Ruthless Knitting

Lately, I haven’t had much to say about my knitting. I’ve been doing a lot of what I think of as Duty Knitting — working on things I have to finish so I can move on to other things. I got myself into this mess by knitting one sock for my mother that doesn’t fit her. This necessitated the knitting of another sock that will fit her. Then I volunteered to knit a test sock for Nicole. And to finish Grandma’s socks — which were, at least, only a 1/2 sock commitment. Before I knew it, I had three socks that needed mates. Meanwhile, I knit the front of a garment, creating the need for me to knit the (almost entirely plain) back. So my knitting queue looks something like this: second Oriel sock, back of Habu top, second 9 to 5 sock, second Red Herring sock. All of these projects are beautiful, and I thoroughly enjoyed creating the first half of all of them. But I am enough of a process knitter that second halves are not as much fun for me, while I am enough of a product knitter (also known as a “duty-bound knitter”) that I can’t imagine leaving those second halves unmade. And given how busy I have been with work, for which I have been putting in punishing hours to catch up, the knitting is proceeding very slowly these days. Thus, I see my knitting life mapped out for me for the next several weeks, and lo, it is dull.

So. Let’s see what Florence is up to, shall we?

We last left Florence in May 1927, when Slim was nowhere to be found and Bob had popped in for a visit. The diary picks up again a year later.

April 4, 1928. We started to clean house.

April 8 Easter Sunday. Louises all here. Snowed + blowed. Was not very nice. Louise, Little Billie and I were weighed on April 7 1928. I weighed 90 lbs Bill 42 and Louise 141.

I was to quit at the store on April 7 but did not quit that week.

Hmm. Things were a bit gloomy in the land of Florence, what with the bad Easter weather and her plan/desire to quit her job. Perhaps weighing 90 pounds was some consolation. (Louise, by the way, was her sister, and Little Billie her nephew.)

The next diary entries are inexplicably dated from the previous month:

March 19, 1928. Went to Buffalo. Left New Castle at 10:51 and arrived at Buffalo at 4:10. Bob met me. We went to shows and had a very nice time. We left Saturday Mar. 24 for Canada and came back from Toronto on Sunday Mar 25. Mother called me at evening that Grandpa I. died Sunday Mar 24 at 10:40 A.M. Bob and Mr. Wills went to Albany and Cornell N.Y. Monday A.M. at 4 o’clock to see about that job they were bidding on. They came home that night about 12 o’clock. I came home Tuesday. Left at 4 something and got into New Castle about 9:30. Harry and Frances met me in the Ford. Grandpa was buried on Wednesday Mar 28 at 2 P.M. Rev Binginer(?) preached the services.

April 3, 1928. Slim left that morning on the run and did not come back that night. He was not back yet Easter Sunday April 8. Wednesday April 4 Chas Bentfield was in Pittsburgh. Said he saw Slim in Ambridge. Had a letter from Bob. Said they got the job April 3 $71,000.00 job.

I gather from this rather mixed set of entries that Bob was still in contention, especially given Slim’s ongoing absences. The $71,000 job (that’s 1928 dollars, people) sounds like good news, though it might have kept him in New York unable to visit for a while. And obviously, the death of Florence’s grandfather was bad news.

The next entry is long and quite interesting:

April 11, 1928. Slim came home on the 2:30 train in the A.M. He went to bed could not sleep and woke mother up and talked with her. He seemed to be very delirious but worked the next day April 12, 1928. He was in bad shape on the train. Imagined he saw and heard things. That night I stayed home from Grandma’s and stayed up with him all night. He did not sleep a wink + neither did I. He was delirious all night. We had Dr. for him about 8:30. He said he would be alright in a few days. He improved the next day. The High School play was Friday evening April 13 1928. I stayed home with Slim + stayed up that night with him. He was seeing things all night and was very bad. Then that morning he went in on the 6:40 train and met Rowland + he took him to St. Francis Hospital Saturday afternoon April 14, 1928. I called up hospital Sat. + Sunday + he was getting along O.K. Then Monday morning I went to Pittsburgh. Had a talk with Rowland and then I called Aunt Lottie + her + I went out to hospital to see Slim. They did not want to let us in but after I talked awhile they let me go up to see him. He was up + around looked real good. Said he felt alright. Then when we came down we went to Jinko Arcade to see his Dr. Dr Hemminger + he said he did not know when he could come out. He would see him on Tuesday morning and then let me know. I went home with Aunt Lottie and stayed all night. Expect to stay until Slim gets out of hospital.

Thursday Slim got out of hospital.

Did you follow all that? The short version: Slim got sick, Florence nursed him, Slim got better. The longer version is more interesting: Slim became delirious and woke up Florence’s mother in the middle of the night to talk to her (aside: Was Slim sleeping at Florence’s house? Rather unexpected and unsuitable, don’t you think?). He went to work hallucinating, possibly endangering the lives of passengers. Florence stayed up with him all night the next two nights straight while he hallucinated and was “very bad.” They sent him to the hospital in Pittsburgh, where Florence remained by Slim’s side (to the extent possible) for the next four days.

Folks, I think Bob is out of the running. Florence’s devotion to Slim is extreme, and since he apparently made it through his health crisis, I suspect he clinched his place as Suitor Number 1.

Meanwhile, I turned a corner in my knitting. Well, not literally. But David and I took a 54-mile bike ride last weekend, which gave me plenty of time to think about my frustration with the Duty Knitting. I started counting up all of the sweaters that I have mentally designed but not yet knit. I currently have the yarn to make four separate designs, and I have designed and swatched two more but not bought the yarn for them yet. That’s quite a queue, people! No wonder the Duty Knitting is getting me down.

But while I was thinking about my project list, it occurred to me that six sweaters = “the Ruthless Knitting Fall/Winter 2007 Collection,” currently in its planning stages but coming to a website near you (this website, that is) in the coming months. For some reason, thinking about these six sweaters as my collection-to-be makes me feel enormously better. I will devote this fall and winter to creating them all, and it will be fun. I just have a few other projects to wrap up first, as well as some design decisions to figure out via swatching. (Just to be clear — it is a “collection” in my own mind only. I don’t intend to write up all of these patterns, nor do I intend to sell them. The label is not to be taken seriously.) The Duty Knitting no longer seems like such a burden.

Meanwhile, Florence also had a decision to make. Slim or Bob? As much fun as her diary is to read and contemplate, however, it is not a novel, and Florence did not weave in all the ends of her story for us. These are her last two entries:

May 16, 1928. Louise and I opened up at Jake Fishers.

Saturday May 18, 1927. Street car hit Slim’s car at Conway.

That last entry is a doozy, isn’t it? When I first read it, I thought, “Slim’s been wounded! Or killed! And this is the last entry, so we’ll never know what happened to him!” But then I re-read the date: 1927. Slim’s car was hit by another car before any of the events of this post. In fact, it seems that his car was hit right around the time that Bob reappeared on the scene. Apparently, Slim wasn’t hurt. He just has bad luck with cars; you’ll recall that he had to return to Pittsburgh at an earlier point because his car had “burned.”

As for “Louise and I opened up at Jake Fishers,” I’m not sure what that means. As best I can figure, one either opens up a nightclub as a performer, or one opens up a store as an employee. There’s no other internal evidence to help us determine whether Florence and her sister were a wild pair of performing flappers or tame shopgirls.

And that’s it. No closure.

But I did a little digging. First, I did some literal digging: right after I finished reading the diary for the first time, I realized that the little sewing table that had containted the diary also contained an address book that I had thrown away, and that it might also have been Florence’s. So I recovered it from the trash and flipped through it. Nothing of interest appeared among the addresses and phone numbers, and I was about to write it off as unhelpful when I saw a note on one of the last pages. It read: “Slim’s Social Security,” followed by a number.

Reader, she married Slim. Why else would she have jotted down his social security number? Only wives do that.

But I wanted more evidence, so I kept looking. The diary has Florence’s (rather unusual) last name in it, and I used it to do a bit of Internet geneaology research. Via an entry about one of her grandparents from a 1908 book, I learned that Florence was the son of a barber and that she had an older sister named Louise, as well as a twin sister named Frances. Using a list of her grandfather’s descendants, I confirmed that Florence married Slim, while her sister Frances married a man named Harry. (That must be the “Harry and Frances” who met Florence in the Ford.)

Still, I wanted more information. And I wanted to return the diary to Florence’s family, now that I had figured out who they were. So I sent an e-mail to a man in Germany whose e-mail address I found on a genealogy website. He contacted Florence’s second cousin, who e-mailed me with her physical address and a note about how delighted she would be to receive the diary. (The whole series of e-mails took about 24 hours. Isn’t the Internet great?)

The second cousin was able to tell me that Florence and Frances were born in 1906. Florence married her sweetheart, Slim, and in 1965 they lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After Slim died, Florence remarried twice. Using the information about her latter two husbands, I found an obituary online for Florence’s second husband that mentions that Florence died in 1998. She lived to be 92 years old.

And so the adventures of Florence come to an end. In honor of the fun we’ve had together, and the fact that I’m once again at peace with my knitting, I’ve decided to name the Habu top after Florence and to offer the pattern (assuming it comes out well) for free here on the site. I just have to finish knitting it first. Stay tuned.

Isn’t this a pretty sock? It also just happens to be the most comfortable sock I have knit to date — and the pattern is now available for free at All Buttoned Up!

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to test knit this pattern for the designer, Nicole Hindes. I found the pattern to be clear, interesting, and cleverly detailed. The heel flap and gusset are sheer perfection.

Should you wish to make 9 to 5 socks of your very own, Nicole describes the pattern here, and it’s available as a free download here.

We recently returned from a vacation in Indiana, during which we visited family, attended my now-three-year-old nephew’s birthday party, and rode 52 miles from Clarksville to Madison on our bikes, hauling all of our gear in trailers, so that we could camp overnight in Madison and then ride back. Though a small disaster did result when David somehow inadvertently released the entire contents of his Camelbak — half a gallon of water? closer to a gallon? — onto the floor of our tent while we were sleeping, resulting in much middle-of-the-night hilarity, the testing of the water-sopping-up capacity of his sleeping bag (not so good) and my Packtowl (much better), and the subsequent sharing of my slightly damp sleeping bag, a good time was nonetheless had by all.

I did not, however, do much knitting. All I’ve got to show for myself is this pair of socks, for which, I must admit, I was responsible for only about a quarter of the work.

These socks were my grandma’s last knitting project (we think) before her eyes got bad and she had to stop knitting. My aunt Cathy brought them along to Grandma’s memorial service in May and passed them on to me to complete. Since Grandma had finished all of one sock and had knit the leg of the other, all I really had to do was figure out what needle size to use and then knit one heel and foot. And thank goodness for that, because to tell you the truth, I just don’t have the patience to knit that much sock leg. I usually stop at around five inches. Sometimes I force myself to knit seven inches. Nine inches of sock leg is a foreign land to me.

All the yarn was provided, but I had to purchase reinforcement thread, and since the closest match I could find is a different color than hers, the socks are not quite identical. It’s easiest to see in the heels. I like them that way. The yarn is a nice, tough, hand-dyed wool/nylon blend of some sort. It reminds me of Lorna’s Laces, but this colorway is not among their current offerings. If anyone recognizes it, let me know!

**Edited to add: Thanks to Robyn, who identified the colorway as Jeans (link goes to Jimmy Beans Wool). I think that must be it!

I mailed these off to my dad yesterday as a belated, multigenerational Father’s Day gift. Next up: yet another sock, the return of the Habu, and the continued adventures of Florence.

He comes complete with a Buddy ‘Bot Box.

He is even cuter close up.

Today is my brother James’s birthday, and David and I made this Buddy ‘Bot special just for him. I hope he likes it!

Pattern: Robot from Jess Hutchison’s Unusual Toys for You to Knit and Enjoy (no longer available)
Size: One size. Measures about 10″ tall and 8″ wide.
Yarn: Nashua Creative Focus Worsted and a bit of Green Mountain Spinnery Mountain Mohair
Yardage: Unknown. Leftovers.
Yarn Source: Iris Fine Yarns in Appleton, WI; eBay
Needles: I already don’t remember. US 8?
Gauge: Beats me.
Notes: Knitting Buddy ‘Bot was fast, easy, and fun! The seaming was less fun, but that was mostly because I used the same yarn as I used for the body, and it’s a loosely spun one-ply that is really too fragile for the purpose. I saw no way around it, though, as the seam yarn shows in several places on the robot and therefore must match.

The only modification I made was to knit the body and limbs in the same color. The pattern calls for the center of the body to be knit in a different color from the main arm and leg color, but I didn’t have anything that seemed like it would work. I like how Buddy ‘Bot looks in one color, anyway. I also put a short length of toothpick in the antenna to make it stand up better.

I love Jess Hutchison’s toy patterns. I have also made Henry and Dolly from her little booklet. They all came out perfect on the first try, and there is something wonderfully satisfying about the shape and size of them.

Once Buddy ‘Bot was finished, I decided that he needed a box, and David agreed. He made it for me, and I did the spray-painting and lettering. David also gets credit for the “Kill All Humans” line and for suggesting that I change the robot’s name from “‘Bot Buddy” to “Buddy ‘Bot.” He’s such a great husband.

Isn’t Buddy ‘Bot fetching? He looks like he wants to kill you, but he also feels kinda bad about it, and it stresses him out.

–
Picky editorial note: I know that the apostrophe in front of “bot” ought to face the other direction, but I can’t figure out how to make the computer obey my will on this matter.

I am so glad that you are enjoying the adventures of Florence. Gryphon’s comment prompts me to reassure you: Have no fear. You’ll find out who she married before this is over.

But not today.

You’ll recall that we last left Florence raving about how much she enjoys the company of “Slim,” a.k.a. Bill Booth, her card-playing suitor from Pittsburgh. Bob, her earlier beau, had mysteriously disappeared from the scene. This was around January 1927. Now we are on to March:

March 19, 1927. Slim went to Pittsburgh Saturday evening. The first time he went in town over the weekend since I have been going with him. He said he had to see about his car, which was burned a few weeks ago. He came back but was not over until Wednesday evening. He went to Pitts on Tuesday eve. drove Molly West’s car up. Kino(?) went along. Monday evening he said he was home. Wed he was over + every other night until Mar 28 Monday when he bid another run in + got it. So he went in to Pitts Monday on the 6:45 P.M. He called me as soon as he got in to Pitts. + to his room.

Forced to be separated from Slim for the first time since they met, Florence begins tracking his movements rather closely. So far, his behavior seems reasonable. Since his car has been “burned” (vandals? lightning strike?), he must go to Pittsburgh to do something about it. But why didn’t he call on Monday when he was home?

While Florence waits to see what Slim will do next, I’ll give you a sock update: I finished the first Oriel sock for my mom. It’s pretty, and it fits mom, so all is well here, even though it accidentally went through the dryer on a full, hot-air cycle. Since the yarn is dark brown and black, I like to think of this as the first of my “Oreo Oriels.”

Now back to Florence:

I started to work at Robertson on March 21, 1927.

Mrs. Wilson died Mar 15, 1927.

March 29, 1927. John came down on the 12:45. He said he saw Slim was marked up for [the] 117 March 20, so I came down from Robertsons + waved to him when the train went through about 1:10 P.M. Look for him out some time Thursday Mar. 31.

Mar. 31, Slim came out on the 5:45 and we took him to Beaver Falls to get [the] 140 at 9:01. Only had a few minutes to get train. Was glad to see Slim Thursday evening. But our visit was short.

Isn’t that sweet? She’s a working girl now (is Robertson’s a shop?), but she still found time to run down to the station to wave at Slim as his train came through town and to ferry him from one station to another so they could spend some time together. I think Slim must have been a conductor. How else could she expect him to see her on the platform?

April 1, Mother went to [the] lodge. I sewed some + went to bed early. Louise’s birthday. Minnie still improving.

On April 23, Slim came down on the 12:45 + started to work on the New Enon run on Sunday morning April 24, 1927. On May 7, Sat eve., Slim did not come home. He was off all week did not come back until May 14, 1927. Tuesday May 12, Simms(?) broke his arm playing ball.

Uh-oh. Slim was tied up at work for three weeks, and yet he failed to come home when he was off for a whole week. This is not a good sign.

Friday evening May 26, 1826. Slim was bumped Sat May 28. Bob came down from New York stayed until Monday morning May 30.

The triumphant return of Bob! I don’t know what it means that Slim was “bumped,” but it would seem that Bob arrived at the right moment to take advantage of Florence’s dissatisfaction with the poker-playing lout. Well-timed, Bob!

We’ve also had a triumphant return here at Ruthless Knitting: the Habu project is back!

I am so glad that I decided to wash the swatch, because when it came out of the dryer it was both shorter and wider than I expected it to be, making up for the 10 stitches that I accidentally forgot to cast on. The thing about this Habu Cotton Gima is that it can be whatever size you want it to be. The swatch could easily be stretched to 23 inches wide and 7 inches tall, or 20 inches wide and 7.5 inches tall, or 18 inches wide and 8 inches tall — whatever you like! This is a bit maddening from a design perspective, but I’m trying to knit it to the size that the knitted fabric naturally will return to (and thus most wants to be). I unraveled the bound-off edge on the swatch, joined new yarn, and knit up most of the rest of the front. Just one side of the V-neck to go, and I’ll be on to the back.

I think the Habu project needs a name. Perhaps I should call it “Florence.”

So that’s where we are. Florence has to choose between one of two beaus, and I have finished part one of two different projects. Will she marry Bob or Bill? Will the Habu project work out, or will it crash and burn? Will I find the fortitude to knit the second Oriel sock?

Stay tuned.

I’m glad that several of you picked up on the bit of drama in those diary entries. Rather than worry with Florence about whether her potential husband would turn out to be the kind of guy who gambled away the family silver, you wondered with me, “What kind of woman compares her boyfriend to another man? Who is this Bob fellow? A brother? A cousin? Not bloody likely.”

To spare you the pain of further fruitless wondering, I will transcribe for you a few more diary entries, beginning (as one should) at the very beginning. In between, I will show you pictures of my current knitting, which is giving me grief.

March 15, Bob started to work for Swan in Pittsburgh.

March 28, Bob left for Pittsburgh. Was to go to Cambridge Monday Mar. 29, 1926.

July 3 + 4, went to Buffalo + Niagra + Canada. Bob, Annie, Frances, and I were at Bobs home in Buffalo. met Bob’s mother + liked her real well. she is real nice rather girlish + is nice looking. looks like Bob.

The first few entries are rather understated, but they reveal more than it might seem at first. She started the journal when Bob took a job in Pittsburgh, which is a good 45 miles from tiny Enon Valley. He left later that month, and then (maybe) she didn’t see him again until the Fourth of July holiday, when she and Bob and some friends(?) traveled to Buffalo together and visited Bob’s mom. While the presence of the mysterious Annie and Frances on this journey is somewhat troubling, raising doubts about whether Bob was truly Florence’s boyfriend, the third entry at least suggests that Florence has her sights set on Bob. She is scoping out the future mother-in-law, and she is pleased with what she sees.

Then there is a gap of several pages and several months, and Bob drops out of the picture for a while. Perhaps they had a fight? Or is it just that his new job kept him away from Enon Valley and Florence?

Let’s segue from the pain that Florence may or may not have been feeling between July and October of 1926 to the pain that I felt a few hours ago when I realized that I accidentally cast on 10 too few stitches for the front of my Habu top.

This is how far I’d managed to get: 8 inches on size 5 needles. It took me a week. Well, okay, five days. But that’s not counting the weeks I spent figuring out what to make with the yarn, swatching, deciding it wouldn’t work, and starting over again. I had just finished the waist shaping and planned the increases up to the underarm shaping. I was pleased with myself.

Pride goes before the fall. I can’t shave 10 stitches off the size and still hope it will fit how I want it to, so all that knitting just became a giant swatch. Since I have lots of pink Habu, I will bind it off, wash and dry it to confirm that I have the gauge I think I do, and start anew. Sigh.

In October 1926, it seems that Florence started anew, too.

Met Ralph F. on Oct. 26 1926. Went with him steady until Sunday Jan 9, we had a spat. He spent Xmas 1926 with us. We attended several dances + several shows at Youngstown, Beaver Falls, + Palestine. While I was going with him, enjoyed his company real well. But never considered him anything more than a friend.

Florence obviously wrote this entry in retrospect, after she was no longer seeing Ralph. She seems to have decided to make her little book into a dating diary of sorts. Is it just me, or does she sound like she was trying to put a positive spin on her disappointment with old Ralph, who — let’s face it — was no Bob?

In just such a way, I am putting a positive spin on the Big Pink Failure by refocusing my attention on Mom’s birthday socks. After agreeing with me that it would be too much to ask me to rip out and reknit that first, perfect (but too small) herringbone sock, Mom mailed me two yarns she had in her stash and asked me to make her socks with one of them. They are both lovely: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Charcoal and Schaefer Anne in a blue-gray color.

(Let’s take a moment to admire Mom’s cleverness: how better to use up the stash yarn than to suggest that your daughter make your birthday socks with your own yarn?)

Mom suggested either Monkey socks or Oriel from Sensational Knitted Socks as possible patterns, and being someone who would rather knit something new than knit the same pattern twice, I decided to do swatches for Oriel. The Schaefer obscured the pattern too much, but the Lorna’s Laces looked great, so I am off and running.

I got a whole pattern repeat (28 rows) done last night, but I think I messed up the last row, causing me much consternation this morning. I had to set it aside because I was irritated with it. Later, I guess I’ll tink the final row and do it over.

So, to bring this episode to a close, my knitting has made me feel a bit in the doldrums with Florence, but I’m hopeful that things will look up: after she gave up on that dud Ralph, Florence met Bill and wrote the two entries included in my last post. I’m sure that I’ll soon nickname the sock (I like the sound of “Slim”) and start to “enjoy [its] company more every night.” Or, just to keep that from sounding so dirty, let’s say “every day.”

More of Florence’s adventures to come, should you want to hear them, and more of mine whether you ask for them or not.