Yeti Lovie

I think this project could also be called “What the Hell Am I Knitting With?”

There is something so special about those simple knit projects that I can knit anywhere, any time. If knitting is a Venn diagram comprised of skill level, amount of attention required, and design details, this blanket is deceptively in the middle. The pattern reads as easy, and it is. There is little technique involved in this knitting project. But the yarn. The yarn makes this project one that requires more than feel. It’s prone to tangles and the feathered ply of the fabric often obscured my vision of the stitch construction. There were many moments of pause, making sure I was knitting into the correct loop. Without a doubt there are hidden mistakes in this FO. The bright side, this yarn is forgiving (it hides mistakes, tension variations, etc.).

The same complaints about the yarn I list above also make it a bit difficult to read each stitch for the crocheted edging, which I had never done before and was by which I was VERY intimidated. Like so many other material artists, I turned to YouTube for quick tutorials on double and single crotchet stitches. The hand movements of crochet are very different from those of knitting. I have since started crocheting smaller single items, because the hand movement is delicate and fluid and the swoosh of the wrist twirl is consuming.

Knitting with this yarn is similar to my experience reading lit theory: it’s a little wonky to get started but then it picks up steam and encourages stings of thoughts that help me, like theory, piece my thoughts together. This project was one of those projects that makes me a better knitter, helps give structure to other knitting experiences.

Aside from its interesting knitting experience, knitting with this yarn brings so much of the joy of knitting to light. The facet of knitting that draws me to it is its capacity to bring various elements of my life together. In each stitch, I bring parts of myself together as if the FO itself is a mirror that reflects my own life—my experiences, the people in it.

As I so frequently discuss, knitting has most recently been a way for me to feel, move through, process the maternal grief I experience through infertility. And knitting this blanket has been a way for me to see those feelings physically manifesting.

The texture of the yarn is like velcro with feet. It brings everything into its fold: cat hair, lint, fibers of itself, my own hair. As I watched pieces of my life gather into the fabric and construction of this blanket, I thought of Victorian hair jewelry and its connection to the dead, as a way to bring people to life.

Although the hair collected in this FO is not my future-hypothetical baby’s, I can sometimes imagine the pleasure of sharing this moment of my life with a baby in the future, wrapping it up in my life of this moment, almost as if that baby is experiencing life along side me now.

“What the Hell Am I Knitting With?”

Quick Oats Sweater

Shortly after I moved to Portland, I met my first knitting friend. We moved into this chic new apartment building in Buckman. We were only there about a month when I met Janet. Janet was moving in with her little dog, Charlie. They moved just across the hall from us, so we helped them carry boxes and held doors and started talking. She’s an older woman with two sons and an eye for aesthetic resonance in buildings and people.

I had been knitting for about two years at the time, but I wasn’t yet very adventurous in colorwork, color choices, pattern variations, or even cables. I didn’t deviate too far from hats and cowls and very simple shawlettes. At the time, Janet was just getting back into knitting after a many year hiatus. She was knitting these little new born and preemie hats that local area hospitals were collecting. Janet is a monogamous knitter, so she had a little basket full of yarn and the few hats she had already made.

I loved her project and had done something similar the year before over Christmas break with my mom. We had knit a few Red Hats for Preemies. Janet and I started talking about knitting and the experience of knitting with other women. She was going through a rather disruptive and traumatizing split from a boyfriend. At first we only chatted in the hallway when we ran into each. Pretty soon we started walking up the stairs or taking the elevator up after I was coming home from teaching at a local community college and after she was done walking Charlie. Eventually, I’d walk with her to her apartment where we’d sit on her turquoise velvet couch and talk about men and love and knitting.

It seemed natural when we progressed to knitting together. I’d walk across the hall in my slippers, knitting in hand. Hours past before I realized how long I had been knitting and talking, and cuddling with Charlie.

Janet had picked out this cowl pattern she wanted to knit and asked me if I wanted to knit the same pattern. I’m just happy to knit, it doesn’t much matter to me what I’m knitting necessarily. She picked out the pattern and the yarn. I bought the same yarn so we could talk about the experience knitting with it. We cast-on a pattern called Getting Warmer, a slouchy cowl with neck and shoulder shaping.

Though I had knit in the round quite a bit, I was unaware of a little knitting issue I now know as jog. Jog is the pesky element of knitting in the round where, when using garter stitch or color stripes, the working row doesn’t line up with the row below. It’s visible at the beginning of the round, because knitting is actually helical and requires some adjustment for that component. Jog drives me absolutely bonkers.

I think I probably tinked back and ripped out at least four times. I changed my my tension, speculating that that might be causing the malalignment. After starting for the 5th time, I gave up and decided the FO wouldn’t be anything I wore anyway, and the colorway I had chosen would make this a poor gift for my mom, who might actually be someone interested in wearing the FO.

With the yarn in mind, I looked for more intriguing patterns that would be enjoyable knits, teach me something new, and also showcase simplicity of the yarn but compelling colorway.

Almost immediately, I cast-on Quick Oats, a top down raglan sweater for kids. I loved the double entendre of the pattern name. I’m kind of a sucker for tongue and cheek. It knit up, just as the name implies, very quickly. Since this was my first sweater, I was anxious to see what the next direction would be and how it would take shape in my knitting. Dividing for the sleeves came easier than I anticipated. Because I had never made a garment, I was forced to read ahead in the pattern. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that prior to this piece, I had just cast-on, not giving a thought to reading ahead in the directions or getting a sense for how the pattern directions would be expressed in the object.

I’m very infrequently a selfish knitter. Most of my knits end up as gifts. I originally thought of my best friend and her wife while knitting this. They had been trying to have a baby by various attempts at IUI. I imaged myself sending this to them as a gift for their baby. But the baby never came. While I was knitting, my friend and I shared the grief of trying to conceive. We laughed for hours about their in-home and at-clinic attempts at IUI. If there is no humor to be found during these times, the soul might not be able to survive.

I never sent the sweater, even after they were able to adopt earlier this year. The sweater had been so much a part of me by then. There is a rather large, rather obvious mistake in the back where I dropped a stitched and tried to patch it together, before I knew about the construction of stitches and how to fix mistakes as I go.

It’s imperfect but it’s mine. If I’m really honest, I keep this FO because it represents the kind of knitter I am today. Knitting this sweater taught me that I could knit a larger, adult-sized sweater. It also helped me understand stitch construction and design elements that I appreciate in other works, too.

Touch of Joy

The moment this pattern was released, I knew I wanted to cast on. The pattern photos featured tender details and bright pastel colors that immediately drew me into every design element. I’m not typically drawn to colors featured in the original pattern but I took the opportunity to explore new colors in my work, and attend more closely to the taste of the designer. I loved the low-key, yet completely brilliant design of this pattern. More than the tassels and the dropped stitched, I loved being a part of knitting for maternal grief. The designer, Safiyyah Talley @drunkknitter, experienced child-loss before becoming pregnant again. She’s donated 50% of every Touch of Joy Shawl purchase to Share Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support, Inc., a support community for parents who have experienced grief associated with pregnancy and infant loss.

Since my husband and I struggle with infertility ourselves, it is incredibly meaningful for me as a woman and a maker to support other folks who experience grief around childbearing, too. This grief can be acutely isolating and debilitating. One of my aspirations as an artist is to make space to discuss maternal grief, to express this grief in the organic ways it can manifest.

Since the release of this pattern, Safiyyah has given birth to rainbow baby. Although I don’t know her personally, I’ve come to know her from a distance through the Instagram knitting community. Her perseverance is inspiring. I am immeasurably happy for her and her parter.

As I knit, I could almost feel the grief of other women. Of course this sounds incredibly arrogant. I mean to only suggest that embodied grief is deeply personal while at the same time ubiquitous. But if maternal grief is so ubiquitous, why do we hide our pain from other women and our families and conceal our emotions in blogs and forums and copious internet searches? Why do we attempt to mitigate our pain in secret. So many of us hold grief differently. I’m attempting to knit my grief, because the act and repetition and the clicking of needles mimics the weaving of lives and pain and sadness and hope.

I’m coming to this shawl like I come to my experience trying to conceive: with the knowledge that nothing is perfect and sometimes I have to just let go and let what is going to happen, happen. That is all to say there are numerous mistakes turned surprising gems in this piece. I miscounted the first repeat section, but only realized my mistake a few sections after. This is normally a mistake I would tink back to fix. Even if a mistake isn’t noticeable, I can obsess over it because I know it’s there. I somehow talked myself into moving past this mistake and I’m so happy I did. The mistakes kind of snowballed from there, particularly when I got to to the bias. Basically, I just lost count and surprisingly adopted a “oh, forget it!” attitude. This shawl does not suffer for it, and the drape is wonderfully squishy and delicious.

Tassels!! As many pompoms as I’ve made, I have no idea why I’ve never made a tassel. I have been missing out. It was exceptionally easy after watching a quick YouTube video. They are everything when it comes to this shawl. They bring it to life—make it subtly whimsical and classy.

Knitting this shawl was a joy, and it knit up rather quickly. From start to finish, this was an emotional knit. Since I theorize frequently about the connection between knitting and women’s grief, I was pleased to see others relishing the same connection. Of course, I thought about my hope for a baby with every stitch. When we are faced with constant disappoints and bad news and failed IUI’s, it often feels impossible to have hope. But the knitting this beauty offered me a reprieve from my grief and sank into my guts with joy and hopefulness and love.

Playful Stripes

This is what I consider my first “big” project. Looking back, it’s hard to believe I was intimidated by and struggled with this little cutie. As a new knitter, I wanted to deviate from dish towels and neck cowls knit that were knit simply in the round. Although I came to knitting like what felt like rather instinctively, I had only been knitting a few months when I started this project, so I wasn’t yet confident enough in my skills and pattern reading ability to try anything more than a simple, beginner’s project.

Playful Stripes was also the first project that required me to choose yarn in a color pallet. I think this was the most intimidating aspect of the project. I knit this blanket years ago but can still remember the anxiety brought about by choosing colors. The unmitigated anxiety was especially fraught because yarn can be rather expensive.

Out of frustration and confusion I made a quick purchase, choosing yarn texture and color that I didn’t really love. I was leaving for a long train ride to a professional conference and wanted to be able to knit on the train. Purchasing the yarn this way so accurately reflects so much of my life: making impulsive decisions and feeling the dissatisfaction as a consequence.

At the same time, I was proud of the outcome, and loved the experience of taking my knitting with me for the first time. Now I knit nearly everywhere I go. I also learned an exceptional amount of myself as a woman and a knitter.

Nearly every aspect of my identity as a knitter is a result of the experience knitting this simple baby blanket.