Ken retired to the bathroom again, where he admits that he may have shed a few manly tears. Once the crying had stopped, and Ken and I had gathered ourselves (we are apparently people of great bravery and fortitude), Ken took a turn at the serger. He didn’t get it working, but we did divine the problem: Something just wasn’t hooking up right. So we hooked in manually and were back in business. I fed it in the front, and Ken hovered above, watching the back to make sure that it didn’t quit serging again. You have never seen two people more intense and intent in your life. The rather trying escapade wrapped up at two in the morning.

  Ken is in the process of knitting the shoulder straps back in, then redoing the neck (on smaller needles); then I’ll start back in with the making up. The wedding is looming before us. Hope we make it. If there is one more problem with these sweaters, I feel that I would be perfectly justified in throwing both of us upon a stack of 2-millimeter double-pointed needles and hoping for a fatal puncture wound.

  Back to knitting the bride’s sweater for me.

  June 22

  Finale.

  Oh joy, oh bliss, oh blessed, blessed day. The wedding sweaters are finished. Oh, that felt so good I’m going to type it again. The wedding sweaters are finished. Yup, even better the second time.

  I think I’m just going to wander through my day today, uttering the magic words over, and over again. I’m going to tell people who don’t care. I’m going to tell the bus driver. I’m thinking about calling the yarn shop and everyone I ever met, starting with the As in my personal phone book, and working on through.

  THE WEDDING SWEATERS ARE FINISHED.

  THE WEDDING SWEATERS ARE FINISHED.

  THE WEDDING SWEATERS ARE FINISHED.

  The Cardigan Letter

  I think I have a little problem. This morning when I came down from the bedro
om I found this note skewered to a half-finished cardigan I’ve been neglecting. I’m trying not to be to alarmed, both because I have deep concerns about what would happen to me if my knits-in-progress did turn on me (I’m a little outnumbered, and they have all those pointy sticks) and because the note was held in place with an especially pointy blood-red metal knitting needle.

  Dear Tramping, Harloting Trollop,

  I’ve been there for you for almost four years, ever since the spring of 2000. I remember how it was in our salad days, back then in the beginning. You were charmed by me, you cast me on the moment you saw my well-written pattern and clear charts. We spent many evenings together, you and I, with you running my soft fibers through your hands, caressing my defined stitches … I thought we would be together forever. Perhaps I was naïve, but when you knit my whole back, both fronts, and a sleeve, I thought you were showing me real commitment. Now I wonder if it was all a lie.

  When it started, it was just the small things, a sock, a pair of mittens. It was easy to overlook your duplicity, the way you were knitting other things. Everyone makes mistakes. I pretended not to notice that your mother had a new hat. Then it started to be embarrassing. Whole sweaters, several of them. A shawl—for crying out loud Steph, you didn’t think I would notice a whole shawl? What did you think the other wool in the closet would say? I’m a tolerant project, but every stitch pattern has its limits and I wonder if you think I’m just supposed to let that 50 percent alpaca talk to me like that? I’m about ten seconds away from tangling his skein.

  How long has it been since you said my name? You just laugh, sitting there with your self-patterning sock yarn, calling me The Sweater That Will Not Be Named. I know you think it’s funny to put me down like that, but don’t you think it hurts me? How do you think I feel when you put me in the basket and take out some cheap novelty yarn? “Alison needs a scarf”—yeah, sure. Everyone knows that hussy you’re doing yarn overs with is 100 percent polyester.

  Can’t you see what you are doing? You will never find another yarn like me, I’m a discontinued line, and here you just turn your back on me? Why don’t you just pull the needles right out of me?

  This doesn’t make any sense to me. You keep talking about how cold you are—look at yourself, sitting there in a cheap, common Wal-Mart cardigan with holes in it. Can’t you see how you’re hurting us both?

  Do you think that I didn’t see you with that lace weight last night? The swatch is right on the table. You don’t even try to hide your wicked ways any longer. This has got to stop.

  Just finish my sleeve and collar and do the making up, and we can be together, baby, I can keep you warm. I love you despite it all.

  Ever thine, but running out of patience,

  Your Cardigan

  P.S. Touch the lace weight again and the alpaca gets it.

  My response:

  Dear Cardigan,

  As soon as I was done sewing up your seams I could see what you were trying to tell me. Please forgive me for the three and a half years (four was a bit of an exaggeration, darling) that I neglected you. I was so wrong to stuff you into the knitting basket. I understand now that my normal urge to see other knits went too far. I could see that it hurt you, but I was selfish and I thought I wanted all that imported wool. I find their accents so charming that I forgot what a nice Canadian wool I had at home. Please forgive me for forgetting all of the reasons that we made this commitment in the first place.

  I’m sorry for teasing you by taking you out of the closet and working three rows on you every couple of months. I see now that I was causing you pain, and I know I was leading you on. For that, I owe you a sincere apology. I know that you took my advances as signs that I was ready to come back to you; I should have been clearer about my emotional reluctance. I was knitting mohair, and it makes my concepts fuzzy.

  I’m especially sorry for thinking that putting you inside the clear plastic zipper bag that the duvet came in was a nice way to keep the dust off you. I realize now that I was only accentuating your loneliness by forcing you to view the world through a rippled, clear prison.

  Now that you have your strong ribs around my shoulders I never want to be without you. While I may wear other sweaters some days, know that my heart is always with you.

  Stephanie

  P.S. Even though I’ve sewn the buttons on lots of other stuff, with you it was really special.

  The Thing About Socks

  The thing about socks is—well, I’m not really sure what it is. I have knit hundreds of pairs of socks and I know hundreds of knitters who have done the same. Despite the seeming monotony of turning out all of these thousands of pairs of socks, not one of us is bored. Investing in sock yarn companies has continued to be a wise financial decision. There’s something about socks that’s special.

  It could be because they are so portable. Dedicated sock knitters love the way you can tuck a sock into your bag no matter where you’re going. A sock, no matter how close to completion, never becomes unwieldy or enormous or spills off your lap onto the floor of the waiting room or muddy bottom of the bus.

  It could be because socks are so practical. Shawls are for special occasions; sweaters for cold days when they match your outfit; hats, scarves, and mittens are destined to stand between us and weather—but socks? Socks are everyday usefulness. Everybody needs them, from newborns to centenarians. A commonplace pair of handknit socks meets the human gold standard for belongings, being both beautiful and useful.

  It could be because of socks’ enormous variety. You can make cable socks, plain socks, socks with ribbing that goes all the way to the toes. Socks with intarsia, socks with Fair Isle bands, socks in intricate lace from top to toe. Get silk sock yarn, sock yarn that knits up all by itself into fetching patterns, sock yarn with mohair, or nylon or cotton. Feeling tired of tiny needles? Make boot socks from worsted weight handspun. Make tiny ankle high shorties or make a commitment, dammit, and knit a pair of knee-high kilt hose for your favorite kilt-wearing darling.

  It could be because socks are cheap. Not as cheap as picking up five pairs for $10 at your local discount store, but cheaper than sweaters or afghans or scarves. A pair of socks takes only a skein or two, a finished project with a minimum of yarn investment. You don’t have to save up for months to buy the materials and even an outrageous sock yarn stash can fit in the most modest of closets. (You might not be able to get anything else in there, but the stash will fit.)

  Or it could be because socks are so intimate. Socks go on over bare skin, the only thing between the feet of your heart and the big cold world. Your rounds of stitches cradle the recipient’s feet on their journey over the planet. Socks protect sensitive toes from cold floors and wrap them cozy before bedtime.

  These are all really good reasons to knit socks, but they aren’t the reason I knit them. I knit them because they are an unmistakable expression of love, simply because they do not last forever.

  Used as it is intended, a sweater can be with you your whole life. Knitted blankets are passed down as heirlooms and sweet tiny baby things you make for your own little ones can be tucked away until your babies have babies of their own. Not socks. Used as intended, even with careful handwashing and conscientious care, a pair of socks has a lifespan. They can, of course, be darned. (I use my mother’s method: I hold the holey sock over the garbage bin and loudly exclaim, “Darn it,” before dropping it in. I’m a knitter, not a sock repair person.) Socks can be humored, but in the end—which isn’t very far off, let me tell you—socks will be walked through. You can get reinforcing thread; you can knit in woolly nylon; you can carefully work a double thickness into the heel or toe, but socks are doomed.

  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 puddl
ing 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.