The Y Bomb

Yarn bombing, the practice of decorating or covering large objects in public spaces with knitted or crocheted items, seems to have begun in 2005 and has grown into a worldwide movement. With the growth in yarn bombing's popularity has come some criticism, the most common being that it's a waste of time and yarn. Yarn bombers are quick to point out that no one says an artist who is painting a park bench is wasting time and materials. True, although since the artist is probably using paint chemically engineered to withstand the elements, the bench art will last much longer than a tree trunk cozy. Then too, the bench artist has probably been commissioned by public officials to paint the bench, while the yarn bomber often hasn't, and could technically be considered a vandal, albeit one who does no lasting harm.

I'm a little bit conflicted as to how I feel about yarn bombing. I'm a very practical person, and everything I make has to meet something I call the "utility quotient", by which I mean that if I'm going to spend X number of hours making something, it has be an item that will last and be used for at least X number of hours, and preferably more. I've never been able to get into making Halloween costumes because I can only wear them once a year. I've never really liked cooking much because a meal takes the same 20 minutes to eat regardless of how much or how little time the cook spent preparing it. So I do not want to do any yarn bombing myself. But while I also don't want to condemn yarn bombing, I do think that like any hobby, it's best practiced with some restraint and self-awareness.

This topic hits something of a nerve with me because of the thinking I've been doing for the last year or so about leisure-type activities. The lengths to which North Americans go to pursue their hobbies alternately awes and appalls me. I used to volunteer with a woman who was into quilting, and she told me about a weekend road trip she was planning with a friend, which trip involved them driving from Toronto, Ontario, to somewhere in West Virginia for the sole purpose of looking at a quilt. A former co-worker of mine once drove over an hour to get to, and spent all one Sunday afternoon attending, a basset hound owners' picnic with her basset hound puppy. My father, who is a very talented woodworker, flew to Norway with my mother in the summer of 2011 to go on a woodworkers' cruise. There are video gamers who spend forty hours a week gaming, and this is on top of holding down a full-time job. And of course there are mountain climbers and deep sea divers who travel the world for the sake of finding new heights to climb and new depths to dive to.

I'm not about to condemn any hobby as an outright waste of time. Practically any endeavour can become worthwhile if one brings a sufficient level of effort, intelligence and creativity to it. And lots of hobbies, though they may not be what you could call productive in themselves, yield benefits. They might be good physical exercise, be educational, keep the brain challenged and active, or give one the opportunity to make like-minded friends and become part of a community. Sometimes they can be developed into a money-making business, at which point they can be said to have stopped being a hobby. Or they can just be purely for fun, and that's just fine. Simple enjoyment is a worthwhile end in itself; one cannot and should not work all the time.

But I do get appalled when I see leisure time activities pursued to harmful excess. Though I won't condemn any particular activity, it's also fair to say that not all leisure activities are equally worthwhile. Some are flabby pleasures, activities that demand almost nothing from us and that will degrade us physically and mentally if we spend too much time on them. Spending the entire evening watching TV and loafing on the couch with a bag of chips is fine once in a while, but if you do it every night of your life, or even every other night, you won't like the long-term results. And on average, North Americans are doing almost exactly that; it's been estimated that the average Canadian spends 21 hours a week, or a quarter of their lives, watching TV.

Even the most worthwhile of hobbies can be problematic when indulged in to excess, if they are carried to the point that we neglect other, more important things, such as physical care of ourselves, relationships or livelihoods or other responsibilities, or life goals. Leisure time activities can become a black hole in which we can lose our way in life, our ambitions, our obligations, ourselves. I think often of a guy I knew in my early twenties who owed his ex-girlfriend $2000. She was on social assistance because she couldn't get work after an inter-provincial move, and he never sent her a penny, but somehow during the same time frame he had $1200 to spend on Laser Quest — he told me so himself. His playing Laser Quest in this context was both selfish and the means to suppress any awareness that he was being selfish; it was the snake eating its own tail. A few years later I met someone else who spent seven or eight hundred dollars a month and almost all her free time on ballroom dancing and clothes shopping, and then expected everyone she knew to listen to her feel sorry for herself because she didn't have a house or retirement savings, or the time to take courses to qualify herself for a better job than the one she had and hated, or even to clean her one-bedrooom apartment.

In this world, 35,000 children die of starvation of every day, and over a million people make their living from picking garbage dumps. Even in first world countries there are so many problems that need to be solved, and so many people who need a helping hand. And yet many of those who are comfortably circumstanced, who spend hundreds of dollars and a hundred hours or more a month on frivolous pursuits, claim they have "no time" to volunteer and "no money" to donate to charity, nor even the time to inform themselves on current events and to vote. It's no wonder the rest of the world resents North Americans the way they do.

After writing and considering all the above, it seems to me any hobby is fine if pursued with a certain mindfulness and sense of proportion. Things like TV-watching, internet surfing, crafting, sports, artistic pursuits, video games, recreational shopping, and reading trashy books are all very well (I wouldn't want to live in a world without them), but they do need to be kept in their place.

I see no reason why yarn bombing can't be just as worthwhile as many other more common leisure activities, or why it should get any less respect than, say, golf. Yarn bombing can be made to serve a larger purpose. As you can see from the photos of yarn bombing I've included in this post, yarn bombing can be a way of making a political statement, a way of getting people talking and thinking about an issue. Yarn bombing is an undeniable attention grabber. If you were to walk down the street and pass a bus covered in crochet, you would notice the decorated bus because would be impossible not to notice it. And then given all the people who will see the bus, at least a few will be bound to take a picture of it and put it on the net. It will get covered in the local news, and possibly be picked up by larger media outlets. In a noisy, busy world like this one, attention-getting stunts like yarn bombing can be very useful in terms of promoting events or raising awareness for causes. Yarn bombers who harness that power can hardly be said to be wasting their time and materials, especially when yarn bombing is only one, fun part of what they're doing with their lives.

(All photos taken from Time magazine's photo essay on yarn bombing, which can be viewed here.)

Knitting Behind Bars

I'm so upset tonight by what I've been reading about today's shooting at a public school in Newtown, Connecticut, by the horror of all those deaths, by my own dully resigned sense that even something horrific as this will not get the States to change the way it treats the mentally ill, regulates gun ownership, or reports on and addresses problems in the media, that I decided I wanted to do a "good news" post about how violence can be addressed. And since this is a knitting blog, of course this meant I had to find material on how knitting could be used to decrease violence. You may be surprised to read that I didn't have to look far. I googled "knitting violence", and the topic for this post popped right up.

Two retired women, Lyn Zwerling and Sheila Rovelstad, have initiated and implemented a program called Knitting Behind Bars at a prison in Maryland. They approached every prison in the area with their idea for a knitting class, and all the prisons refused except the last one, where the prison authorities skeptically agreed to let them try it.

And the program has been a success. As the Baltimore Sun wrote in a November 2011 article,

Men literally beg to get in. There's a waiting list.... They want it so much, in fact, that they're willing to be good in order to do it. [Prison warden Margaret] Chippendale has noticed lower rates of violence among the men who knit. "It's a privilege to be in that program," Chippendale says. "It's something that matters and they don't want to do anything to be removed from it."

One prisoner, who was serving time for stabbing someone and who was busily knitting a hat, told a reporter, "My mind is on something soft and gentle. My mind is nowhere near inside these walls."

Zwerling talks about why she thinks knitting classes are beneficial in an NPR interview described here. She believes that knitting teaches patience, discipline, anger management, and goal orientation, all important life skills that many criminals may be lacking. And some lessons in basic social skills can be shoehorned in at the same time. Zwerling and Rovelstad insist on good behaviour from the men in their knitting classes: no swearing or rough housing, and given names are to be used rather than prison nicknames.

The men in these knitting classes have made little dolls that first responders in Maryland now carry to give to children at scenes of accidents, fires and other tragedies. They've made hats and scarves for their own children, for their mothers or grandmothers, for themselves. And at least some of them have said they are continuing to knit upon their release from prison, or intend to.




Are knitting classes some magical solution for violence in prisons and the heartbreakingly high recidivism rates among released prisoners? Of course not. Real change, especially change at the extent and scale of change that is needed in the prison system and among convicted criminals, is gradual and requires a holistic approach. It will take more than Thursday-night knitting classes to rehabilitate those who have been unable or unwilling to earn a living without resorting to crime, or to help those who can't relate to others without violence. But it's an idea that has been tried and is showing a demonstrable level of success. These knitting classes have given some of the criminals in one prison useful skills, some peace of mind and innocent enjoyment, a sense of pride and competence, and a way to give to others.

Knitting Behind Bars has its own blog where you can read about the program and, since Zwerling and Rovelstad supply all the yarn, needles, and other tools and supplies needed for their classes, you can make a monetary donation to their program if you wish. Unfortunately, because of lack of storage and other logistical issues, Zwerling and Rovelstad are unable to accept donations of yarn, so if you were hoping to unload your stash, you'll have to find another charity to ship it to.

Knit Simple Winter 2012: A Review

Knit Simple has posted their Winter 2012 Issue preview. Let's have a look at some of their offerings, shall we?

So... pom-poms. This sweater did really need an interesting collar to set off the very nice but generic rest of itself. I'm just not sure pom-poms were the way to go.

Very pretty rib and cable sweater.

I like this one, but I'll warn you, if you make this sweater just as the pattern directs, you're going to need a very long neck to be able to carry it off. Even the model isn't quite working it, and she has a longer than average neck.

Nice, but putting your hands in that pocket is going to look and feel awkward. If you know you're the hands-in-double-pocket type, make the sweater shorter.

As I've said a number of times on this blog, I am not a fan of the double-breasted style. It's not becoming on women who aren't tall, slender and small-breasted (i.e., not models), and it never looks good worn open. Occasionally there are exceptions, but this isn't one of them. Even the model looks frumpy in this one.

I don't care for this one, but it's a matter of personal preference rather than anything being objectively wrong with the pattern. The colour is analogous and it's working, but I find it kind of garish. Peruvian hats are very appealing in their own way, but they are bohemian in style (unless, of course, you actually are Peruvian), and the Boho style is really only for young women. Older women who try to adopt the Boho look usually end up looking like bag ladies.

Cute little cap. The button's actually doing quite a bit for it, and setting it slightly apart from all the millions of cute little knitted caps out there.

Classic hat and mittens set.

This hat would make me feel, and no doubt look, exactly like the Chicken Lady.

Very pretty scarf, but I'd put a fringe or some kind of finishing touch on the ends, which just look too blunt and unfinished the way they are.

Very pretty couple of afghans. Make either of these in a yarn and a colour you love, and you'll enjoy them for many years to come.

I'd have put about five buttons on this hooded vest, rather than only two. Those two buttons look too random, and unless there's some interior fastening that doesn't show here, the front of this sweater will pull open at the bustline every time the woman wearing it uses her arms.

This would be nice as costuming for some romantic movie, but it's wildly impractical for real life. It would get into everything, and you'd be constantly rearranging it.

This is not a bad capelet. It drapes well and the toggles aren't a bad touch. This is something you can just throw on for running errands.

This capelet and the next four designs are from a toggle-themed section in which Knit Simple demonstrates that their designers don't really know how to use toggles in design. The question you have to ask yourself when deciding whether to put toggles on something you've made is, "Would buttons look better on this item?", and if the answer is "Yes," you should go with the buttons.

This isn't a bad sweater, but the toggles don't work at all with its colour scheme (the editors have compensated for that by putting a turtleneck underneath that did go with the toggles, but do you really want to be limited to having to choose a shirt that goes with the toggles on your cardigan?) and the two fronts of the cardigan don't meet in the front, which is probably supposed to be a design element but just makes a sweater look like it's too small.

Not a bad jacket, and the toggles are... neither adding nor detracting. Just beware that it's going to bulk you up when you wear it.

I think the designer of this thing was locked in a room with a sketchpad and a handful of these toggles and told she wouldn't be let out until she came up with a design that used them. Even the model looks frumpy and dumpy in the resulting disaster. Those tan-coloured lines at the raglan seams, the wrist, the waist and the sides of this sweater are probably meant to go with the toggles, but just end up looking senseless and ugly. It would have been a far better idea to replace the lines of tan with a line of cabling or some other intricate stitchwork, and to add some waist-shaping. Oh, and to replace the bloody toggles with buttons.

I keep an eye out for good uses of self-striping yarn, because so many designers don't seem to know what to do with it. This sweater really made me sit up and pay attention. The concept is really good: shaped striped front panels that flatter the figure and draw the eye upward, with the rest of the sweater kept fitted and clean and simple. The collar really works, and it's not even a kind of collar I'd normally care for. But I'm not sold on the toggles. They do work well with the colour scheme, but they compete somewhat with the design without really adding to it. Some other kind of fastener would have given this cardigan a better finishing touch, and I doubt this cardigan will look all that good when worn open.

I have to admit, the snowman hat and mittens made me smile. The other two patterns look a little over the top and a little less successful, perhaps partly because there are three items involved instead of two. If I were making these for a kid, I would just make the hat and mittens, or the hat and the scarf, not all three. And I would clear the project with the kid in advance. These are the kind of designs you have to knit when a child is very young, preferably before they've heard anything at all about the whole concept of being "cool".

Vogue Knitting's Enchanted Forest Cardigan

Twenty years ago Vogue Knitting published a DKNY pattern for an oversized, tree motif cardigan with set-in sleeves and ribbed polo collar in their tenth anniversary Fall 1992 issue. When, in their Spring/Summer 1993 issue, VK ran a picture of four of their editors (including the editor-in-chief) proudly standing arm-in-arm in the Enchanted Forest cardigans they'd made themselves, it was only the first indication of just how popular this sweater pattern would prove to be.

Since 1992 Vogue Knitting has reprinted the pattern in three of their books (among them the 2002 edition of Vogue Knitting's The Ultimate Knitting Book) and in the Fall 2007 issue of their magazine, which was also their 25th anniversary issue. As of this writing, there are 81 Ravelry members who have knitted this sweater or who are knitting it. It's also in 113 queues and has its own discussion group on the forums. That's a lot of interest in a twenty-year-old pattern, especially when it is a relatively complex, time-intensive project.

What is it about this sweater that it should have such enduring popularity? For starters, it's eminently practical. It's a simple, classic pattern, yet with enough detail and polish that it's distinctive, and it looks ever so warm and comfortable, as though it were just waiting to be slipped on. It could be worn almost anywhere and for any purpose: running errands, at work, hiking in the woods, or raking leaves in the yard. Notice that my list of where to where this sweater doesn't include "while sitting at the computer and browsing eBay" or "while watching Game of Thrones or The Good Wife". This sweater's design has such an organic feel and such flow to it that it almost promises you that you're going to go outside and reconnect with nature every time you put it on. Almost all the people who make it choose neutral, natural colours: cream, taupe, brown, rust, olive, or soft gray-blues and gray-greens. And it doesn't hurt that the pattern has a beautiful and evocative name. I hope it's not just personal bias that makes me say so — my fourth grade reader contained a story called "The Enchanted Forest", and almost all I can remember of it besides the title was that it was magical and I loved it.

I haven't made an Enchanted Forest sweater for myself, because it always has seemed like a mature woman's sweater to me, and I am not *quite* there yet. But I know I will knit it in the next five years or so, and that once I have it, I'll keep wearing it until wear it out. I've mentally planned it already. I'll make it much less oversized. Twenty-six inches long is a dress on me. Fifty-eight inches through the chest is enormous, and especially when combined with those dropped shoulders, would make me look and feel like a linebacker. I may also make the collar notched rather than polo. But I will use a soft, neutral colour, I will not change the forest motif, and the entire time I'm working on it I'll be imagining myself in it, always in an outdoor setting, and always with crisp golden fall leaves somewhere in the picture.

Not Your Grandma's Knitting Tattoo. Unless it is.

I keep running across a lot of knitting tattoos on the net, and even though I'm not considering getting any ink done (I've never even been able to tolerate a stick-on tattoo for more than a day), and would of course be getting an orange swan if I did, they are interesting and fun to look at. Here are some that I've come across.

The most common kind of knitting tattoo is the ball of yarn with a pair of knitting needles thrust through it, and there are loads of variations on this theme, like the one above.

Here we have the needles, the ball of yarn, and a cat. Cats seem to be a common addition to knitting tattoos. I suppose it's easier to add a cat than it is to add all the members of your book club.

The use of the "Keep Calm" meme is so going to date this person.

For a minute there, I thought "alpaca" was missing its "l". You definitely do not want your tramp stamp to have a spelling mistake in it. It gives off the wrong impression.

This one is a little more knitterrrr girrrrrrlllllll.

This is really quite the piece of artistry, but the idea of having an unfinished project permanently tattooed on my body makes me feel twitchy and OCD.

This one is actually Tunisian crochet (note the hooks on the ends of the needles), but could easily be altered to be knitting. It's another unfinished project, but one gets the sense that progress is being made.

Here's a knitted tattoo that's all finished.

The hands at work here have a few too many knuckles, but otherwise I love this one, which is a beautiful expression of the love of knitting and the love that goes into one's knitting.

I'd be afraid this one would cause my cat to attack my foot.

I don't think I can possibly can get knitting-themed ink when this woman has done it so definitively.

If you want to see some more knitting tattoos, there are some on Tumblr. Or you could just image google "knitting tattoos".

Elegy to a Piano Scarf

Lo these many years ago, or in the fall of 1993 and of my second year in college to be exact, I had a boyfriend who was a composer and a piano player. He asked me to knit him a piano scarf. I thought piano scarves were terribly tacky, but I dutifully drafted a pattern and began knitting the scarf with the idea that it would be his Christmas present. Then we broke up in early December.

I finished the piano scarf shortly after the break up (it looked almost exactly like the one depicted above, though the one I made didn't have the colour reversal on the second side), and then had to decide what to do with the scarf. I sure as hell didn't want to wear it. Normally I'd have ravelled it out, but as a poor student, I'd used some cheap acrylic sport weight, and it just didn't seem worthwhile to spend a couple of hours ripping the whole thing out in order to salvage that yarn. I knew none of my friends would want it, even if I could bring myself to give it to them. I contemplated just giving it to my ex, but he hadn't behaved that well and we weren't really on speaking terms. I finally offered it to my sister, who plays the piano. She took it, but unenthusiastically. I think the scarf wound up in the dress-up box my parents kept at their place for when my nieces and nephews came over. It may still be there, though it would be much the worse for the wear by now.

After the piano scarf fiasco I resolved that I would never again make anything that I really didn't like myself, no matter how much someone else wanted it, that instead I would aim to make items that both the recipient and I would be happy with. I've not only kept that resolution, but enhanced it. I don't think I ever again knitted something with such poor quality yarn, and over the years the patterns I choose have gotten more complex and better designed. Somewhere along the way I arrived at the conviction that I'd rather make a handful of things that I can really be proud to wear or give away than dozens of items that are nothing special.

In late 2006, many years after that piano scarf project ended on such a sour note, my ex and I reconnected via the internet, and after a profuse apology from him, we soon got to be on the friendly terms we still enjoy six years later. In the spring of 2007, when I was shopping for a used piano on Craig's List, I asked him if he'd help me with my purchase by vetting pianos for me. He did, even spending one of his Saturday afternoons to go to South Etobicoke with me and assess the piano I eventually bought.

I promised him something knitted for a thank you present. My ex again asked for a piano scarf. I started laughing and told him about the piano scarf he'd never gotten or even known about, and he was disappointed, saying he wished I'd given it to him. However, he was very pleased with the scarf I did make: a reversible cabled design in a silvery gray yarn that went very well with the black wool pea coat he wore in winter, and that set off his prematurely silver hair.

Over the years there have been a few other occasions when I tried to knit something for a man for Christmas and the project had some farcical outcome. In the fall of 2004, I began to knit a intricately cabled scarf out of a beautiful gray blue wool for a man I was dating, but he called me one night in early December to tell me he didn't want to see me anymore. As soon as we hung up, I sat down on my kitchen bench and grimly ripped out what I'd got done of the scarf, and not long after used the yarn for something else.

In the fall of 2008 I knitted a pair of cashmere socks for a man I cared a lot about (we weren't going out, but had grown close and had what I believe are euphemistically called some "moments"), and sent them to him, along with some other things, as a surprise gift for Christmas. He wouldn't even open the box, and offered to return it, saying he felt it had "strings attached". He did later apologize for his reaction, and added belated, cursory thanks for the gift, but never told me whether he'd opened the box or what he thought of the contents. For all I know he is still staring at it in paranoid suspicion, or just threw it in the dumpster.

Knitters joke about the "sweater curse", which dictates that if a knitter begins a sweater for a partner, the relationship is doomed to end before the sweater is finished. This curse is not supposed to apply to scarves or socks, but then I seem to be especially luckless. Heaven knows what would have happened if I'd ever gotten so far ahead of myself as to knit a sweater for a man I was dating. However, at least I can say that over the years the lesson of the piano scarf has proved a good one, with far-reaching applications.

Knitting for others, like being in a relationship, requires an awareness of and a sensitivity to what the other person wants, but it's never a good idea to lose sight of what you want, to just do what the other person wants, or to put in too much effort and give too much of yourself to someone who won't even give you respect in return. Keeping these principles in mind won't guarantee that all my projects will turn out well or that I'll never get hurt, but it does mean I can count on feeling some pride and satisfaction in what I've done, and that I'll be able to salvage something from the situation. While I might very well get left alone and with an unfinished project anyway, at least I'll know I've done right and can put the experience and yarn gained to good use. And I won't be left holding a piano scarf.

Show Those Neighbourhood Crocheters Who's Boss

If you really live to knit and want the whole neighbourhood to know it, you might make this wreath to hang on your front door this Christmas. The instructions are on the Styrofoam site, which makes sense as this product requires forty-one Styrofoam balls of assorted sizes.

The wreath is kind of cute in its way, though rather too kitschy to work in any but a very country and craftsy-style décor. I think I'd only make this wreath if I owned a yarn store and was preparing a Christmas display for the shop's front window. Since I have neither a country-style décor nor a yarn store, I'll be sticking with my existing wreath, which is a traditional affair of artificial pine needles, pine cones, cranberries, raspberries, winter berries, and tiny white lights. I fear the yarn ball wreath might make me look as though I'd gone a little knitting mad, and perhaps even was no longer someone who could be trusted to wield two pointed pieces of metal, lest I start sticking them.... just anywhere.