Archives for 2024

 I wanted to make pictures from strands of cotton like that. But I rarely had access to her and she didn’t think I was very serious about wanting to learn. I think she’d probably also more or less quit doing it by then because of the rheumatoid arthritis that made knots of her fingers.

 I never stopped thinking that it was a kind of magic and one that I wanted to recreate. As it turns out, it was probably for the best that she never tried to teach me crochet. I could never take to it but circa early 2000’s, at the height of YouTube’s DIY atmosphere, I was determined to teach myself to knit.

 My great-grandmother Venice was still alive and living in her cramped little two-story on a dead end street in Springfield, Ohio (yes, that one) when I finished my first knitted lace pieces and entered them into the local fair.

While most of the folks around me were knitting with needles that looked like those miniature baseball bats you’d get as souvenirs at a ball game, I preferred the toothpicks and most delicate yarns and intricate patterns – as if I were trying to recreate the things I remembered from my childhood.

I was especially infatuated with Estonian lace for a time. The gentle sway of the bubbles called Nupps (pronounced to rhyme with hoops) reminded me of the deer in the grass in the picture frame. Did you know machines cannot produce Nupps? Take that automation!

I loved the challenge of lacework but there were also so many other ways to play with shape and color. While Venice’s chevron afghans were nostalgic and colorful, I wanted a more modern and diverse take.

 Solid colors with interesting textures where the design really stands out.

Or a rainbow of color.

Or a sort of knitted take on traditional quilt blocks.

 By changing the order in which you worked a row of stitches, you could create twists of cables.

 While it was common for a cable to run from end to end, it was also possible to close cables and create cables out of thin air to get something that looked more like Pictish art.

 Clothing that is expected to fit was a little daunting – how many stories exist where someone knit a sweater or hat that was too big or too small for the recipient? But now that I’d accomplished my original intent, to honor and follow my great-grandmother, I wanted to try my hand at clothing, like this piece reminiscent of old military issue with patches and shoulder caps.

 I liked solid colors, or intentional colorwork. None of that “I made this!” “Uh yeah you did…” look that too often came with hand knits. I wanted the features and details to stand out – not the wildness of my yarn choices.

But not all of my work is so traditional and restrained.

Sometimes I knit very tiny things bigly (couldn’t resist) like this little roly/potato/woodlouse.

 Sometimes I knit big things very, very small.

 This may be the first year in many that I do not expect to make a dozen or so 1.5in snowmen to give away at Christmastime.

 Sometimes I go weird, like my faux taxidermied friend who presides over the dining room table. I fell in love with Highland Cows while visiting Scotland.

 Or my rat friend, Ratty Arbuckle, who watches me work and startles everyone who comes by my office, thinking his proportions are a little too realistic.

 Sometimes, I even do “knitivism” – like this angry little womb pin for women’s reproductive rights.

 Though there are some exceptions, I primarily knit for close family and friends, who I know will take care of handknits which can be a little more fiddly than fast fashion. I already have a job. I emphatically resist the idea that everything needs to be a “side hustle,” in part because I knit too slowly meticulously and in part because too many people want handknits in quality fiber for Dollar Store prices. Keeping it close maintains the connection to my great-grandmother and the magic and charm that initially drew me to the art in the first place. It certainly isn’t the only art I practice – I’m a bit of a dabbler – but it is still one of my most favorite.