Not a shred of evidence exists in
favor of the idea that life is serious.
— BRENDAN GILL
I try to keep this quotation in mind whenever it seems to me that I might have to cry because my knitting isn’t working out. Making mistakes in knitting isn’t a serious problem. It’s just knitting; it’s supposed to be a fun hobby. It isn’t supposed to be a process that stresses you out and causes upset, anger, or the urge to put a needle into your thigh.
I will reserve that honor for accidentally throwing a hand knit in the washing machine.
Nobody has ever been killed by his or her knitting.
I value my garden more for being full of
blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly
give them fruit for their songs.
— JOSEPH ADDISON
As I am a woman of little patience, I occasionally set fleece and yarn in my backyard to dry. The fresh air dries it very quickly, and it makes me very happy to see the pretty colors of the wool drying next to the flowers and trees. I feel like I’m at one with nature. The birds sing, the garden blooms, and my wool dries in the pretty sunshine.
I will try to retain this feeling, even as I notice that the thieving little birds are ripping off my yarn for nest materials.
You know you
knit too much when …
Your kids complain that
you are paying too much
attention to your knitting,
so you switch to a garter
stitch project.
Respect yourself and others will respect you.
— CONFUCIUS
Perhaps because knitting is mostly done by women, or perhaps because it is considered by some to be one of the “domestic arts,” such as sweeping or doing the dishes, there is a tendency, even among those of us who do it, to consider it simple, frivolous, or unworthy.
I will remember, the next time someone asks me about my hobby, to refrain from calling it “just knitting.”
If you rest, you rust.
— HELEN HAYES
My Auntie Helen is very old. She is so old, in fact, that everyone in the family has lost track of how old exactly she might be, though we all agree that she is well past ninety. She has always knit mittens for us, and even now, though her hands get sore and her eyesight is failing her, she continues to knit, only from memory instead of from a pattern. If you ask her what the secret to her vibrant and productive old age is, she’ll tell you that you just need to keep moving.
As I grow older, I can hope that I will continue to knit… even if I can’t read a pattern. It will help me keep moving.
Youth is a wonderful thing.
What a crime to waste it on children.
— GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Ihave taught all my children and plenty of other people’s children how to knit. Most kids are capable of it at about the age of five, and it is a real treat to watch a youngster discover the joys of knitting and hold up a misshapen little scarf, thrilled to be able to say “I made it myself.”
Always remember, should you decide to pass on your knitting knowledge to the next generation, that kids have a natural aptitude for handiwork, a knack for learning, and given half a chance, are absolutely driven to poke each other with pointy sticks.
I just need enough to tide me over
until I need more.
— BILL HOEST
3 signs you have a serious yarn habit:
You have invested money in a yarn storage solution that involves more than one room of your house.
You can feel your heart stall for a second when you see a moth.
When you moved to another city, the lady who owns the yarn shop in your old neighborhood had her car repossessed.
For every problem there is a solution
which is simple, clean and wrong.
— HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN
Having discovered that I made a critical error knitting the cap sleeves of a sweater, I sat down and had a little think about it. The answer came to me quickly. (Perhaps too quickly.) Because the problem was that the shoulder parts of the sleeves were now too big, I realized that I could simply add more room to the shoulder area of the front and back. It was beautiful in its simplicity, and I didn’t have to reknit the sleeves.
I am working toward accepting that I apparently missed my calling. I should be knitting football uniforms. The thing is perfect for a linebacker.
Nothing deters a good man from
doing what is honorable.
— SENECA
Being a knitting mother leads to certain challenges. It is difficult to find the time to knit, it is hard to keep toddlers from pulling the needles from your knitting, and it is even harder to keep a new baby from spitting up on the new blanket you made. The hardest thing, however, the most certain challenge for a knitting mother, is trying to make your kids be good for two hours in a yarn shop.
I will remember that desperate times call for desperate measures, and that bribing a kid with money or candy can be honorable if you do it right.
If we see you smoking
we will assume you are on fire
and take appropriate action.
— DOUGLAS ADAMS
People knit for their own reasons, but some of the most intense knitters I know are the ones who used it to help them quit smoking. It’s a perfect plan, really; knitting keeps your hands busy, and it is relaxing and repetitive enough to hold off most of the urges to smoke. You get to spend your cigarette money on yarn, a powerful motivator, and two weeks after you quit you have four sweaters, three hats, and several really big afghans.
Knitting can be a useful tool for self-improvement.
I adore simple pleasures.
They are the last refuge of the complex.
— OSCAR WILDE
Lots of knitters knit washcloths, and lots of other knitters make fun of them for it. Simple or fancy, these humble little squares of cotton appear by the millions in some knitters’ homes, along with patterns for them by the hundreds. Knitters who love them say they are the softest cloths you can get, they can be made to match the bathroom perfectly, and they are a gentle exfoliator … making you a younger-looking knitter. These knitters claim they love trying out different stitches on something small, and that they get a kick out of a cheap, easy project.
Before I mock the simple art of washcloth knitting, I will consider how good it would feel to finish four projects in a day.
You know you
knit too much when …
You hear that a friend is
going though a difficult
time, and even though this
friend doesn’t knit, you
consider dropping yarn off
at her house to make her
feel better.
The art of war is simple enough. Find out
where your enemy is. Get at him as soon
as you can. Strike him as hard as you can,
and keep moving.
— ULYSSES S. GRANT
The one time I found a moth in my stash, some thought that I overreacted. I cleaned, vacuumed, froze, baked, or microwaved every skein of yarn that I had; threw away anything I could possibly live without. Then I put all the yarn that had been anywhere near the moth into baggies and placed them in quarantine. My best and most precious yarn was placed in a deep freezer, dedicated solely to wool storage. The rest of the yarn entered a strict surveillance program, which has continued for years. Even though I have never seen another moth, I have not lessened my state of constant vigilance.
There is no way to overreact to a moth.
Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.
— JIM HORNING
I was teaching a knitting class and had started the group with the most basic scarf project in the world. The pattern is so simple that I will give it to you here. Browse the yarn shop until you find a worsted-weight yarn you adore. On 5mm needles, cast on 40 stitches, then knit every stitch of every ro
w until your yarn is almost gone or you think the scarf is long enough. Cast off.
The class sat diligently, knitting every stitch of every row until the hour was up, then packed up their things and left.
An hour later I got a phone call from one of the scarf knitters in the class. “I’m so glad you are still there,” she said. “I forgot my pattern. Can you fax it to me? I want to keep working on my scarf.”
Everyone learns at her own pace. I can resist the urge to tease the stragglers.
The road of excess leads to
the palace of wisdom.
— WILLIAM BLAKE
5 reasons to hoard yarn:
If you get enough of it, yarn can act as house insulation.
Yarns get discontinued. Think about that, then buy accordingly.
Nobody is ever going to understand how seriously you take knitting if you don’t have lots of yarn as proof.
Yarn has absolutely no expiration date.
Hairless cats appeared in Toronto in 1963. What if that happens to sheep? What if it spreads? What if all that is left in the world is what you have?
I will not try to limit my yarn supply any more than an artist tries to limit his paints.
I became insane, with long intervals of
horrible sanity!
— EDGAR ALLAN POE
Dear Designer whose name I shall not mention to be polite, If you think that I need to start seeing a therapist you could have just told me. There was no need to conduct this charade. You knew I would buy this pattern, you knew that the yarn would be discontinued, you knew that there would be no way that I would ever be able to achieve gauge with any other yarn in the world no matter how many I tried, and you knew that this would turn me into a delusional raving maniac. I give up. I am going to make a king-size afghan out of the hundreds of swatches I have knit during the time I spent working on it and forget that I ever saw this sweater.
Let’s never speak of this again.
Difficult patterns are not necessarily a personal issue. I will not mail this letter.
As I work among my flowers, I find myself
talking to them, reasoning and remonstrating
with them, and adoring them as if they were
human beings. Much laughter I provoke
among my friends by so doing, but that is of
no consequence. We are on such good terms,
my flowers and I.
— CELIA THAXTER
Some knitters say that they buy yarn with no project in mind and wait patiently for the yarn to “speak” to them. This reminds me of Michelangelo, who believed that every block of stone he carved had the statue waiting inside and that all he did was reveal it. I think I’ve had yarn speak to me during the knitting process, and I’ve definitely spoken to it. Perhaps I’m doing it wrong, or maybe my yarn and I aren’t on such good terms, but it really seems to me that all I say is “please” and all it ever says is “no.”
Friendship is a strong and
habitual inclination in two persons
to promote the good and
happiness of one another.
— EUSTACE BUDGELL
I have a friend named Laurie. She lives very far away from me, and I have to content myself with e-mails and letters and the occasional surprise package. Besides being a clever and thoughtful woman, Laurie is a genius. She spins and knits and dyes the most beautiful things, and there is not a day that I don’t think of her and wish that I lived closer to her, just so that I could have the pleasure of her company and the comfortable reassurance that there is someone else out there who is definitely as insane about knitting as I am. Some time ago, Laurie dyed some wool, spun it into sock yarn, and mailed it to me. I knit it up into the most beautiful and comfortable socks I have ever owned. The heels are a little bit wonky (I screwed them up a little), but they remain the best things I can put on my feet. They feel like a joint effort, Laurie’s spinning and my knitting, and whenever the world gets a little bit tough I put them on. They are tangible evidence that I am never alone and friendless.
I will never diminish the magical powers of knitting, where friendship can be mailed in 200 yards of homespun.
Better three hours too soon
than a minute too late.
— WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
My husband, an otherwise wonderful human being, has a fairly loose relationship with time. He is seldom punctual, and even less often aware that he is late. If I added up all the time that I spend waiting for him, 15 minutes here, 10 minutes there … I would probably have to divorce him instantly in a fit of outrage. Instead, because I have the miracle of knitting to save my marriage, I sit happily each time, patiently knitting until he arrives.
I will consider that my husband might work harder to be on time if I would stop rewarding him with the socks that I knit while waiting.
Always remember you’re unique,
just like everyone else.
— ALISON BOULTER
One time when I was at a party the conversation turned to knitting and how much fun it is and how everybody should do it. (I may have been the only one talking right then.) A woman stood right across from me, looked me in the eye, and told me that she had tried knitting and that it wasn’t fun, it was sort of dumb and boring. She hadn’t liked it at all.
I stared at her like she had a third eye. I’ve always thought that if somebody didn’t care for knitting it was because they hadn’t tried it. To have done it and not be captivated by the wonder of it was inconceivable.
I will try to accept that knitting is not for everyone, but really know that if she didn’t like knitting … she wasn’t doing it right.
I don’t believe in stereotypes,
I prefer to hate people on
a more personal basis.
— ANONYMOUS
There are those who believe that knitting is still the province of elderly women with nothing better to do. They think that it is a rocking chair activity that a young lady might participate in only if she is expecting a baby or is a little more boring, lonely, or friendless than we had all hoped for. Simple proof that knitting has broken free of the bonds of this stereotype can be had by anyone with access to the Internet. A two-minute search will reveal patterns for willie warmers, thongs, and lingerie, definitely intended for knitters who leave their houses and have active social lives.
By acknowledging the diversity of knitters, I can celebrate it without needing to knit a really itchy thong.
I didn’t do very well in math — I could never
seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn’t
meant my answers literally.
— CALVIN TRILLIN
Myriad ways have been devised to help knitters keep track of how many rows they have knit or where they are in a pattern. Some knitters use a row counter; others use a clicker. Many make marks on a piece of paper, and some cross out instructions on the pattern as they complete them. Being somewhat numerically challenged, the best idea I ever heard was to use M&Ms. If you have 32 rows to knit, then you make a pile of 32 candies beside you. At the end of each row, you eat one. When they are gone, you are done. Brilliant in its simplicity, isn’t it?
Remember that this technique can result in screwy socks and really short sweaters if you have children and leave your knitting unattended.
You know you
knit too much when …
You take knitting to a
wedding, in case there’s a
little time before the bride
comes down the aisle.
Double points if you are
the bride.
The nice thing about being a celebrity
is that when you bore people,
they think it’s their fault.
— HENRY KISSINGER
Sally Fields, Daryl Hannah, Julianne Moore, Brooke Shields, Bridget Fonda, Tyra Banks, Debra Messing, Caroline Rhea, Laurence Fishburne, Justine Bateman, Russell Crowe, Uma Thurman, Madonna, Cameron Diaz, Madeleine Alb
right, Kate Moss, Eartha Kitt, Sandra Bullock, Hilary Swank, Karen Allen, Sarah Jessica Parker, Joanne Woodward, Elizabeth Taylor, Stu Bloomberg, Goldie Hawn, and Jennifer Aniston all knit and buy yarn.
I do not need the endorsement of celebrities to make me think knitting is cool. I think it’s pretty neat that they all want to be like me.
There’s a fine line between genius and
insanity. I have erased this line.
— OSCAR LEVANT
It takes a special kind of knitter to truly understand knitting. These knitters can be identified by their advanced knitting skills, the evolved and cunning nature of their work, and a deep understanding of the knitter’s art. Other subtle hints include round-the-clock stitching, yarn in every room of the house, and an unnatural interest in the reverse side of store-bought sweaters.
I am not obsessed. I am gaining experience.
If you knew what I know about the power
of giving, you would not let a single meal
pass without sharing it in some way.
— BUDDHA
I taught all my children to knit, and mostly I am glad that I did. It’s a double-edged sword, though. On the one hand, I now live with delightful daughters who enjoy one of the same things that I do, and it’s not often that you get to have that kind of common ground with a teenager. On the other hand, they think we should all share my yarn.
I will try to be generous about giving my children my wool, even though I have already given them a place to live, food to eat, and the best years of my life.
It is very difficult to live among people you
love and hold back from offering them advice.
— ANNE TYLER
In the early spring I knit my daughter a beautiful pair of green and yellow socks. They reminded me of sunshine on the new leaves in the garden. I imagined my willowy young daughter in the socks and it made me happy. Part of the joy of knitting is imagining the items in use, and while I was knitting them I loved the idea that she would look so beautiful and elegant, especially when she wore them with her new spring coat.
I will remember that they belong to her once given, and that I have no right to rip the socks right off her ungrateful little feet when she puts them on with hot-pink tights and combat boots.
Creativity is allowing yourself to make
mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
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