Connections and Knitting

Have you ever visited a far away state and then when you get home you keep seeing license plates from that state?  I’ve been told it’s only because you’ve become more aware.  Maybe.  But I think that only means that those connections are always there and we just need to become aware of them.  It makes me emotional when I find a new-to-me author referencing a writer I already hold dear.  I get excited when a blogger I love loves another blogger I love.  The interconnectedness of things.  I  can’t explain it – sometimes there’s a feeling of supernatural specialness in the continuity of life, in history.

This week I read a book called Lotte’s Locket by Virginia Sorensen.  Nice children’s book – I enjoyed it.  It takes place in post-war Denmark.  The main character is a babyboomer.  I think she’d be in her sixties now.  Anyway, now every time I turn around there’s something about Denmark.  A book reference, a blog, a trivia question.  It makes me laugh and I wish someone else were in on the joke with me. You know I homeschool my children, right?  And you know I ascribe to the philosophy and apply the methods of Charlotte Mason?  And you know that I have recently fallen in love with the writings of Elizabeth Zimmermann.  I never would have thought books about knitting could be so full of the special interconnectedness of things.  Today I was reading from her book Knitting Around and came across a connection so wonderful to me that I tried to share it with all the people around me – none of whom understood why I was shouting and flapping my arms.  Mrs. Zimmerman grew up in England in the early twentieth century and for a time was educated at home by governesses.

They both taught by the method of Charlotte Mason, who had some kind of a school and governess-training institution at Ambleside in the Lake District.

She goes on to explain exactly how she felt about what we call narrating, which is telling back in one’s own words the bit of literature one has just heard.  I’m sorry to say she seems to have enjoyed it about as much as my oldest child does.  But it doesn’t seem to have done her any harm.

But wait!  There’s more!  Mrs. Zimmerman also lived for a short time in the very neighborhood I grew up in.  In fact, I believe my grandmother raised her family just around the corner from where Elizabeth and her husband rented the attic of an old house.  Of course my grandmother was married in 1949, eight years after the Zimmerman’s left that place.

I was knitting my first sweater and the dog ate it.  Yes, it’s true.  I was using inexpensive yarn as a test run and that’s probably what saved the dog’s life that day.  Since then I’ve been futzing around with different things trying to see what I feel like doing.  A woman at homeschool co-op gifted me some truly lovely things from her stash.  Not enough of any one thing for a big project but enough of each to indulge in a little soothing yarn therapy.  I really want to do something in the round right now so I’ve been retiring to bed early to read and to try to figure out a circular shawl.  And you know what that means – the dreaded Double Pointed Needles of Doom.  I’ve already frogged back started over several times – once after already starting on the circulars.  Le sigh.

starting over again

So, that’s my rambling contribution to Ginny’s Yarn Along.  You should go see what some of the other people are rambling about.

In Which I Outline the Steps to Becoming a Mediocre Knitter and Praise for Elizabeth Zimmerman or The Dog Ate My Hat

Practice something for twenty years and you’re bound to at least achieve mediocrity.  Over the years, I’ve knit things – Christmas stockings, a sampler blanket with mixed crochet and knitting, dishcloths, a sock, a scarf – but until recently it was a slow, tight, frustrating experience.

swatch cap and chart

Last year I started reading Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac.  I didn’t knit anything from it.  I just enjoyed her conversational and encouraging writing style.  I love that she starts with the most difficult project in the book with the idea that if you accomplish that, the rest of the projects will be easy.  I knew that the knitting in the book was way beyond anything I’d done before, but Mrs. Zimmerman made it feel not out of reach.  Her instructions are not rigid patterns but interesting ways of thinking.  She puts the power in the hands of the knitter.  This year I decided I would begin to slowly work through the projects.  It’s supposed to be a year of projects, but for me it is probably more like three years. I began with a “swatch cap” in cheap yarn and ripping it out over and over again after five or six rounds.   After all that frogging, I got the hang of it and turned the cap into a cute little pillow for a child’s favorite stuffed animal. I finally got around to making that swatch cap in aran weight superwash merino.  It came out just fine.  I think it would have been better in an ordinary wool but the weight and color were perfect.  As soon as I finish making my husband a replacement for the the hat he lost, I’ll try making the fisherman’s sweater to go with the cap.  I’ll do it first in Red Heart, then when I’m sure I can do it, I’ll buy something really lovely to work with.

Fisherman hat. Yes, we wear hats in the house.

Then I took a break and made some easy hats in more cheap yarn.  Lo and behold, what once would have been A PROJECT was now fast and easy.  It was even mindless enough that I could teach school while knitting.  I could put it down and pick it up and know just where I was.  I had finally reached a low intermediate level. Then, as a reward for having achieved that milestone, I made myself a hat in beautiful, luxurious yarn of baby alpaca and merino.  Just handling it was a sensual experience.  For more than a week I walked around telling people, “Feel my head.  Isn’t that nice?” Then the dog ate my hat.

Doesn’t he look smug?

So I made another one.  Because when something is that pleasant, it is not a hardship to do it again.