And that made all the difference

Same pattern.  Different yarns.

Left:  worsted, edged with Artyarn.  Right: cashmere, silk, merino blend edged with Noro Silk Garden.

If you'd like the pattern, click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Though very fond of this vine and leaf design, I'm preparing to try other embossed patterns. Everything happens in the fall, does it not? As I write this, summer's doing a last-gasp heat wave, but the handknitting, as it were, is on the wall. The season of mist and mellow fruitfulness approaches.

NB: two days left before The Poetry of Knitting Contest closes!

BKIND

Coming to the Langworthy Library Knitting Association meeting yesterday, I passed a car in the parking lot whose license plate read "BKIND." These wise words carried over to the meeting, where Jane, knitter par excellence and founder of the group, was busy instructing eight-year-old Amity, and her mom, in knitting. By now our collection of donated needles and yarn is large enough that we can provide materials for anyone who might stop by and want to learn to knit.

Jane is an excellent teacher--soft-voiced, clear, and patient.  She gave Amity a quilted knitting tote, and after she and her mom left, those of us remaining speculated as to whether they'd return. School starts next week, and things will get busy. But we are hoping...

Jane's passion is knitting socks, and she's designed a good basic pattern which I hope to post fairly soon. It led me to the completion of my first pair...and inspired by that project, I'm now knitting my third. When I brought my first pair to a recent meeting, I was given a Blue Plastic Yarn Needle to betoken my initiation. This is a tradition Jane established.

And here's a photo of Jane modeling a recently-completed pair of socks, knit in a beautiful German organic wool, Zitron.

For more examples of Jane's spectacular work, check out her website, Spirit-Sisters.

(I've been wondering if any of my readers are involved with library knitting groups in Rhode Island and elsewhere in New England. I'd be interested in hearing and writing about them.)

Well...time to pick beans in the garden. Before ending, however, I'll remind you that The Poetry of Knitting Contest closes on August 31st, in only five days. Submissions so far have been delightful!

Hidden in Plain Sight

Sometimes the best things are, you know. For example, who would have thought that purslane, a common weed-like infiltrator of otherwise impeccable gardens, is now the salad ingredient du jour, selling at chic venues like the NYC Greenmarket for upwards of six dollars a bunch?

 Find the purslane in this photograph!

Oh what does purslane, you may ask, have to do with Knitting New England? Simply this—that there are many knitting-relevant surprises in our own bailiwick, hiding in plain sight. The most recent discovery for me is the American headquarters of a fabulous European-based knitting magazine, Verena, in Providence, Rhode Island. And I was fortunate last week to have a conversation with Margery Winter, its American editor-in-chief.

Margery Winter, a RISD graduate and former editor of Vogue Knitting, comes to Verena with an extensive background in knitwear and fashion design, yarn development, and a fabulous fashion sense. The latter reinforces one of several major distinctions between Verena and other hand-knitting magazines. 

Verena patterns are haute couture far above and beyond what we usually see in American knitting magazines, and cause a serious knitter to think long and hard about what and how to knit. After all, if you’re going to put hours and hours of your life into knitting a garment, don’t you really want it to look amazing? Verena patterns—and at about 80 per issue, there are substantially more than in other knitting magazines—allow you to make a couture piece that you could probably not otherwise afford, and give you a real sense of how the European fashion industry operates in terms of fit, details, and finishing. The magazine's lavish photo spreads, too, are a pleasure, and as an additional bonus, the women's plus-sized, men’s, and children’s patterns Verena includes are definitely not your grandmother’s idea of hand knits. 

 Command Central at Verena, USA, in Providence.

I realize this sounds like a shameless plug, and I guess it is. I’m totally entranced by a preview copy of the Fall 2010 issue, which features a fabulous hooded vest on the cover, designed by none other than Providence’s Deborah Newton. The magazine can be purchased at some LYS and at Barnes and Noble, but it sells out fast.  Maybe the best way to get your own copy is to subscribe via the Verena website. Margery says the website will be totally redesigned and improved by mid-September. Even now, however, it’s still a good read and an interesting overview of the print publication.

As for my conversation with Margery, it was, to say the least, enlightening. Margery brings to the world of knitting a vision that’s new to me (and, I’d imagine, to many American knitters). She thinks about yarn, shaping, sizing, and impact from the perspective of the fashion designer who drapes and measures to fit, who plays with texture and color in unusual ways, and who understands the knit itself as fabric rather than stitches. But the bottom line, she says, is simply this—that “in fashion, as with art and beauty, there’s a universal denominator. People respond in a common way to what is beautiful. I’m searching for beauty. It’s a passion.”

Well, how inspirational is that?

Sox on the beach...

I'm beginning to understand why so many knitters focus exclusively on socks.  They offer a lot in one little package. The patterns are three-dimensional and require no sewing, the work is easily portable, and within small parameters there are interesting technical challenges. If you knit socks with variegated, self-striping, or self-fair-isling yarn, it's thrilling to watch the colors unfurl.  If you knit socks that are cabled, argyled, or lacy, your socks will be lovely beyond description.  Hand-knit woolen socks feel better on your feet than any machine-made sock you can buy (except maybe for cashmere).

Socks may always be fun to knit, but in the summer they're really pleasant because, unlike the back of a sweater or an afghan, they don't cover your lap with a lot of thick material.  And you can easily knit en route to any destination--assuming, of course, you're a passenger.

Our destination, the Charlestown, Rhode Island beach--a.k.a. "Blue Shutters"--was beautiful today. It was our first trip of the season to the ocean.

We were surprised to see a new sign with a list of no-nos, including "rough and injurious activities," "nude sunbathing," "alcoholic beverages" and "glass containers." I infer that tobacco, drugs, loud radios, sandcastle smashing, and working with sharp pointed sticks are all ok.

(Fortunately, I saw only one person wielding sharp pointed sticks, and I wasn't about to report her to the authorities.)

Tempi

Summer time, and the livin' is busy. Rather than fraught, however, filled with an abundance of absorbing tasks.

Last week was my annual sojourn at Amherst Early Music, the baroque workshops held at Connecticut College. Herewith two photos--the lovely Willard Martin single manual harpsichord I played for rehearsals of a Boismortier sonata for continuo, viola da gamba, flute and bassoon...

and the Baroque Academy production of Scenes from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Les Arts Florissants, music by Charpentier and Lully.

My knitting output, naturally, slowed that week. It has been further impeded by the accelerating pace of the garden:

But I must confess, though I've got many UFOs, inspired by the splendid examples of the Langworthy Library Knitting Association members, I'm rather fixated on socks at the moment and am planning a post entirely about socks in the very near future.

A summer resolution has been to override nascent guilt engendered by UFOs. Life is too short, my friends. We must let ourselves simply be.

Kramer and I look forward to ever more submissions to the Poetry of Knitting Contest, which closes on August 31st. Here he is thinking a green thought in a green shade.

The Poetry of Knitting, a CONTEST for my readers

In the roundabout world of the blogosphere, surprising and serendipitous connections often occur.  So it was today when I did a Google search using the terms "owl knitting pattern."(Why I was searching for an owl knitting pattern must for now remain a mystery.) The search ultimately led to a quasi-scholarly Japanese site, The ABCs of Knitting, that is both a fascinating window onto how knit happens in Japan, as well as a mightily entertaining source of fractured English. As seems to be my constant fate, I engaged in an idyllic drainage of my limited time on this planet while perusing its many sections. One factoid I gleaned from my reading, for example, is that there is a "Japanese dedicated knitters craze in Knitted Wedding Dress" [sic], a phenomenon there illustrated by Japanese magazine covers of western-featured fair-haired women in knitted wedding finery. (Given my interest in hand-knitted wedding dresses, well documented in the pages of this blog, you can imagine how enraptured I was.)

Even more impressive was a section on this site dedicated to haikus about knitting. While the translations aren't in accord with haiku metrics, the transliterations are. Topics range from lyrical evocations of the natural world--
The full wool skeins in the shops tell the autumn has come

***
Autumn winds always drift me into yarn shops

to the psychologically weird:

Didn't you praise the botchy scarf knitted by the young girl?
How can you give the cold to my paramount sweater?

***
(Secretly, I turned over your new hand-knitted scarf.
Did you know how happy I was when I found a brand-label on it?)


Of course all  knitters are aware of the poetry of knitting--the rhythm, the coloration, the textures, the intricacy or simplicity, the repetition, the introduction at the beginning of every project undertaken, the closure when the last row is bound off. Therefore I decided, in the spirit of knitting's inherent poeticism, to sponsor a contest to find the poem that best captures the essence of knitting. AND, there will be prizes!

The Poetry of Knitting Contest:

Entry Rules and Requirements:

1. Entrants may submit up to three original poems about knitting before the contest deadline of August 31, 2010. Poems must be submitted by email to the email address under my photo on the View My Complete Profile section of this blog, Knitting New England (www.knittingnewengland.blogspot.com). Please paste the poems onto the email; those sent by email attachment will not be opened.

2. Poems must be in English, or if written in another language, an English translation must be provided.

3. Poems may be of any length, in any style or form--haiku, epic, sonnet, triolet, sestina, free verse, blank verse, ottava rima, whatever.

4. First, second, and third prizes will be awarded.

• First prize: My personal copy of Sweaters from New England Sheep Farms by Candace Eisner Strick (Down East Books, 1999).
• Second Prize: My personal copy of Woolly Thoughts: How to Unlock Your Creative Genius by Pat Ashforth and Steve Plummer (Souvenir Press, 1994)
• Third Prize: My personal copy of Spam-ku: Tranquil Reflections on Luncheon Loaf, by John Nagamichi Cho (Harper Perennial, 1998).

And best of all, the prize poems will all be published on this blog during the fall of 2010!

So, gentle readers, what are you waiting for?  Get inspired and get writing!

I think that I shall never see

A sweater knitted just for me.

For tho' I knit much every day

I give my knitted stuff away. 

--Anonymous.

We're having a heat wave...

The temperature's rising, it isn't surprising...

(This thermometer takes its reading from a shaded place!)

Heat Wave by Ella Fitzgerald

Play song from iLike.com The Irving Berlin Songbook - 1986 - 2:25                                                 So of course I'm knitting the second of a pair of woolen socks.  The yarn is Fannie's Fingering Weight from Connecticut Yarn and Wool. The economy of project size and knitting movement render this doable even when it's 100 degrees F.  But this is New England, gentle readers, not the southwestern United States! Does anyone still disbelieve climate change? Apparently Kramer does.  Notice, please, his baleful expression. He's whining for me to let him out.  Perhaps he thinks his white coat will deflect the rays.