Gifts

By in Bonny, Island, Keep Your Hands Warm, Side by Side mitts, Tops 3 Comments

Thank you all for your heartening responses to “Winter Words”—it’s lovely to “meet” some new readers and to hear from some who’ve been here all along! The opportunity to collaborate with Brooklyn Tweed was so unexpected and so energizing—definitely one of my greatest gifts this season.

Of course there was a flow of knitted gifts in and out of my household as well. After the effort of Winter Garden, which really consumed most of the time I’d have otherwise given to Christmas presents, it was a pleasure to turn to someone else’s quick and easy pattern and toss off a few last-minute holiday projects. Katya Frankel’s Side by Side mitts were the perfect car knitting as we traveled north to visit my family. I began one the night before we left in Quince & Co.’s Owl (DK wool/alpaca, wonderfully rustic), the gorgeous Cranberry color. But I had cast on the medium and it was coming out too large for my own hands. I tried it on my husband: sure enough, perfect man size. So I quickly began another in the small, as I needed a gift for a photographer friend who’s been very generous in taking pictures of my family and never accepts payment. By the time we reached Anacortes I had two mitts of different sizes and colors, but I was exceedingly glad to don them, ends still a-dangling, when we faced a two-hour wait for the next ferry and the dog needed a chance to run on the beach. It was about forty degrees and lightly sprinkling and my own gloves were somewhere in the roof box. (I’m still wearing the Koolhaas gauntlets I adapted years ago from Jared Flood’s 2007 hat pattern.) Mr. G read books and let the children push all the buttons on the dashboard while Lark and I scrambled down to the waterline.

The tide was in, I was glad to see. Lark is a compulsive wave chaser and will keep sprinting to and fro at ankle depth even after the shell fragments and barnacled rocks of our shingle beaches have shredded her paws, so she’s much better off if the water’s edge is up near the softer sand where the grasses begin. There were only a few dog people out on this winter day. A Portuguese water dog attempted to keep up for a little while; a Bernese mountain dog was too wise to spend his energy in the chase and snuffled my pockets hopefully instead. Cormorants dipped in and out of the shallows, gulls jostled and gossiped on the old cannery pilings, and a flock of some small sea ducks beat in to land in formation up the curve of the bay. Lark shuttled back and forth at roughly the speed of sound and I walked the length of the sand until the footing got too squelchy for my sneakers. My mismatched gloves did their work and fended off total numbness. And meanwhile, my snack stash did its work and carried the children through the pre-dinner hours in good spirits. Two hours is a long time to wait in the car when you’ve already spent five hours there, so we staged a dance party to Bruce Springsteen’s greatest hits in the passenger seat for a while.

A couple of days later I’d completed a mate for Kathy’s glove, the kids were occupied with the spoils of Christmas, and the outdoors were briefly inviting enough for some quick photos.

KathysMitts (2 of 2) KathysMitts (1 of 2)

This pleasant, tweedy, mouse color is called Papuan. (And that vest dates from 2009, subject of the annual Christmas exchange with Katrin! Three cheers for Shetland wool, and three more for skillful friends.) I finished my father’s pair back home in Portland, since I’d run out of the Cranberry, and I suspect there are more of these mitts in my future. I’d quite like some myself, and my husband was disappointed to learn my dad’s set wasn’t for him. (He did get fingerless gloves for Christmas, machine knit by my friend Laurie, so I don’t know what he’s complaining about. Plus he’s lost one each of the two pairs I’ve made him.)

I have not yet completed my half of this year’s Christmas exchange, I hang my head to say. I’m already in possession of a beautiful Bonny top in Swans Island silk/merino laceweight; it fits me perfectly and looks terrific. But I am still creeping through the lace panel on Katrin’s. So I hope she’ll forgive me and accept a Lunar New Year gift this year. Here’s the good news: dear Mr. G has just come up with my Christmas present. It’s a SUPERDRIVE. It sounds like it ought to take me through the worm hole at warp speed. What it actually does is… wait for it… play DVDs. My husband thinks it’s quaint of me to care that my new laptop doesn’t have an aperture for anything greater in diameter than a quarter. But I am not ready to live in the cloud full time. I have been pining for the box of movies that’s sadly relegated to the basement, and I cannot bring myself to pay money to stream something online that I already own. Twice, if you’re talking about my new plans for this evening, because it was remastered a few years ago. That’s right. You know who’s going to get me through this lace panel? Mr. Darcy and Lizzy, that’s who. SUPERDRIVE!

Words

By in Writing 26 Comments

Picture, say, a scarlet ibis alighting on your dining room table. The flabbergasted wonderment you’d feel is roughly akin to my reaction when an email from Jared Flood appeared in my inbox one utterly normal November day. My first thought was this: That’s it. The Nigerian spammers have found my weakness. I’d better let Brooklyn Tweed know their corporate email has been hacked. Then I opened it anyway. Jared wrote that he was seeking a house writer for Brooklyn Tweed, someone to help with all the different sorts of copy he needs to generate and doesn’t have time to write himself because he is rather busy designing and knitting and photographing gorgeous garments and also making yarn and running a fully fledged business. He thought of me. (!) He also wondered if I’d like to write a longer piece for the BT Winter collection, a knitter’s reflection on winter, in any form I wished to give it. I quickly reviewed the rules for dating, such as I remember them from before I met my husband half a lifetime ago. I waited what I hoped was a seemly 45 minutes before I wrote back YES. I schooled myself to avoid exclamation points.

I’m an editor by trade. Writing is the backbone of my craft and I often do a deal of it for my authors. When I worked on children’s books in New York there was often a gifted illustrator who needed help to shape a cohesive story or a middle-grade fantasy novelist who needed coaxing beyond formulaic plots and stock characters. Lloyd Alexander once accepted my suggestion for a line of repartee, so I was always going to die happy. In my current work, my writers are teachers in the traces and their energies are best spent on the children in their charge, so I polish and enhance their reflections or simply interview them and draft the articles myself. Editors don’t take credit, though. You might see them thanked by the author in a note, but you won’t find their names in the fine print alongside the jacket designer or the photographer who captured the author’s image for the back flap. And I’m very comfortable working offstage.

But I’m trying to push myself a little harder, to keep growing and seeking new possibilities. I don’t want to plough myself under intellectually as I accept the physical and emotional work of motherhood. And human beings need to reach for what might be beyond their grasp in order to learn and grow. So I said yes to Brooklyn Tweed, yes to being a writer with her name on her work. And today you can read a little essay called “Winter Words” in the middle of the new lookbook. I promise I am not at all offended if you huff right past it, slavering for the luscious cables and textured stitches and coastal scenery in the fashion story called Shingle & Copse. I’d do the same. A new Brooklyn Tweed collection is like a land rush. But maybe you’ll page back and read it later on.

Of course, with the ibis on your dining table, after the shock and amazement pass, practical thoughts are going to creep in. What do you do with it now that it’s here? What if it won’t just fly back out the window? What if it voids its capacious bowels all over the important tax documents and your great-grandmother’s linens? Should you feed it? It’s a queer, naked feeling, knowing your words are out standing together under the scrutiny of many thousands of eyes. Let me know what you think of them. Maybe you’ll feel like writing your own origin story. Leave a link in the comments if you do, because stories are good food for humans. They’re how we make and share meaning from the raw stuff of the world. And being a writer is connective — strands of words knit us together across great spans of the globe. A pencil and a knitting needle are nearly the same tool. Cheers, you writers and you knitters, you people of the sticks.

Reprise

By in Andamento, Jolyon, Pomander Cardigan, Socks No Comments

Back in the spring I started a short-sleeved Pomander for my boy in the 18-month size. He passed that milestone on the solstice and lo, it fits him perfectly.

JollysPomander (1 of 1)

JollysPomander2 (1 of 1)

(How much am I going to miss that cute round tum in a few years when he’s all limbs and muscle?) As I predicted, the yarn—Knitted Wit Cashy Wool, seriously luscious—is almost impossible to photograph, but I couldn’t resist this deepest blue for my fair fellow and I find I quite like the subdued look of the yoke on my little man. I used every last inch of this 400-yard skein, even calculating my yardage per round on the sleeves so I could measure out exactly how much to allot to each one; the resulting elbow length is just perfect for wearing over another shirt and handily keeps him from wiping his mouth on the handknits, too. The ability to make this a one-skein pattern in any size was one of my chief reasons for constructing the sleeves as I did, with a provisional cast-on to complete the yoke before picking up and knitting the sleeves downward. And I’m happy to report it worked.

Busy Jolly. He can sing. He can tiptoe. He whistles when he blows on his hot oatmeal. He can stick the landing on a few ending consonants so his words no longer have sixteen possible meanings. He understands everything. He can say no no no and run away cackling when it’s time to pick up toys or go to bed. He managed a sentence: “Baby…eat…roro!” (Roro are frozen blueberries.) He can flop and wail theatrically when he doesn’t get what he wants. He can make a joke by declaring that peas are yellow or brown. He gives the world’s sweetest kisses and will take it upon himself to go find something that will comfort his sister when she’s hurt.

Jolly18months (1 of 1)(Yes, he’s got the scars to prove he’s a man of action.)

And oh, how he’s growing. I’d better get cracking on a new round of sweaters for 2014. The next kids’ design in the WGK hopper is a unisex cardigan, so I’m thinking there will be one apiece for the littles.

But first I’ve got a side project to tackle — the reissue of a sock design called Andamento that’s reverted to me. I confess it wasn’t on my radar at all, but a Raveler went hunting for the pattern and couldn’t get it from the original publisher, so she contacted me about it last week. I find the design still pleases me after five years, so it’s no burden to visit the local shop for a skein of Malabrigo Sock and cast on a new sample. Okay, I made two visits. The first day I grabbed a skein of Marte, one of my favorite Malabrigo colors, but when I got a few inches in I had to admit to myself that it probably wasn’t bright enough to photograph well. So I went back for a skein of Turner. It’s looking promising, and I’m glad to be sending this design back into the world. Golly, I haven’t knit a sock in far too long. Let’s see if I have the stamina for four in a row. My mother was eyeing the Marte, and I noted a pair of socks I know I knit at the same time as the original Andamento sample — half a decade ago — carefully air drying inside out in her laundry and looking quite lovingly cared for… my duty is clear.

Tomorrow I get to tell you about an exciting project that isn’t made of yarn. It’s been under my hat for a month and I can’t wait to see what you think!

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