When Good Knitting Ideas Go to Hell, Part 2

Ah yes, the "partner" mittens. Such a great idea. Such a horror to knit.

The beginning of this semi-tragic story can be found on my blog post for June 6th, 2009. Once again, heartfelt thanks to Gail McGee of Mystic River Yarns, who helped me decode the ridiculous pattern. It was when I realized that this, uh, thing...which was supposed to encase the clasped hands of two people...looked like a hairdryer cosy more than anything else, that I ceased and desisted.

Naturally, I was thoroughly demoralized. But I remembered that Gail had called these "lovers' mittens" and I decided to do an online search using that term. This yielded results--a lovers' mitten designed by Ann Gallentine and posted on her knitting website, Ann's Knitting Page: http://www.gallentine.org/Knitting/index.html (As a side-note, I find it so interesting that rescue came from a lady who lives in Kansas, and whom I'd never meet other than for the serendipity effected by the Internet. Thank you, Ann.)

Ann's pattern was the easiest part of the endeavor. It knitted up quickly and does the job. The women's right-hand mitten and the men's left-hand were harder, once again because the patterns were poorly written. (The women's was from the original partner mittens pattern; the men's was from a generic pattern found in a knitting magazine that shall remain nameless.) Frustration developed from my constant awareness that this project just shouldn't have taken as long as it did, nor should it have required so much ripping out. I put it away repeatedly, because it made me want to scream. (Correction: because it made me scream.)

Then B and F stopped by the other day, and I needed to get final measurements. They tried on the lovers' mitten for me, and it fit! I determined to forge ahead, and the entire project was finished today. Live and learn, I told myself, resolving that I'd never knit this again.

Except H just asked me, ever so sweetly, to make us a lovers' mitten. In green.

Sigh.

All politics is local?

It would be a great thing if all politics is, really, local, as the late Boston politico Tip O'Neill famously said. As a way of endorsing the magical thinking behind this postulation, I made a red baby's cap (or, if you will, a cap of red yarn for a baby) for Afghans for Afghans (www.afghansforAfghans.org), the noble organization that distributes American handknits to the deprived children of that country. Confronted by the situation in Afghanistan, a situation dreadful in more ways than can be enumerated here (though illumination, particularly with regard to the plight of Afghan women, may be found in the compelling memoir, The Bookseller of Kabul, by Asne Seierstad), one feels entirely helpless. Since I already feel entirely helpless and entirely demotivated by most oppressive political (and environmental and nuclear and economic and healthcare) situations, which unfortunately seem to govern the world these days, I do the little I can, mainly by contributing money to organizations that deliver aid, and teaching conversational English to immigrants and refugees at the International Institute of Rhode Island (www.iiri.org). And now, by knitting for Afghans for Afghans.

Afghans for Afghans organizes knitting campaigns, supplies patterns, and delivers, by email, densely-worded announcements regarding its activities. In the past I've always seemed to be out of phase with the A for A calendar, but luckily Hansina Wright, the force majeure at Mystic River Yarns in Mystic, CT (www.mysticriveryarns.com), has dedicated part of the shop as a collection center for donations, and throughout the latter part of the summer and early fall has sponsored an A for A knitting circle at her shop on Schooner Wharf.

I stopped by there yesterday to deliver the red cap (modeled by Ted in the photo), and have a look at the beautiful garments and blankets knitters have contributed. I was also pleased to meet Ruth and Heather, the two impressive knitters in the photograph above who were working on A for A projects, and adding to the positive energy of the shop. (A side note: Ruth writes a most interesting knitting blog: brainknit.blogspot.com.) Since the pile of knitted donations on display (see photo above) was substantial, it's clear that there are more than a few knitters in the immediate area (coastal southeastern CT, southern RI) who have joined the collective. Here's wishful hoping that our local efforts will have some small impact on the bigger picture.

The fascination of the abomination

Some years ago, when I was laboring in the satanic mills of academia, an element of my survival strategy was, as one of my fave poets aptly wrote, to catch the joy as it flies. This meant that I deliberately sought random forms of cheap entertainment as a way to tune out the noisome atmosphere of the workplace. (Note: I still do this, but now rely on different rationales to justify my habit.) One principal diversion was an extremely hilarious blog--alas, defunct since 2006--called "You Knit What?" (www.youknitwhat.blogspot.com). On arriving at my office, I'd boot up the computer and, even before listening to officious voicemails, printing out my class plan, or scanning the crap retrieved from the faculty mailbox in the department lobby, immediately pull up "You Knit What?" anticipating a merriment injection strong enough to override the day's onslaught of neurotic encounters with my so-called colleagues.

Seldom was this blog disappointing. Its creators had a knack for finding pattern-book photos of hideous and demented-looking knitted articles that some very odd people, somewhere, had taken time to make. Commentary on these items, provided by the bloggers as well as readers, was usually as amusing as the items themselves, sometimes more so. Frequently I laughed so raucously that other faculty members on my floor noted the disturbance and made inquiries.

As the world has been bereft of "You Knit What?" for three years, I've rarely since had the opportunity to see a pattern as hideous as most of those featured on the blog. Except I suddenly find myself in the strange position of knitting something which, if not de facto hideous, is so weird that it's difficult to believe I'm actually continuing to work on this thing. But frankly, it's as if I'm spellbound. As I continue to knit, the thing in question becomes ever stranger, and I need to finish in order to find out exactly how strange it will be. The fascination of the abomination indeed.

Since you're now intensely curious to know what the abominable thing in question is, I shall confess: it is a set of "partner mittens" (www.coats.de/PDF/smc_paarhandschuh_engl.pdf). This is a free download from a German yarn company, Schackenmayr, and I should have known it was problematic when the instructions, horribly translated, made little or no sense and required two trips to Mystic River Yarns for consults with Gale McGee, who finally penetrated the mystery of the idiosyncratic language and helped me to continue.

Why am I doing this? Obviously it's not just about being enthralled by the weirdness of it all. It's because I'm making these mittens as a gift. But who would want a gift that looks as weird as this?

My dear friends B and F are perhaps the world's cutest couple d'un certain age. A few years ago they found each other--or re-found each other, since they'd been friends since college--while rehabilitating from painfully-terminated marriages. But now they have each other, are living together (very beautifully!), creating a life filled with joy and mutual respect. They are sometimes prone to PDAs, and as a way of supporting that inclination, I thought, "Why not make them a set of partner mittens?" The only pattern I could find online at the time of inquiry was that which I'm mashing my way through.

I'm just about finished with the partner mitten, a misshapen lump with two cuffs, that allows lovers to hold hands warmly. I made the man's left hand and the woman's right hand, realizing that some of the work would have to be ripped out and redone, since the measurements for thumb and finger length specified by the pattern are all wrong. But there you have it. I'm forging ahead. How will my dear friends respond to this gift? Should I even give it to them once it's completed? And so this tale is to be continued.

Coda: I just found this pattern online for "lovers' mittens," aka partner mittens: www.gallentine.org/Knitting/loversmitten.html It seems really sane. And so a new element enters the mix.

Strange fits of fashion, Part 1

After....

Before...

Late last November, despite the fact that more guests were to arrive imminently and the house was in shambles after the dionysian excesses of Thanksgiving, I drove several exits down I- 95 South, past the lurid Potemkin facades of Ye Olde Mistick Village to one of my favorite Connecticut yarn shops, Mystic River Yarns (www.mysticriveryarns.com).  My mission: to witness the act of steeking. 

 

Steeking, as you may not know, is when you cut up the sweater you have just knitted circularly to make holes for the sleeves or an opening down the middle of the front for a cardigan, or similar such slashes. Timid thing that I am, I wanted to see someone else do this in cold blood, and to experience the Schadenfreude of knowing that the tragic aftermath was her problem, not mine.

The demonstrator was a kindly woman named Ginnie Dugan who had completed the body of a cardigan in gorgeous Shetland yarns of varying autumnal hues, and with what seemed to be very small needles.  In other words, her project had been highly labor intensive. After explaining to the assembled many interesting facts about knitting Fair Isle patterns, she brandished a pair of long-bladed scissors and deftly cut through the center steek, the knitted-in line of demarcation between the two sides of the front.  

As she did this, the fibers of the wool self-healed in a way that only Shetland wool can, so that instead of turning into a mess of raveling frayed ends, they simply folded back on themselves and formed a placket. Rather than playing the role of horrified onlooker, I found myself encouraged by Ginnie's sang froid, and came away thinking that such an act was within my realm of possibilities.

Which is probably why, after I made a sweater for Cy Place-Perrotti's first birthday, I agreed to ruthlessly slash the neck opening for purposes of enlargement.

Young children have a way of growing fast. Cy turned one on February 26th and the sweater was large at that point. By April getting his head through the neck hole was like replaying the drama of birth.  I told his mother I'd see what I could do to adjust the opening.

With the steeking demo I'd witnessed at Mystic River Yarns in mind, I coolly sliced through the neck and shoulder of the sweater, creating a gash that immediately began to ravel. Unfazed, I threaded a yarn needle with some leftover worsted that more-or-less matched the green of the bulky yarn I'd used to knit the sweater (on size 10 needles), and picked up the live loops and started to bind them down.  (Sewing with the same bulky yarn would have created an extremely thick seam.) And the results...well, so far, not so great. But I shall persevere.