Crazy Aunt Purl comes to town

Ms. Crazy Aunt Purl at the downtown Seattle Barnes & Noble, 10/17/2007

I was happy to catch Laurie Perry reading from her book Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair this week. As you can maybe tell from the above picture, there were not enough chairs. I stood for her her whole talk with my chevron scarf draped around my neck, knitting from one end. (Laurie thought that was funny when she signed my copy of the book, but hey, it's a convenient way to knit!)

Laurie was as sweet and funny in person as she is in her blog, and I have to say, as cute as a button. I mention this especially because she often writes about body image issues (which of course I can relate to) and I think she's just so pretty so I wanted to say that here.

I've already finished the book. It's Laurie's story of what it was like to have her husband leave her and grow into a happy life with a little help from the passage of time, knitting, and friends. She's a humorous writer (I highly recommend the blog) and it's a quick, enjoyable read with some knitting patterns in the back.

The Yarn Harlot Comes to Town

Yes, her visit was a week and a half ago. But my father was in town (and agreed to be dragged along - lucky for me, as he had his tourist camera on him, and I had forgotten mine at home) and so it's taken me a while to process my pictures and find the time to write even this short note.

I was afraid Third Place would run out of chairs, so we got there about half an hour early. (It didn't, but there were a few hundred people there to see her). It's a lovely venue which endeavors to be a community gathering spot - the bookstore is only part of it - so we had a bite to eat before the show started. My partner and father then wandered the bookstore while I sat down with my shawl and listened.

Man, the cameras went crazy when she did her standard shots of the crowd with the traveling sock. Of course, I was one of them:



Stephanie talked with us for a while, and was witty, funny, and enjoyable. She made me swell with knitterly pride. I'm not sure if it actually was a book reading - I've read the book and didn't recognize her piece as being from it - but her talk belongs in print, IMHO. Beyond the humor, one point that stayed with me, and impressed my father, was: 100 years ago, it was considered a waste of money to buy something that you could make. Now, it's considered a waste of time to make something you can buy. I'm quite pleased to be part of the movement that is taking back the value of making.

I tried to take some pictures while she was talking, but the lighting was poor. Here's the best I managed:


Pretty awful, huh?

With family in tow and a big crowd, I didn't stay for the book signing. But I did hover around the stacks to get a better picture of her in person:


I love that she's wearing Birkenstocks, because I was wearing my own pair that night.

Shawl update: I took Stephanie's message to represent for knitters to heart (although frankly would have done this whether or not I had made it to see her) and took my shawl to a two-day training I attended for work last week. I completed almost a full repeat and a half in two days and the training was much more enjoyable. And I've churned out another repeat since then! I've now finished 11 repeats, which is 45% done! With autumn upon us in earnest, I am eager to be able to wear the shawl soon.

Book Review

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: the Yarn Harlot's Guide to the Land of Knitting
by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

The Yarn Harlot is my favorite knitting author. Everything she writes is so damn funny.

This book has the premise that Knitting is a destination, so it's written as a travel guide. There are sections like Consulates and Embassies (local yarn shops), History, Politics (circular vs. straight, natural vs. acrylic), Knitting Sports (marathon, time trial, synchronized sock making), Religion, and Extending Your Stay. I thought it was a fun and light-hearted book, but it's only for those who, well, really like to knit.

There are also some very good tips for how much knitting to pack for a trip: at least three projects (a small one for the carry-on, one for being out and about, and one for hanging out indoors). For road trips, she recommends projects on different size needles to give the hands a break, and notes that some folks can get carsick if reading patterns and knitting while in the car - pick easy projects that don't require charts. For the plane, you can carry on yarn, needles (preferably circular and bamboo), patterns, and a cloth tape measure, but needles, scissors, and metal tape measures must be in the checked luggage.

A few quotes I thought worth saving:

From time to time, non-knitters who don't understand that some upset and frustration are part of the process of knitting have accused me of not really liking knitting as much as I think I do. (I can sort of understand how they might think that I'm not enjoying knitting when I've just whipped a half-knit sock at the wall while letting fly a string of filthy language.) When I get over my initial shock and their statement, I realize the truth: I don't like knitting. I love it ... and when you love something, you don't just give up on it the minute it stops being fun. (Most of us wouldn't still have our kids if that were the case.) You keep pursuing passions such as parenting, marriage, and knitting even when they aren't fun because they somehow fuel the human soul. Simply having a passion is a deep payoff, offering something more ... and knitting is like that. (pgs 12-14).

From instructions on how to weed a stash, step 6 is:
If at any point you falter, feel dizzy, find yourself panicking, or discover that you are taking items back out of the [give-away] bag, repeat your stash weeder's mantra: I am a knitter of discerning taste. Yarn is meant to have a future, and yarn I don't love won't ever be knit. I am not getting rid of yarn; I am liberating it that it may achieve its full potential with another knitter. (pg 101).

This last one is the quote that inspired the name for this blog.

Book Review

Aran Knitting
by Alice Starmore

This lovely book is out of print, and is a hot (and expensive!) commodity amongst knitters, so it was difficult to get a hold of. My library doesn't have a copy, so it took some work to get a copy I could borrow through another library system. After finally getting a hold of it, I discovered one page (with charts!) was missing. Oh, the woe! What knitter would do this to another knitter?

The book begins with historical research into the origins of "Aran knitting." Starmore analyzes the Aran sweaters held in the National Museum in Dublin, and through that, is able to prove that Aran knitting developed on the Aran Islands of Ireland in the mid-20th century as a commodity to sell off-island for money. (Legends have held that it is an ancient practice, with family patterns, and that the patterns of the sweaters were used to identify the bodies of sailors who died at sea. This was blarney, but apparently good for sales).

Starmore was one of the first (if not the first) to develop methods for Celtic knotwork-style cabling (as opposed to just diamond-patterns and simple twisted cables), which she outlines in this book. The book then contains a a number of beautiful patterns for cabled sweaters and hats, with gorgeous photography taken on location in Ireland (see pics from the book here).

I find it a great shame that it is out of print, and I understand that copyright disputes will probably keep it that way, as I'd really like to own a copy. But I did copy the charts and am now swatching some of them for an Aran-style bag I intend to make. Out of tweeded blue Donegal wool, natch!

Some other knitting books that I'm enjoying and would happily recommend:

For cabling:
220 Aran Stitches and Patterns by Harmony Guide Staff, Collins, and Brown
Inspired Cable Knits by by Fiona Ellis
Cables Untangled by by Melissa Leapman

For lace (my new passion):
Folk Shawls by Cheryl Oberle
Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls by Martha Waterman

Book Review

Another book review I originally wrote in December. (Re-reading the quotes I pulled out shows me that I've always loved the concept of the potential of yarn.)

Knitting Rules
by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Subtitled The Yarn Harlot Unravels the Mysteries of Swatching, Stashing, Ribbing & Rolling to Free Your Inner Knitter

Another humorous book on knitting by the Yarn Harlot. This one is more of a how-to, with chapters on yarn, tools, gauge, hats, socks, scarves and shawls, and sweaters, and instructions on how to knit simple hats, socks, scarves, and shawls. (Simple like: Cast on however many stitches you want, knit until the piece is square, cast off. (I can't believe I just typed that.) pg 182).

I also like it when she got all poetical about yarn - even though I've managed to remain the type of knitter who only buys yarn with projects in mind:

The reason we fill our houses with it, visit it in yarn shops, speaking of it in glowing terms, and hoard it with a passion is that it is pure potential. Every ball or skein of yarn holds something inside it, and the great mystery of what that might be can be almost spiritual. These six balls of wool could be a shawl my mum puts around her shoulders when she's cold, or maybe it's a blanket a friend warps her baby in. Maybe that baby takes a shine to it and it becomes his beloved companion blankie, comforting him for years and years. Maybe it's a sweater that my daughter is wearing the day she gets her first kiss, and from then on my yarn is part of her memory of that day. Maybe, just maybe, those six balls are a scarf and hat that get tucked away for years and long after I'm gone someone pulls them out and says, "Remember how Granny was with all the wool? Remember how she knit all the time?" fingering the soft wool and pondering who I was and what I did while I was here.

It's a mystery, each ball of yarn ... and I don't know what each one is going to be or what life it will take when I finally set needles to it. But each one will be something I made with my own two hands. This yarn, then - my whole big sweeping stash - is the stuff of dreams (pg 51).

Knitting Rules was an enjoyable read, and made me feel like I should attempt a sweater. Or a pair of socks. Um, someday.

Book Review

I wrote this review back in December 2006:

Yarn Harlot: the Secret Life of a Knitter
by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

This is one of the funniest books I have ever read. My partner is terrified that I think a book about knitting is so funny, but really, it is!

The book is a collection of essays/short true-life stories about knitting - the unending tedium of a green 8' by 10' wedding afghan that just wouldn't be finished (yes, that's in feet), the joy of knitting a lace shawl out of hand-spun alpaca yarn bought from the alpaca farmer, an evil squirrel that kept eating the wool yarn she hand spun and hung out to dry, the absolute horror of a moth infestation in her large collection of wool yarn, the extreme pressure of knitting for Christmas deadlines. She takes on famous knitting designers whose patterns just don't make sense, confesses the secret places she hides her yarn stash (my favorite was in an opaque suit bag, hung innocently in the closet, so that her husband wouldn't know it was more yarn), stares open-mouthed when a brain surgeon tells her that a little old stockinette in the round is too complicated, and becomes a true Knitter when she makes a sweater with steeks (you knit a tube, and then cut holes to attach the arms - it really sounds like a recipe for disaster.)

The author has a friendly, humorous, sometimes self-deprecating style that is easy to appreciate, and so even her horror tales are funny. A few selections were a bit more somber - one made me cry - but they all reflect on a knitter's love for knitting. If you have even a passing fancy for yarn and two sticks, you need to read this book.

I know I'm probably posting to the converted here, but this book was how I first found the Yarn Harlot.