Mother of Purl by Eig, Edith (best desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📗

KNITTERS ANONYMOUS

Mary is a talented actress in her early forties, tall, thin, striking, and the picture of health. The first time she came into the store she was panicked: her agent had booked her a commercial that was filming in two days, and she had to sit and knit on camera. Like any good actress she reassured the casting director that she was an old hand at knitting, then jumped in her car and came to see me. I taught her; she left, aced the commercial, and came back two days later.

The interesting part of the story is that when Mary first came in, she excused herself quite often to step outside for smoking breaks. As she continued to frequent the shop, I noticed that her smoking was beginning to decline. She confessed to me that for the first time in twenty years she was cutting down because her hands were now too busy with knitting to smoke. “Edith,” she confided, “I knit throughout the day, and feel cranky and restless if I don’t get my knitting fix. But at least it’s an addiction that’s not going to kill me.”

Mary’s not the only one who’s managed to overcome a difficult addiction. Everyone from nail biters to compulsive shoppers have replaced their more destructive habits with knitting. It’s not always a perfect solution—my overshopper admits she spends almost as much on yarn as she did on clothes—but it’s better than nothing.

Here are some advanced techniques that you should experiment with and consider using in your knitting. I picked these particular skills because they add shape, texture, style, and sophistication to your work. Two of these skills—short rows and updating vintage patterns—are tricky, but if you can master these concepts, they can unleash your creativity. You will become further inspired to customize your knitting and create truly personalized garments.

Have fun with these, and practice before you try to incorporate them into your knitting.

Short Rows. The shaping technique known as short rows can be quite intimidating to beginners, and it does seem complex in theory. Essentially, it is a way of adding room to a knitted item by knitting backward and forward over the central stitches on a needle, while leaving the stitches at the beginning and end of the needle unknit. For instance, a woman with a large bust might use short rows to add extra ease over her chest, and prevent the sweater from appearing shorter in the front than in the back. Once she has added enough room to make the sweater comfortable, she would knit to the end of the row, turn, and continue working her sweater as normal. She will still have the same number of stitches on her needles, and she will still be at the same point on her sweater (if she began the short row at 12 inches, her sweater will still be 12 inches long), but there will be “ease” across her chest where the extra rows are, and these extra rows will add another inch or so of depth to prevent the unattractive effect of the front being shorter than the back. If you want to add short rows to a simple sweater shape, knit to your bust, and add short rows over the middle, leaving about a fifth of your stitches untouched on either side. Use an existing sweater to help you calculate how many inches of depth you need to add.

LISA LOEB

Lisa Loeb came in because her brother was expecting a baby girl and she wanted to knit a little dress—in cashmere. I strongly recommend a blend—something more practical for a baby. But Lisa insisted on the best and made a beautiful mocha–colored cashmere dress that her brother loved. Another time, Lisa invited me and Merrill to see her perform at the Getty Museum. During her opening monologue, she amused the audience with anecdotes about herself and confided that one of her favorite pastimes is knitting. She went so far as to introduce me to the entire audience as her knitting guru.

Adding Texture to Your Knitting. One technique to add a fun visual element to your knitting is the use of bobbles. Depending on how many stitches you work with, bobbles can be pea–size accents or bold golf ball–size design features. The former might enhance the border of a sweater, while the latter could be incorporated into a scarf design. Determine where in your pattern you would like to place the bobble. When you reach that stitch, knit into it five times. To do this, knit your stitch, but do not pull it off of your left–hand needle; instead keep bringing your needle forward and around to knit into the stitch again. When you have created five stitches out of one, turn your work and purl those five stitches, then turn again and knit and purl them again. Turn your work, knit two stitches together two times, pass it over, knit one stitch and pass it over, one stitch remains. Bobble is made.

Updating Vintage Sweaters. With the rise in knitting’s popularity, vintage knitting pattern books from the 1920s on have resurfaced at flea markets, on the Internet, at garage sales, and even hidden in your grandmother’s attic. While these patterns are still beautiful and continue to pass the test of time, the fit of these sweaters is outdated. With the vast selection of yarns now available, you can recreate a more modern and sophisticated version of the pattern you select. The tendency in those time periods was to knit with very small needles using yarns now considered medium gauge. The first step is to increase the size of your needles and to use a yarn of your choosing.

COPYING AN EXISTING SWEATER

At some point in their knitting lives most of my clients have come into the store clutching a picture ripped from the pages of the latest high fashion magazine. “Edith,” they say, “I have to