Needles vs. Hooks

Crafters may look like a close-knit group, but the reality is that there are armed camps within crafting, that knitting and crocheting especially have a Sharks vs. Jets-style rivalry. Knitters and crocheters brandish their respective tools and claim their craft is easier to learn or more versatile, while those who are bistitchual remain determinedly on the fence. The mockumentary Wooly Bullies, which appears above, explores the animus between the Needles and the Hooks. Part of the problem seems to be that while knitters contend with the "old lady’s pastime" stereotype, crocheters are up against the even more negative "old lady's pastime of making granny square and toilet paper cosies" stigma.

Kim Werker, founder of Crochet Me, expounds on some interesting theories in this 2006 interview in which she's asked about the conflict between knitting and crochet. Crochet is much younger than knitting. Knitting is believed to have been invented circa the eighth century, but crochet doesn't seem to have existed much before 1800. Werker says crocheting first came to North America as an easy and affordable way for poor and working class women to make lace, while knitting was the established craft. Moreover, knitting machines were invented over 200 years ago, but to this day crocheted items can only be produced by hand. Knitting's advantage of mass production may have resulted in knitting becoming a respected and staple means of clothing production, while crocheting repeatedly goes in and out of fashion, with corresponding fluctuations in its popularity. It’s surprising and thought-provoking to speculate that this half-joking, half-real schism between knitters and crocheters may have its roots in classist attitudes from 200 years ago.

My own guess is that the schism between knitters and crocheters has a fairly simple explanation. Which may be that most people who knit and/or crochet love the one craft and don't care much for the other (and it seems that generally they prefer the one they learned first), and it's easy for them to get adamant about it, especially on the internet, where everybody tends to get adamant about everything.

Knitty Deep Fall 2012: A Review

I will always love the online knitting magazine Knitty for what I consider to be their most outstanding design of all time.

Yes, that's a thong knitted out of red licorice, and I hope you aren't reading this at work. The pattern is here, and apparently can be adjusted to fit any consenting adult.

Knitty peaked with that design (where can you go once you've designed a thong knitted of licorice?), but let's have a look at their Deep Fall 2012 issue anyway.

This "Best Friends Forever Cowl" is far from the worst way there is to indicate your BFF status with another person. (That would have to be those idiotic half-a-heart necklaces I saw a few of back in the eighties.) The idea for this cowl is that you each knit two of the same colour, swap one, and then graft them together. As long as you choose colours that really work together you'll still want to wear the resulting cowl after you and your BFF have had a hair-pulling match over something stupid and gone your separate ways.

I like this shawl, or at least I think I do — I wish I could see it better in this picture. I'm not sure such a beautiful and intricate lace design needs to be all those different colours, or at least not those particular colours. That may just be my bias against my least-favourite colour (yellow), and against making extremely time-intensive accessories in colourways that only work with a few of your outfits.

I keep thinking this sweater looks like something I would make for a film student because those bands across the chest look just like strips of film to me. (And yes, a film student probably wouldn't want to wear anything so obvious.) The garish colour combination of this sweater bothers me, and the buttons, but that's purely a matter of personal preference. This sweater would look fine knitted in either a bold colourway or in something more subtle, such as in black and white and a few shades of gray.

Mmmm, fair isle. It's so refined by hundreds of years of time and tradition that you almost can't go wrong with it.

This is perfect. I've bookmarked this one and it will be the next sweater I make for my father.

I can't get on board with cardigans that don't fasten in the front even though they're ubiquitous now. I imagine them constantly hanging unattractively open and getting into things, such as my meals. From the way this model has her arm barred across her midriff, I suspect the front of this sweater doesn't stay becomingly wrapped on its own.

Men's sweater design in general suffers from a lack of imagination. As one of my nephews has complained, "They always have the stripe across the chest." It's not entirely the fault of menswear designers, because they have to stick to what sells and so many men really don't want to wear anything the least bit unusual. So here we have a sweater with stripes across the chest, but they're a different kind of stripe from what you usually see, and it actually looks like something fresh and striking. I like this one and think most of the relatively lean men I know under 45 or so would like it. I am not sure about the hoodie, though. I wish there were a back view of it because in this picture it looks like it was tacked on as an afterthought.

I love the concept of a modern-day knitted middy — I love modern versions of iconic fashions — but I don't like the execution of this one. Making the entire item in garter stitch just makes the sweater look like a beginner knitter's first sweater. Mixing it up with some other stitches and techniques, such as a collar and cuffs of stockinette stitch or a finished crochet edging, might have given this sweater a little more style and polish.

Now this is how you design with colour blocking.

These are cute and very well-designed. For the macabre, death-obsessed freak in your life, and don't we all have at least one?

This particular colour combination wouldn't be for everyone, but these are inventive and a good way to use up small amounts of complementary yarn.

I know in comparison to the slaughter house of misery and human cost and the flagrantly inhumane disregard for their own soldiers on the part of the British Army's administration that was the Crimean War, the Balaclava cap probably looked like a good idea. I'm aware that the soldiers who were expected to endure temperatures well below freezing in cotton summer uniforms without shelter or even a blanket would have received the issue of these caps with cries of "THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, SOMETHING TO KEEP MY FROZEN, BLACKENED EARS FROM FALLING OFF!!!!"

But it's well over a century and a half later and for those of us who have been privileged enough not to experience the discovery of a maggot-infested horse carcass in our only water supply or amputation without anesthesia, the balaclava has never been an attractive option.

Adorable! And the hat is cute too. Let's get a closer look at the baby, shall we? Purely so we can see the detail on the hat.

I like the colour patchwork. It's fun and, upon a quick look at the pattern, would be quite painless to work.

The designer of this hat and fingerless glove pattern writes that she always loved playing with prisms in science class as a child and that she wanted to use this yarn and design to recreate the effect. And I must say she has succeeded. This is a very effective use of this very pretty yarn.

I'm not sure I can be fair to these fingerless gloves. I just want to say they're okay, but would look much nicer as real gloves.

But then I'm unreasonably annoyed by this picture and the text that accompanies it. (A quote: "Twisted Mom Sandy Sitzman sat on the stone steps of an ancient temple ruin in Crete, took a skein of her handspun out of her bag and placed it on the stone to summon her muse, Calertne. Magically the colors in her yarn began to sing to the columns, the stone, the tumbling shapes. The goddess answered and these bodacious fingerless gloves were born.") And I don't know why it was necessary for the model to have an egg sitting in her lap, but perhaps it's an obscure reference to that whole goddess thing.

Since I commented on fingerless gloves in an earlier post it's been pointed out to me that for people such as sailors and construction workers who work outdoors in all weathers, or even people who have to play the piano or type indoors but in a work space that is too chilly for comfort, fingerless gloves are a good solution for keeping the hands warm but dexterous, and to this I readily agree. I do remain unconvinced that there is any possible temperature or work environment that requires fingerless gloves on the hands when the same person's feet are apparently perfectly comfortable in flip-flops.

And I note that my spell check is not recognizing the word "fingerless". Make of that what you will.

What to Knit for Opera Night

When I reviewed some of patterns from Vogue Knitting's Holiday 2012 issue, I talked about the ruffled dress above and wondered where one could wear it. The only result of my brainstorming was that I could wear it when dressing as Klondike Kate for Halloween.

Fortunately Vogue Knitting has come to my rescue.

They've offered up an accessory for us to wear specifically with the dress, and helpfully designated them "Opera Wristers" (the pattern can be downloaded for free from the VK site here), though I'm still not clear on whether it's appropriate to wear such an outfit as a member of the audience or if it's meant to be worn only by those performing in the opera.

There was a memorable Elvis concert at which a man in the front row took off his toupée and showed Elvis his bald head. Elvis, who was in the midst of "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", could hardly sing for laughing but rose to the occasion by ad libbing, "Do you gaze at your bald head and wish you had hair?" If you make yourself this outfit complete with the wristers and wear them to a performance of Rigoletto, you too may make concert history when the soloist changes the lyrics of the "La Donna è Mobile" to "La donna è mobile.... ed è così il suo vestito".

Creative Knitting's Winter 2012: A Review

Let's look at some of the patterns from the Creative Knitting Winter 2012/2013 issue, shall we?

Cowls are one of the few truly innovative and clever trends to appear in the last several years. Not only are they a genuinely fresh sartorial departure (something you don't see a lot of in clothing trends, because really, what else can we do that we haven't already done?), but they make a lot of sense. They stay securely in place, keeping your neck and chest warm. They can't fall off and get lost. They don't dangle behind you and leave you at risk for getting your neck broken when they get caught in something, à la Isadora Duncan. And they can look quite good. My prediction is that the cowl is not in fact a trend but that it is here to stay.

That said, I don't care for this one, which makes this model look like she stuck her head through a pile of rope.

I'm not crazy about this cowl either. It looks too bulky and clunky. But I suppose it, like the last one, could work with the right kind of coat.

I do like this cowl. Good proportions, interesting texture.

These gloves remind me of a joke I heard a comedian make about porch lights: that they look really pretty at night but in the daytime they make your house look like raccoons have been ripping apart the eaves on your house. These gloves will look like they've been gnawed on by rodents regardless of the time of day.

This hat and fingerless gloves set is quite cute.

But while we're on the topic of fingerless gloves, is there some temperature at which it's cold enough that you need to protect your hands but your fingers will stay warm by themselves, and if so, what is it? And what do you do if you're out and about and the temperature suddenly dips below that? Do you keep a pair of actual mittens or gloves in your pocket and just switch? If your fingerless gloves match your hat then do you have another pair of the gloves with fingers that also match it so you can stay colour-coordinated when the temperature drops? Considerations like these are why I will never make a pair of fingerless gloves, at least not for myself. It all sounds too complicated.

Another nice hat and fingerless glove set. The idea of putting a garter stitch band around the crown with a little decoration on it to mimic traditional felt hat trimming is a cute one, but I keep looking at the button on the side of the hat and thinking it looks a little lost, or maybe just a little.... little. I'd have used a larger one to keep it in proportion with the rest of the hat.

Nice hat and scarf set. I keep looking at the beads around the bottom of the hat and thinking how I'd feel each individual bead pressing against my skin and how that would annoy the living shit out of me.

Very nice little pullover, a modern interpretation of a classic. This would flatter most women.

Ah, the basic, cropped, squarish sweater. This is one of those beginner projects that you're so proud of when you first finish it, because you've actually made a sweater!!! And then within a few years, after your skill improves and the halo of accomplishment that surrounds this sweater with a glorifying light dims, you realize how amateurish and unflattering it's always been and you either rip it all out and knit something else with the yarn, or you bury it deep in the thrift shop donation bag.

Creative Knitting suggests that you might use the swatches you have lying around to make cell phone covers. I must admit that's a great idea. If you knit swatches. And if you have a cell phone.

This sweater would make me feel like a Muppet.

This sweater would make feel like a Peanuts character.

This is one of those patterns that do look quite good on a professional model in a magazine (although this particular model appears unconvinced of that), but maybe are a little too costume-y and theatrical for real life. I can't picture any of the women I know wearing this. If I made this, I'd probably end up dialing it back by picking a side and making the other side to match it.

Very pretty sweater. Which I'd make with a fitted sleeve. Wide sleeves really aren't flattering on anyone, and they're a nuisance.

Beautiful, wearable, eye-catching sweater. Though I'm not a fan of asymmetry in clothes, at least not for myself. I honestly admire this sweater, but it makes me feel all twitchy and OCD. I made myself a top with an asymmetrical neckline once and couldn't stop tugging on it to try to "fix" it.

I do love the knitted slipcover look. It lends the classic, understated elegance and comfort of a Irish cabled sweater to your furniture, and what's not to love about that? It's even reasonably practical — they'll knit up quickly because you use a bulky yarn and big needles, they should wear fairly well with reasonable care, and they can easily be taken off the furniture and washed as often as needed.

These Christmas cards are undeniably adorable, but I just keep imagining spending all that time making these little knitted decorations, pasting them on a card, and then sending the card to someone.... who will look at it for thirty seconds and then throw it in the garbage.

I love this idea. Making knitted Christmas stockings would be a great way to use up some scrap yarn. I'm not crazy about these particular Christmas stockings, but then the idea isn't to make ones that look just like these, but to use whatever scraps we happen to have to make stockings that suit our own tastes and décor.

I like this little girl's sweater, though I think the pattern needs a little refining. The bottom of the pocket looks especially crude. I'd maybe outline the pocket with the stripe pattern (perhaps crocheting around it with a line of each colour?) to tie it to the rest of the sweater a little better, or at least begin the bottom of the pocket with the stripe pattern.

Travelling and Ravelling: Tales of Knitting on the TTC

I've been living in Toronto, sans automobile, for over twenty years, and I've spent something in the neighbourhood of 10,000 hours on the TTC. Reading on a moving vehicle makes me motion sick, so I knit (or sometimes sew, crochet, cross-stitch, or embroider, etc.) to while away the time spent commuting. This has led to numerous knitting-related incidents.

— I often drop a ball of yarn. People are wonderfully courteous about picking it up for me and handing it back to me before I can retrieve it myself. On one occasion, two young men gallantly dove after the runaway skein… only to bump their heads together with an audible thump. Everyone on the bus cracked up, but with great effort I managed not to laugh, because it seemed impolitic to say the least.

— Sometimes when I drop a ball of yarn I don't notice it right away, but continue striding through a bus station with a ball of yarn unrolling behind me. Someone either points it out or runs after me with the ball, shouting, “Hey! Hey!!!”

— Once as I stepped off a subway car my knitting fell out of my backpack. A man called my attention to it once I was eight feet away. I turned to see the knitting lying on the platform and the ball of yarn lying just inside the subway car door... just as the doors closed on the strand of yarn. I had a panicked vision of my half-finished old-rose-coloured mohair afghan being dragged up and down the Yonge/University line for the rest of the day. All I could do was shriek, "NO! NOOOOOOOOO!" The train took off. The man had the goodness and the presence of mind to pick up the knitting, and the strand of yarn snapped as the train left the station. So my work was saved, but I lost most of a skein of yarn. I went to the lost and found twice in the following week, and it was never turned in. I'm now on the lookout for some mofo in a old-rose-coloured beret.

— I didn't start knitting on the bus immediately after I moved to Toronto at 19, because I was much less confident then. I must have been 23 or so before I finally just started doing it. It took me about a week to get used to being stared at. Everyone stares. I suppose it's natural that motion should attract the eye, and for a regular commuter it's probably the most interesting thing to look at. He or she has seen the scenery a thousand times before, and of course on the subway there's no scenery at all.

— Lots of people strike up conversations with me about knitting. What am I making? How long did it take me to learn to knit? They tell me that they've always wanted to learn to knit themselves, or about their own knitting, or how they used to knit, or how someone they know knits. Once years ago an elderly man said it was so nice to see a young girl knitting and fondly reminisced about how his mother knitted. Sometimes people take a more technical interest and ask me how or why I do this or that. One middle-aged man pointed out that I had bad form — his grandmother had taught him to knit once when he was a little boy, though he hadn't kept up with it. Often people near me start talking to each other about knitting.

— I can always tell when a current project is turning out especially well, because I get lots of compliments on it. It's especially cheering to have these compliments come from the target audience, as it were. At one point I was working on a sweater of my own design for a male friend, and worried it wasn't masculine-looking enough. Then one day a group of huge-panted homeboys told me that it was "real nice", so I figured it couldn't be too girly.

— Whenever I sit next to or across from another knitter, we exchange looks and small, fleeting, complicit smiles. And then we knit on in silence, like compatriots of such longstanding that there is no need for words.

— One day, I happened to be sitting next to a young guy, and his girlfriend was sitting on his other side. They had a make out session, and then suddenly the guy (who had a shaved head and was much-pierced and dressed in black leather) turned to me and very politely and deferentially asked me in the sweetest, softest voice how he could learn to knit, saying he'd always wanted to learn. I made some suggestions about knitting cafés and classes. He turned back to kissing his girlfriend for a bit, then turned to me again and asked how long it would take him to learn to knit, how soon he could expect to be able to make a sweater, etc. I answered these questions, and he turned back to his girlfriend and they made out some more. Then he turned back to me and asked me some questions about what he should do for a first project, and what kind of yarns and needles he should buy for it. I recommended a scarf, worsted yarn, and size 5mm needles, and he turned back to his girlfriend for more smooching. The alternate knitting consultations and make-out sessions continued until they left the train.

— One evening a chef from a downtown restaurant pressed a restaurant matchbook with his name scribbled on it into my hand and asked me to call him, telling me that despite "everyone thinking he was a big macho chef", he really would like to learn how to knit and wanted me to teach him. I was afraid his request was a euphemism for something else and I didn't call him.

— Kids are always the cutest starers and conversationalists. Back in the days when I patronised a laundromat, small children would routinely collect around me to watch me knit and ask questions. One day a little girl who sat next to me on the subway asked me what I was knitting. When I said, "It's a sweater for my niece," her eyes got big and round and she said, with awe, "Are you an auntie?" as though I were some rare and priceless creature. Plainly this was a child who had aunts who adored and doted on her.

— Another little girl asked me what I was knitting. When I said, "A sweater," she said, "Is it a surprise for me?"

— One little girl on a bus I used to take to work used to stare fixedly at me the entire duration of our ride together. I swear, she wouldn't even blink. And she always sat as close to me as she could. If she could sit next to me she’d beam with satisfaction as she climbed into the seat. One day as she did so, her mother, who had sat down across the aisle, said, "Come sit over here by me." The little girl protested, "But I want to sit next to the Knitting Lady!" and the mother good-naturedly said, "Oh, all right," and moved across the aisle herself to sit on the little girl's other side.

— People often refer to me as the Knitting Lady. I'd be sitting in a bus shelter knitting away and one of the people waiting outside would stick her head in and call, "Yoo hoo, Knitting Lady, the bus is coming." One day as I walked along the sidewalk a man I didn't at all recognize passed me, then turned and said, "Hey, you’re the Knitting Lady!" A former co-worker of mine who took the same bus as me told me that after I changed jobs several people on the bus said to him, "Why isn't the Knitting Lady on this bus anymore?"


Don't worry, buddy. I'm sure to be somewhere out there on another bus or train, knitting.

A Fowl Knitting Project

The American Thanksgiving weekend is approaching. You might want, as 213 people on Ravelry have, to knit your baby a turkey hat, downloading the pattern from this page.

Then again, if you're Canadian you're probably glad to have Thanksgiving well behind you so you can focus on something less psychologically damaging to your child else.

They Knitted it with SCIENCE!

Discover Magazine has a weird and wonderful gallery of knitted and crocheted science projects, including a knitted dissected frog (which reminds me far too vividly of grade ten biology and my weird science partner who liked to stick my pens in the Bunsen burner), and knitted plankton.

I'm too pragmatic to ever do knitted sculpture or stunt knitting myself, but damn, do I ever have to respect and admire the sheer level of skill, ingenuity and effort that goes into it when I see it.