Knitting Yarns and Spinning Tales: A Knitter's Stash of Wit and Wisdom - Hardcover

Introduction

Shortly after I was born, my mother taught herself to knit from a book, making herself a beautiful gray sweater with a complicated cable pattern. Unfortunately, the sweater was too small, and so, after it languished in the bottom of a dresser drawer for a year or more, she finally packed it in a paper grocers bag with a few other discarded items of clothing and toted it off to Goodwill.

I don't think I would have heard the story of the sweater had I myself not learned to knit, some thirty years later. When my mother first told me about it. I was shocked that she had given the sweater away. The very idea brought to mind a flood of questions. Did the sweater still exist? Where was the sweater and who had worn it over the years? And, perhaps most importantly, could I have sworn it at some point? How many more sweaters would there have been had mom continued to knit?

A year ago last Thanksgiving, I taught my mother to knit... again. The two of us toured local yarn shops one overcast Friday afternoon in search of the perfect project, needles, and yarn for her to begin. We found a simple but fun scarf pattern that called for a funky variegated yarn to be knit lengthwise on a circular needle. She selected a couple of skeins in shades of blue, greens, and gray, and we headed home. She boiled water for wild raspberry tea before we sat down in the living room where I taught her to cast on and then showed her the knit stitch.

The going was awkward at first, but by Sunday evening she had completed her first scarf, dropping only a few stitches along the way. I was impressed with her progress. Over the months that followed, she knit several scarves, each one better than the last. She's since expanded her repertoire, knitting a sweater ("It looks store-bought!" my husband exclaimed) for herself and an adorable cap and sweater set for my son Will.

For each of us. knitting has become more than a craft to occupy our time during long car rides or while watching TV in the evenings. Knitting has become something my mom and I share. These days, when we talk on the phone each week, we ask each other about our knitting projects. We exchange ideas, give each other knitting books as gifts, and work through rough spots together.

In a way, our knitting relationship is a microcosm for the larger knitting community. No, I can't physically gather with knitters from around the country to knit and chat as I do with my mom or members of my knitting club. But I can collect the essays of knitters from all over North America into this book for knitters everywhere to read, relate to, and share with others.

The essays in this collection range from shearing sheep on a Sunday afternoon in March to an evening in Sant'Arsenio, Italy, where women gather on their doorsteps to knit, crochet, embroider, and chat. Other essays delve into the psyche of the knitter -- What is it that makes us want to collect skein after skein of yarn that we may never use? Why do use find those romantic scenes depicted in pattern books so entrancing? Why is it that the appetite for new knitting projects always seems so much greater than what we can actually achieve in a lifetime? -- and, because crochet has become increasingly popular among knitters over the past few years, you'l1 find a few essays by those who've become hooked on crochet. I hope you enjoy them all.