Ruthless Knitting

I wanted to show you progress pictures on Frances today, because I think it’s important that I not refrain from picture taking until the sweater is done and then say, “Here it is!” When I do that, it makes it seem as though I produced the sweater with no effort, when in fact I am madly knitting, knitting, knitting on it like Madame Defarge. Unfortunately, all of the pictures I took this morning came out blurry, so you’ll just have to take my word for it: much knitting is taking place on Frances, and she now has two sleeves and a body all the way down to the waist. I think it will take me about a week to finish the remaining bit of the body and weave in ends. I’m thrilled with how she looks so far.

Meanwhile, Zigzag Stitch has an enjoyable post today about her “best ever” handknit, and she asks at the end, “What’s your best ever?” While I agree with her that there are many different criteria with which one can answer this question, by her own criteria, I have a hands-down winner: my felted slippers.

My felted slippers, as you can see, are rather loud. These days, they are also rather ugly, misshapen things, with blue fibers mashed into the sides of the soles from our living room carpet. And they are starting to fall apart, to boot: these slippers have a double-thickness sole, and I’ve worn a hole straight through the outer sole on each slipper and am coming alarmingly close to wearing a hole in the inner sole as well. They are my best ever handknit simply because I wear them every night and every morning and I have done so for the last two years (nearly) since I made them. They have perfectly molded to the shape of my feet, they’re cushy, and they keep my toes warm.

The pattern is the ever-popular Fiber Trends Felt Clogs pattern (link takes you to one of many places where it can be purchased), with the bumper left off. I need to make a new pair soon so that I won’t have to go into mourning when these give out on me. I’m thinking they should be just the same, only less outrageous: blue soles would be nice, to go with the carpet fibers that will quickly get mashed in, and brown tops to keep them a bit more sophisticated than the first pair, yet also better able to disguise the inevitable dirt build-up.

What’s your best ever?

Since I last posted, I’ve been finishing up all sorts of knitting projects, some long-term and some instant gratification, but I haven’t been able to blog about them because my computer died and I’m using my old laptop. Okay, technically, nothing is stopping me from blogging, but everything’s harder on this old computer, and I am too lazy to import pictures and so on. I’m supposed to get my computer back today, and then I can play catch-up.

In the meantime, I will answer the “Eight Random Things about Me” meme that Gryphon tagged me for. I think that Mel tagged me for it a few months ago, but I was too lazy to do it. Also, I kept thinking it was “Eight Weird Things about Me,” and I couldn’t think of anything weird about myself. (I told David that, and he thought it was funny. He did not have any trouble coming up with weird things about me.) But then I thought of several items that are both weird (by some standards) and random, which I will list for your edification. There’s supposed to be a baby picture, too, according to Gryphon’s modified rules, but I don’t have any handy. I’ll try to remember to add one after I get my computer back.

Edited to add: Here’s that baby picture! I like this one because I am so obviously pouting. And if someone was taking my picture, the pouting was just as obviously not being taken very seriously. I am about two and a half here.

1. I have two TVs, but neither of them has any channels hooked up — no cable, no antenna, no reception. At least, I assume that they have no reception; I’ve never tried to receive anything on them, so I can’t be sure. There’s one TV in the bedroom, which we use at night to watch movies and shows we get through Netflix (currently season 3 of Deadwood), and there’s another TV on the wall in the basement, which entertains us when we’re on the treadmill. Otherwise, we don’t watch TV.

2. I exercise five or six times a week, and it’s one of my favorite things to do. I run, do yoga, walk and hike, ride my road bike, ride my mountain bike, ski, snowshoe, do indoor climbing, and lift weights. For the vast majority of my life, I considered myself to be “not athletic” because of my mediocrity at all the team sports and gym class games that constitute athletics in the public schools. I think it’s practically a crime that we introduce children to exercise by having them do competitive sports, which only a small fraction will ever excel in, and which teach many children, including myself, much more about what it feels like to fail and be humiliated repeatedly than they do about “cooperation” and “healthy competition.”

3. I’m a vegetarian, and I cook just about everything David and I eat from scratch. When I go to the grocery store, I’m usually quietly appalled at the groceries other people are buying. No vegetables! Hamburger Helper! Gallons of strawberry-flavored milk! Cases and cases of soda! Pounds and pounds of red meat! Frozen meals! Yikes!

4. Despite the impression items 1-3 above almost certainly give, I’m not an evangelist for my way of life. If you watch TV, don’t exercise, and eat processed food for every meal, I don’t care. Really.

5. I don’t do (and am not interested in doing) any craft except knitting.

6. I am the vice-president of the Board of Directors of the Brown County Historical Society.

7. I don’t understand and have never understood why people like cats so much. I have nothing against cats, really — they seem fine. I just don’t get their appeal.

8. I only blow-dry my hair about twice a year, and I don’t dye it, even though it is just plain brown. Sometimes I get the impression that this puts me in a very small minority of American women. Why am I the only person I ever seem to encounter in public with wet hair?

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.

Two years ago, I learned to knit at Christmastime, and my mom asked me if I wanted to look through the trunk of clothing my grandma made for my brothers and me when we were children. The trunk is full of treasures, all of them a little worse for the wear. There is a pink dress sized for an infant with a white yoke embroidered with tiny yellow chickens. There is a dark blue, satin-lined cabled coat for a four-year-old girl. There are matching hats with Snoopy on them, one brown and one green, knit for two little boys. My grandmother was an excellent knitter, and the clothes display her skill.

In my closet at home, I have adult-size sweaters Grandma made that I wear often. I have a green wool pullover with a gray and yellow pattern that she knit for my father — to his exacting specifications — when he was in junior high school. Many years later, he shrunk it slightly, and it has been my favorite sweater ever since. I have an orange acrylic cabled cardigan that I can remember my mother wearing on an autumn walk we took when I was very young. Every year when the leaves begin to turn, I want to find that sweater and put it on. One year for Christmas, Grandma knit six wool fisherman’s sweaters, one for each of her grandchildren. Mine she made shorter, with a V-neck, just because I asked her to. It is the sweater I reach for on the coldest winter mornings.

Grandma taught me to knit once, but it didn’t stick. These days, though, it is pretty much all I want to do. Many of my friends are having babies, and I have been knitting for them, making small, elaborate things that take me days, sometimes weeks, to complete. The babies don’t need these clothes, they probably won’t get much use out of them, and my friends don’t expect them. So why do I feel compelled to knit them? When my sister-in-law, Amy, told us that she was pregnant with twins, I immediately began making them little dresses, felted booties, and a double-sided blanket of my own design that took ages to finish. To be honest, I would prefer for Amy to remain ignorant of exactly how long it took me to make these gifts, because I think she might find it a bit ridiculous. But I didn’t make them for her, exactly. I made them for my nieces, Lilly and Ella, as I looked forward to their birth.

Ann Shayne of Mason-Dixon Knitting wrote recently about knitting a scarf for a friend. Her friend’s daughter is very sick, and in the face of Ann’s utter inability to do anything to help, she began knitting the scarf as a way of offering this woman the only thing she could give: her time. Her thoughts and her good wishes were silently worked into every stitch.*

The act of knitting for babies and children is like that: it is also an offering of time, a message of love, but with the added twist that the recipients can’t possibly understand it and maybe never will. Knitting for babies is a bit like putting a love letter in a time capsule. Lilly and Ella may never learn to knit, and they may never understand that those little dresses are a record of me thinking about them and loving them before they were born. I wore the clothes my grandma knit for me for decades without giving much thought to them.

But things are different now. My grandma has Alzheimer’s disease, and she is dying. She lives in a nursing home hundreds of miles away from me. I wish that there could have been years in which we both knit. When I visited her, I could have showed her what I was making, and she could have given me tips. But I take some small comfort in knowing that at least now that I am older, and now that I am a knitter, I get what she was doing when she knit sweater after tiny sweater for me and my brothers. Every hand-knit baby dress, every sweater in my closet was a gift of her time, her energy, her thoughts. Every one still bears her message of love.

Sometimes the only thing you can do to express your love is to spend your time, to focus your thoughts and your actions in the direction of the person you’re loving. I try to write to my grandma every week. I often tell her about what I’ve been knitting, sending her pictures of finished objects and little bits of yarn for her to touch. This week, I will tell her about my friend Anne, who called the other day to tell me that she had her baby ten weeks early. I will tell my grandmother that the baby’s name is Matthew, that he’s doing well, and that I knit him a tiny yellow hat and mailed it off as quickly as I could.

18 May 2006

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I wrote this essay last year at a time when my grandma’s illness was much on my mind. I found out last night that she died yesterday afternoon and thought it would be appropriate to post it here as a sort of tribute to a woman who was a master knitter and a wonderful and loving person to everyone lucky enough to know her.

* The entry in question is here under March 15, 2006 — which is, incidentally, the very day my twin nieces were born.