Prime Time Knitter

Glacial Progress

Although the Cold War years might now be viewed as a period of hysteria and mass paranoia, they were a boon for me.  The main reason is that after the Russians launched Sputnik, the US government spent huge amounts on science education.  And I was plucked from an ordinary, dull grade school class and admitted to a program with an intensive curriculum in general science and geology.  I had a really great teacher in that program in seventh and eighth grades who turned me from an indifferent and lazy student into someone who would work if sufficiently motivated.  The year of geology in ninth grade was also wonderful.   The only exception was our class trip to observe the roche moutonnées, a type of rock formation (which translates as “sheep rock”) with glacial striations, in Central Park on a day that felt as if it were below zero. Girls could not wear pants to school back then, making the weather not conducive at all to a “walk in the park”. I have on infrequent occasions edited introductory geology books, but for the most part the content of the course only served to add to my personal store of inconsequential knowledge.  The word “arête” shows up often in crossword puzzle clues, and I ace any geology questions on Jeopardy.  In that class, I learned about the idea of “geological time”—tiny events that occur over such long periods that they end up having substantial consequences.  (The parallels with knitting now seem obvious, so you can see where I'm headed with this story.)  These changes were often tied to the progress of glaciers altering landscapes and dumping debris so they formed islands, lakes, and the like.

And it is the idea of glacial progress that came to mind as I finally got through the left front of the Devonshire jacket.  This is all to set you up for another photo of what looks like the same bit of knitting as in past entries, but is an achievement for me because it represents the end of one stage of this project:

It was engrossing to count the orange rows to come up with the places to decrease for the armholes and neck edge.  And I dutifully wrote these down so that I could make the right front match, as I begin it this week.  (I had better not lose my notes, or there might be some explosive volcanic action in my household.)

But then it occurred to me that with global warming, “glacial” might not mean the same thing as it once did.  After all, glaciers are now retreating at an alarmingly fast pace, and so can I also call my sock progress glacial too?

There's a chance I'll finish the 6.5 inch cuff while waiting for the ear doctor to check my blocked eustachian tube this morning, and I'll devote an evening to turning the heel, which will restore this to an automatic pilot project, until the toe.

What a Revoltin' Development This Is

Sometimes the realization I’m getting older strikes me in odd ways.  Work has gotten too busy for me—work that should have been here months ago is just arriving (and needs “immediate attention”), schedules have changed, and I have the chance to work on new projects that will guarantee steady income for a couple of years if I can only get to them now.  I groan and think, “Oh, no. Here we go again. Seven-day weeks.”  And what pops to mind is “What a revoltin’ development this is”.  Now you probably don’t think this is fantastically funny because you never heard of it, but it was the catch phrase of a TV character called “Chester A. Riley” in an early TV sitcom called The Life of Riley—a bumbling fool who always got into trouble midway through the show (the parallels between ol’ Chester’s predicaments and mine haven’t escaped me).  I didn’t even realize I remembered it, and when I checked to see how long ago it aired, I felt even worse because I felt old as well as tired and worn out.  Please be assured that I do not remember the radio show.  My recollection extends only as far back as 1953, when I’m sure I watched it on a TV that was the size of a dorm refrigerator with a screen as big as a cereal box.

What strikes me as even odder is that I am usually oblivious to pop culture.  I wasn’t really sure who Lindsay Lohan was until it was almost impossible to turn on the TV or look in a newspaper (even the NY Times) without seeing her face.  I have no idea who won on American Idol.  This is not a matter of some old person not having her thumb on the pulse of modern culture—I was as clueless as this when I was much younger as well.  I might be the only person in the U.S. who never watched Bonanza, Dallas, or Star Trek.  So I have a hunch that my mind might be playing tricks on me.

All that is keeping me going is the reality that Stitches East and Rhinebeck are just weeks away.  I bought my train ticket to Baltimore on Sunday and checked my hotel reservation.  I’m vacillating between bringing one big suitcase that is mostly empty when I leave, or one small suitcase with clothes and another big empty one for the yarn I’ll cart home. (Any thoughts on which is better?) I’ve also started contemplating what I’ll knit on the train—I might finally get to some socks or Ed’s much-needed hat.  Just to be on the safe side, I’d better bring both.  I mean if the train is delayed, and we have extra time, I could run out of things to knit.  Rhinebeck is less novel because the drive is a short one from where I live and I've been there many times before, but I started making my list of booths to check.  The thought of the beautiful drive on a crisp fall day when the leaves are turning--and all that yarn--is the stuff of some fabulous daydreams.

Also keeping me sane is Liv.  Although I didn’t knit as much as usual over the weekend, I did get to an interesting bit (which, of course, I didn’t do correctly the first time).  Liv’s front has ribs that extend from the middle of the body along the V neck.  To finish the neck, the pattern requires that you knit the three stitches on each side (plus a new cast-on stitch) until you get to the center back. 

Then you attach it to the back neck edge.  This is really very neat, and aside from casting on that extra fourth stitch on the wrong side of the strip and having to frog, I’m pleased with this and can’t wait to assemble the fronts.  If I get that far tonight and my nighttime photos are clear, I’ll post the steps.

 

Speed or Accuracy?

One of the benefits of being raised in New York City and attending its public schools, at least decades ago when I did, is that you get free or low-price Broadway theater tickets.  Way back when I was in sixth grade, I saw my first drama, Gore Vidal’s The Best Man.  It was made into a film, starring Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson, that is still incisive and apt given the jockeying of the current front runners of both parties.  My first musical was Bells Are Ringing with Judy Holliday.  After that, I was really captivated by live theater, and I took advantage of all the tickets I could get.  [In fact it was years before I could see the movie of My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn because I thought Julie Andrews was the quintessential Eliza Doolittle.  Audrey is ok—I did get over it—but she is no Julie.]

Another early favorite was Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple, which I saw well before it was a movie or TV show.  And one line has stuck with me all these years.  It is uttered toward the end of the play. At one of Oscar’s poker games, there is a very dimwitted player, who I think is "Murray the Cop" on the TV show, and it is his turn to deal.  He deals with incredible deliberation as all the other players are eager to get on with the game.  When one player criticizes him, I think it is Oscar who says, “Whadda ya want speed or accuracy?”.  This question has popped into my mind many times over the years, particularly in work settings when I’m waiting for someone to provide information that I know is neither speedy nor accurate.  And it popped into my mind this week as I thought about how much—actually how little—I accomplished.

I hoped to be done with Ed’s left front, but this is as far as I’ve gotten.  It turned out that  I positioned the first buttonhole incorrectly and had to rip down and do it again.  And I seemed to take forever to get the pocket in place.  I hope to reach the armhole tonight.

This weekend I will finish and block my Shetland Triangle shawl, and I also must decide on the project that will replace it.  Once I get done with Ed’s front, the major challenge of designing the collar looms, and that is not something I can do on a weekday night.  That’s a task that has to wait for a free morning when I have every bit of my brain hitting on all its cylinders.

Old and Crotchety

Like so many of you, I’m really sick and tired of knitting being considered a quaint pastime that is the preoccupation of old women.  And I was especially annoyed when I read this Sunday’s issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine, subtitled: The New Middle Ages: A Special Issue.

In one article that has nothing to do with knitting but discusses the marketing of TV to people over 50, a ball of yarn is used to get across the idea that this is TV for old people:

Here is the original article.

I was set up to become truly pissed off when I looked at an earlier column.  The authors of the book “Freakonomics” have an article on “Laid-Back Labor” subtitled the $140 Homemade Scarf.  And they refer to knitting as one of the things that middle-aged people will do as they retire.  You can read the original article here.  In the print version, "yarn store" is in italics, which I interpret to mean that the authors find the idea of owning a thriving yarn store as somewhat surprising--when I'm guessing it would be the fantasy job for all of us.

Here is my letter to the NY Times Magazine editor:

Dear NY Times Magazine Editor:

I supposed you can’t publish anything without offending at least some readers, but I could not stay silent after reading the New Middle Ages issue of the Magazine and seeing the links between old age and knitting.  Yes, I am 60 and I knit.  But I’ve been knitting since I was 13, and for most of my knitting life I was a knitting teenager and a knitting young adult.  I’ve recently become a knitting blogger, and discovered with delight that I’m at the upper end of the age of this talented and vocal group.  The typical knitter nowadays is hardly the gray-haired granny that your illustration implies.  The knitting needle “rabbit ears” to illustrate the article on TV for old people just plays into a stereotype that overlooks the vibrancy and creativity of a craft that has been reborn thanks to the enthusiasm of younger women and men.

I was also annoyed at Messrs.  Dubner and Levitt  who seem surprised to find that a yarn store can actually be a money-making enterprise.  And I would like to point out that when I pay $40 for scarf yarn, I don’t think there is any "machine-made" equivalent for it.

I’d suggest that in future articles these worthy economists “stick to their knitting” and address real problems that actually do face middle-aged people—pensions being revoked or retirement funds running out; losing jobs at age 50 along with medical insurance and being unable to find equivalent employment; jobs that require retirement at 65 when one is vibrant and healthy and wants to continue to work; a health care system that is designed to enrich insurers instead of providing the care that old and young will need.  Discussing these economic problems and the work economists ought to be doing to solve them would do more for the target audience of this Magazine issue than deciding how to value hand-knitted clothing or cherry tomatoes.

If you are young (or old and pissed off too) and you knit, perhaps you might also like to add your opinion to mine.  You can email the magazine editor at: [email protected].

"The Book Is Always Right"

After discovering that “if you go to college, you will get a high-paying job” was a myth, the next bubble that burst was that “the book is always right”.  I defied my father’s wishes that I major in early childhood education, which was second only to his desire for me to marry someone who would be rich enough to keep me in the style to which he knew I’d become accustomed. I had (and have) no talent for working with young children in groups, and I decided to do other things when I was on the precipice of adulthood, all of which were a disappointment to him.  And, although I landed a good entry-level publishing job without a lot of fuss, he continued to promote his view of how I should run my life with such encouraging statements as “subway token men—the people who sold the tokens necessary for subway rides in the pre-Metrocard days were all men—earn more than you do”.  This, unfortunately, was true for the first five years of my worklife.

It was on my first publishing job that I realized that it is an absolute miracle that a book is published with only a few mistakes.  A book can be screwed up in an infinite number of ways.  Knowing this did nothing for my appreciation of the accuracy of knitting patterns.  If I knitted to a pattern in a book or magazine, I was always astonished that there could be mistakes.  And as a new knitter, there were almost no patterns with charts, so in addition to making my own errors in following long lines of written-out instructions, I also succumbed to typos.  If there were errata sheets, they were published in subsequent issues of the magazine, and I never paid attention to them.

Things are a lot better now, and I always check the publisher’s website if I’m using a printed pattern to see if there are any corrections.  I also read a pattern thoroughly from beginning to end to see if I can spot anything fishy before I begin to knit, and usually this exercise prompts me to make at least a few changes in the construction.

When I scoured the Sarah James entrelac sweater pattern, which seems very accurate and has remarkably clear instructions for entrelac, I wondered why the first row was cast on.  Although my swatches looked beautiful, the bottom row pulled in on all of them.  So when I finally began the sweater, I thought that I’d do the first row using a provisional cast-on.  The sweater borders are all seed-stitch, and it seems just as easy to pick up live stitches that might have slightly more give than a firm and inflexible row of a long-tail or cable cast-on.  Being new to entrelac, I focused on the technique while I did the swatches, and I don’t remember if there was a row of live stitches at the top—I think there was.  If so, I will not bind off there either, but leave the live stitches for a three-needle bindoff.  And I have never managed to get the exact gauge for this sweater, and so I will have to fiddle with the side seams (vertical seed stitch) so they’re narrower than specified to get a sweater that is about 44 inches around the chest (this is a boxy jacket, and that is as big as I want it to be).

You would think, given all this knowledge and understanding, that when I designed my own sweater it would have no mistakes.  Not so.  I must have gone through four versions of my chart, and there are still a couple of errors (now corrected by hand).  Two of them caused me to knit incorrectly and rip.   But I think I’m over the hump now, and on autopilot until the armholes. 

A healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing in life and in knitting.

Thoughts on Turning 60--Sweater Shape

The idea that I was getting older evolved gradually.  It began innocently enough about ten years ago, when retail clerks and supermarket checkers began to call me “ma’am”.  And it is unlikely that I’ll be recruited for the CIA.  All an enemy would have to do is put me in high heels for two minutes, and our national secrets would no longer be safe.  It is only athletic shoes and flats for me now.

I also discovered that it became difficult to find pants with waistbands and shirts with knitted cuffs at the wrists, and I had the suspicion that my everyday garments (baggy jeans and tucked in T-necks in cool weather, for working in my loft-office) were no longer on the cutting edge of fashion.  I know that many of my counterparts are uncomfortable with computers, but I never thought I was in that group.  I embraced PCs when they were first introduced in the 1980s (and owned Apple IIs before there was even an MS DOS operating system to give Bill Gates his first million), I learned to program, I sometimes edit programming books, and I work with computers everyday.  But I did not know there were knitting blogs until about March 2006, when I accidentally stumbled on them by following links from the Vogue Knitting Magazine website.  This too made me feel old.  Where was I when these blogs started to appear?  Why was I so late in finding them?

I was delighted to discover the hundreds of other knitters who share my passion, but I also discovered that most bloggers, who are considerably younger than 60, like fitted sweaters.  When I think of fitted sweaters, this is what comes to mind:

These are the sweaters that were popular in the 50s and late 60s, and knitting sweaters like those gave me the ability to make fitted sleeves.  But even though today’s sweaters are different, I remember those old one whenever I see a fitted sweater design.  I thought that the boxy sweaters that were featured by designers such as Alice Starmore and Kaffe Fassett in the 1980s were liberating.  Look at how roomy and comfortable those sweaters are!  Look at how easy it is to make and attach sleeves!  And so, I thought that my loose-fitting sweaters were remarkably stylish.

Well, now I know they aren’t.  But I’m not sure I ought to change my sweater style.  I’ve grown to really like the roominess of boxy sweaters.  And for me, making clothes is about what I want, not what is fashionable or trendy.  It takes me a relatively long time to make a sweater, and I want to be sure I can wear it for life.  I also learned early on (in my 20s) that I don’t have a fashionable body—but who does?  To really look good in clothes you have to be about a foot taller than I am, have no distinguishable curves, and look as if you could really use a good meal.   I also know that older women need to tread carefully when embracing new styles.  I still recall my smug amusement at “women of a certain age” who wore miniskirts in the 60s and looked totally ridiculous as they tried to hide their lumpy legs and varicose veins in dark stockings.  So even though I’ve kept my midriff, I think “that will be me” if I wear a very form-fitting sweater.  So for now, I haven’t completely abandoned my boxy, jacket-like sweaters, and I plan to knit several this year.

But I also plan to compromise, and knit some that do follow my natural curves at least a little.  The first is the Elsebeth Lavold sweater, which I’ve now swatched and bought buttons for, and the second is Alice Starmore’s Elizabeth I.

After all, this is knitting, and if it doesn’t work, I can frog it and start over.  But in my heart of hearts, I really hope the fashion pendulum will swing back to something that is a bit roomier and with sleeves that reach my wrists.

Thoughts on Turning 60: Patience

There is no escaping it. I’m going to be 60 in just a few short weeks. This seems like a cruel joke. After all, I was from the generation that wasn’t going to trust anyone over 30, and here I am, double that. What seems even more ridiculous to me is that I don’t feel this old. I don’t have “senior moments”, I’m about as agile and energetic as I’ve ever been, I’ve managed to retain my “hourglass” figure (although as I tell DH, the hours have gotten a bit longer).

Does this mean I look as if I’m 30, 40, or 50—not really. I attribute a lot of my good health to genes, diet, and exercise. In addition to being a lifelong knitter, I’ve been a lifelong swimmer. In fact, it is the prospect of approaching 60 that probably motivated me in the past few months to increase my workouts to mile or near-mile swims almost every other day. (Hah! I can tell myself. I’m more fit now than when I started this routine at age 28—and only did ¾-mile swims.) But swimming has its drawbacks. I won’t dye my gray hair because the chlorine will make a mess of it, and so when I look in the mirror, a different person peers out. I’ve decided to compromise a bit on the outside to keep the inside as tip top as it can be.

And when I shop in the bra department, I move swiftly past the lacy confections and directly to the “industrial strength” rack.

But the prospect of one of these “big” birthdays has led to some serious reflection on things that have been satisfactory in my life. Naturally knitting is one of those things, and it has taught me a lot, besides being able to take yarn and some needles and make something out of nothing. One of those things is an enjoyment of patience.

Most people who know me, particularly work colleagues, would consider me a classic Type A. I’m driven, I take too much work and usually finish most of it, and I hate imperfection. Like almost everyone else, I work in a world of real and imagined deadlines, and I often agree to mutually exclusive deadlines so I don’t have gaps between freelance book projects. Then I’m forced to work long hours and weekends until one book concludes. Knitting for myself offers a nice counterpoint, because I impose no deadlines. If things are not right, I rip and start over, knowing that a few hours of inconvenience will result in a lifetime of satisfaction because I came closer and closer to a garment that had no flaws. I find it hugely fulfilling to know that I am the only one who cares when a project is done and that I can take as long as I want to do it. This patience, this deliberate behavior is one reason I think knitting is so great. How many other areas in life are there where it is even possible to come close to such perfection?

But the enjoyment of working so slowly on something complex is tantalizing, and I find as I’m getting a little older, I’m less inclined to heap work upon myself. I’m slightly more willing to have a gap of time between work projects, and I’m more forgiving when I get only halfway down my weekend to-do list. I now have a hunch that I’ll get as much done with patience as with impatience. Maybe the next decade of my life will prove that this is true.

Here is one of the first projects I knit for myself without caring when it was done.

It is one of Myrna Stahman’s shawls, knit from the Haneke merino specified in the pattern. [The book is available here; the last book on the page.] It was my first shawl. It took me six months to knit, and I have not yet spotted a mistake. For me, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Happy Valentine's Day

One of the things I like about knitting is that it allows me to get away from the way marketers have destroyed holidays and days of appreciation, like Valentine’s Day.  I particularly resent the theme of the ads for perfume, jewelry, and candy in which the woman behaves as if the man in her life does not get one of these on February 14 he no longer loves her.  I, for one, would rather get yarn or knitting needles than perfume, jewelry, or candy.

Sometimes I will show my appreciation by doing something special—cooking a special meal.  But more recently, I’ve knitted presents.  I like to feel that the recipient is wrapped in my love and affection.

I didn’t always knit presents, and I rarely knitted for others as I developed as a knitter.  I knitted this sweater for my mother when I was 17, and she did wear it with pride.  But I don’t think I did it completely out of love.  I was more fascinated by the idea of knitting with sequins, and it was fun.  This is one of the few sweaters from the past that I’ve kept because it is a pretty decent piece of workmanship, even if the color is not that appealing and the finishing is a little homemade.  [For those of you new knitters, this was a “state of the art” pattern in about 1964.]

When I first moved from home, and didn’t have much money, I made my roommate a scarf that looked like one of these, which I subsequently made for myself.  The cost of the yarn was $4 (in 1968, so it would be around $30 now), and she thought I was being cheap.  This kept me from knitting presents for a long time.

Things changed in the 1990s.  We had some financial difficulties, making it impossible to buy presents for my son’s middle-school teachers. I wanted to show how much I appreciated their efforts and abilities.  So I foraged through my stash and found small amounts of yarn that would make excellent gifts.  One teacher got a scarf, like those I had made for my roommate, others got hats, like this one:

But one got the socks shown in this post, which appeared in Vogue Knitting.  This was my first attempt at knitting socks, and they came out very well.  Closing the toe was a bit of a challenge, and I did knit down to the wire, finishing the last of the five presents on the morning they had to be delivered.  In addition, my son and husband discovered my remarkable talent of combining x-rated words and expressions in novel ways. 

Those presents were a success, and I was astounded that every teacher called or wrote to thank me for my gift.  I was particularly amazed at their reaction, because most of the parents at my son’s school were wealthy enough to buy very lavish presents, and I thought my handmade garments would fade in the glitter of those expensive gifts.  But the teachers were more insightful than I had given them credit for being, and most said they would cherish the knitted item and appreciated the time I devoted to making it.

This unleashed a flood of delight, and now, instead of becoming frustrated at the mall prior to Christmas, I contemplate in September and October what someone might like and what colors they’d look good in.  In this small way, I feel that I can show my true love and not pander to advertisers and marketers, or buy into the sentiment that “if you loved me, you’d buy me _____”.

So, DH is not getting his sweater today.  But when he does, some months hence, he will know it is a true act of love, not something I did because I was shamed into it, and he will wear it knowing that I’m hugging him in spirit every minute he has it on.

Do I Feel Lucky?

I’ve been jealous of all the knitters who’ve come of age only recently.  You have great yarns to choose from, interesting patterns, and lots of advice from the explosion of knitting books, blogs, and podcasts.  But as I approach my first new sweater of 2007, I realize that deprivation has forced me to think of patterns in ways you may not. 

I a bit of history to explain why.

My first sweater, knitted when I turned 16, came out huge.  Despite the general unpopularity of knitting at that time there was a brief period—I guess about six months--when knitting was “hot”. All my high-school friends wanted to make bulky sweaters.  So for my birthday I requested needles and yarn.  I grew up in the Bronx, NY, not a center for anything innovative in those days, particularly fashion.  “The” place to get yarn was a cavernous store with harsh fluorescent lights—a far cry from the homey, often wood-paneled, and intimate LYS’s of today.  An impatient sales woman “helped” you pick the yarn (“that color is you, honey”) from the “vast” selection of worsted or sport weight in dreadful colors.  Then you went to a cramped back room where seasoned knitters sitting at a long, chipped Formica table would whip out mimeographed (yes, mimeographed) patterns with blanks for the sizes and numbers of rows and stitches.  I don’t recall knitting a gauge swatch; I do remember that they filled in numbers in the blanks without any measurements!  After knitting away to those directions, I tried on my finished creation—which I hadn’t had the sense to measure while I was knitting the pieces. I could double for any of the dwarfs in Disney’s Snow White.  The sweater nearly reached my knees, and the sleeves extended below my fingertips.

Undaunted, I decided that on another sweater I could definitely “fix” the errors of my ways.  I decided to dispense with the advice of the women in the back room, select a pattern from a printed leaflet, and proceed on my own.  So I measured myself and knit to those exact measurements.  The sweater was horrible.  Since I knew nothing about ease, it was too tight, gapping across my flat, undeveloped chest (I was a very, very, very late bloomer).  I still recall the horrible color—a muddy brown, the color of cheap coffee.

Any normal person would have given up knitting, but I was as stubborn then as I am now.  I proceeded to buy yarn for a tennis sweater, and I did knit a gauge swatch and adjust the finished measurements to match a purchased sweater.  This one was a modest success.  I actually did wear it in public.

But most patterns were still very big on me, since the smallest chest measurement was 32 inches and I was smaller than that (at least I was then), and most patterns were quite unattractive. I generally found pictures of sweaters I liked in magazines and I created my own patterns to match.  The Barbara Walker books were a huge help in picking patterns, too.  Now, when I want to make a sweater, I’ll rely on a pattern if I like it, but I did gain the skills from all these unfortunate beginning efforts to design a pattern on my own, and to read a pattern through and use the parts I like and change the parts I don’t. 

This skill is coming in handy now, because the sweater I planned for DH is not turning out as I hoped it would.  After swatching, I realized it would not be as warm as DH would like.  The cabled sections were thick and lofty, but the double moss stitch and diagonal areas seemed too thin. 

Switching to smaller needles won’t fix this problem.  The cables would become too dense.  I know from using Mountain Mohair (from Green Mountain Spinnery) for my son, that an all-over cable pattern would give me the uniform thickness I want.  Therefore, I’m back to the drawing boards on this one, and I have a few all-over cable patterns that are candidates for replacement.  And I’ll be swatching them over the next few days and designing the sweater from scratch—well, not quite from scratch because I’ll use other sweaters patterns for guidance, measurements, and ideas on features such as the placement of the pockets and the construction of the shawl collar.

For me, knitting (and sewing too) is about getting the garment you want, not the one the designer wants.  And if things don’t match your expectations you can do something about it.  Does this mean I think I’m as talented a designer as, say, Alice Starmore or Elsebeth Lavold?  The answer is a resounding “no”.  And I’m grateful that we have such talented designers making their patters available.  But I do feel lucky that I can study patterns even by the best designers and have the confidence that I can make them into the garments I want to wear.  I just wish it hadn't taken so darn long to learn how to do it.

 

I Forgive You, Joseph Conrad

When I was in high school, my very pompous English teacher assigned “Lord Jim”.  The school was one of New York’s special schools, and the student body was a driven, nerdy bunch.  On the first day of Senior English, the teacher proclaimed proudly that no one in his class ever failed the English Regents (a New York statewide exam, which you have to pass to graduate).  Well, the Regents exams for most subjects were a lot easier than most of the regular tests, and it was hardly likely that any of us would fail it—so instead of slapping himself on the back, he should have been thanking his lucky stars for having 45 such eager students.  The class was a colossal bore, turning into dross the golden language of wonderful writers.  Instead of inspiring us to look for meaning and beauty, we got tested on the most inane minutiae.  The quizzes after a required book were written on 3 x 5 index cards, and they were intended to see if we read the book. So after a month or so, by time my brain was totally numb during every minute I spent in the class, he told us to read “Lord Jim”.  When I saw how short it was, I figured that I didn’t need to leave much time for it.  So Sunday, the evening before the index-card quiz, I read “Lord Jim”.  In an hour.  I failed the test.  I didn’t even warm up to “Lord Jim” when it was a movie starring Peter O’Toole.  And I never read anything by Joseph Conrad again.

Now why am I telling you this in a knitting blog?  The not-so-mysterious answer is that I have discovered books on CD, and I’m about to start “Nostromo”.  And I’ll probably reserve “Heart of Darkness” and “The Secret Agent”.   I read about knitting to recorded books in the Yarn Harlot’s “Knitting Rules”.  I didn’t think much of the advice.  I can be snobbish, and when I saw that, I thought, “ugh, popular fiction”.  Please don’t think I’m disparaging your reading choices if you like light, entertainment reading.  I spend my entire workday reading college textbooks, which is what I mostly edit for a living, and so when I read for fun, it has to be something truly terrific.  I need complex, beautiful, well-wrought prose, just so I can really see what the English language is capable of.  But just a while ago, I came upon Anne’s January 9th post, and I thought, “Hmm. This book sounds good. I wonder what books there really are on CD.”  My local library has a few shelves of recorded books, and an unusual mix of CDs.  I wasn’t sure if I should aspire to great literature, listen to something fun (a mystery—I do love watching mysteries dramatized on public TV or in the movies), or something in between.  I started with Maugham’s “Razor’s Edge”, which although not as great as some books, is certainly well-written and engrossing.  And then I checked my countywide system, which allows library patrons to borrow from any county library.  There are 6000+ books on CD (and more on tape), and some amazing options among them. (I’ve got to listen to Jeremy Irons reading “Lolita”.)  So am I forsaking primetime TV as background for nightly knitting?  Not quite, because DH likes it and I’m not sure unless I see it with my own eyes whether Jack Bauer will save the world or whether a tire track or bit of “trace” will help Grissom and Catherine nail a killer.  But there is a lot less TV “watching” going on now.

To keep this from being a pictureless post, I will show you what my February/March Project Spectrum projects will be.  I’ve selected gray as my color, and I’ll be knitting Elsebeth Lavold’s Thora Sweater (in Knitter’s Fall 1999—a terrific issue—reprinted in Arans and Celtics).  And if possible, I will finally sew up one of my many pieces of Liberty of London wool challis as a matching skirt.  If I have enough fabric, it will be a circle skirt with a hand-rolled hem  (if not, then perhaps a half circle).  And since I don’t have a serger, I’ll be doing French seams.  I’ve always loved the Art Deco design, and this fabric dates from the mid-1970s, so I guess it is “vintage” now.  This fabric really flows, and I think it will carry the line of the sweater down to the bottom of the garment.