Yarn Harlot (12 page)

Some holiday knitters never make it to Phase 5. Phase 5 is the final stage before “IT” overwhelms a knitter. In Phase 4, there is the lurking knowledge that this may not be possible, but during Phase 5 this concern becomes outright terror. Phase 5 is the first time that you actually think “Oh-oh, I might not make it.”

What are some Phase 5 symptoms?

1. You have decided, calmly and reasonably, that it makes total sense to deduct another three hours of sleep per day to increase your knitting time.
   

2. You have decided that having all your meals delivered is a smart move.
   

3. You have canceled your attendance at the Christmas party because it will reduce knitting time. Not because you can’t knit at the party, but because you can’t justify losing the knitting time to take a shower and put on a dress.
   

4. You aren’t entirely sure where your children are, and you may be losing touch with caring about it.
   

5. You start calculating how many stitches per minute you need to knit if you are going to make it.
   

The most profound symptom of Phase 5 is project modification. Scarf and hat sets become just scarves, or just hats, whatever I have done. Sweaters become vests, afghans become throws—you get the picture. Knitters in Phase 5 do not give up completely; they just work out what needs to be knit smaller or out of chunky yarn on bigger needles.

Each year during Phase 5 my family makes their last appeal. They beg me not to lose touch. They tell me that there is more to life than knitting and that people would rather I was well rested and happy than making them socks. They tell me that the sooner I give up, the sooner I can enjoy some of the holiday. They tell me that I am on the brink of “IT.” My husband rubs my back and tells me that it really isn’t as important as I think to finish all this knitting.

I ignore their lies. They are not on my side; I can tell.

And then I enter “IT.”

“IT” is a far and perilous place known only to the most determined and obsessive knitters. I don’t know for sure how many knitters have experienced “IT,” but no matter how many of us there are, “IT” still feels like a dark and lonely place. The difference between “IT” and regular holiday deadlines is like the difference between a stress headache and having your head squeezed in a drill press.

“IT” questions go like this:

1. How many hours will it be before people open their gifts? (“IT” usually takes place only in the three days before Christmas; anything before that gives you enough time to save yourself and is therefore still Phase 5.)
   

2. How many things are left unknit? (“IT” always has multiple items. If you are just trying to finish one gift … well, good for you.)
   

3. Does your KHPD (Knitting Hours Per Day) required to finish in time for Christmas now exceed twenty-four?
   

If you are truly experiencing “IT,” the following will also be true:

1. Despite having calculated your KHPD, and realizing that you cannot possibly finish in time, you are still knitting instead of sleeping.
   

2. You have actually not slept since you entered “IT,” and depending on your type, you have also given up eating, or you have only eaten chocolate and leftover pizza crusts for the last several days.
   

3. The children will be up in forty-five minutes to see what Santa brought them and you are sitting wild-eyed in the darkened house frantically knitting the hats you want to put in their stockings.
   

4. You are prioritizing the knitting according to when you will see the recipient. For example: You don’t see your aunt until the evening of the twenty-fifth, but you see your mother in the afternoon. Therefore, since it is only the twenty-fourth you are working on your husband’s socks because you will see him first thing on Christmas morning. You have actually come to believe that this means that you have lots
   of time
   until you need your aunt’s present.
   

5. You are planning to sew your nephew’s sweater together in the basement while everyone else opens gifts. You are pretty sure that as long as they all go first you can make it.
   

6. Finally, you have vowed that next year you will start sooner, do less, and be more realistic about your knitting goals. You have vowed that you will not ruin Christmas by dedicating your life to the pursuit of woolen gifts for everyone. You admit that it may be possible to buy your aunt’s dog a gift next year instead of knitting it a sweater. Furthermore, you have admitted that while this plan looked like fun when you started, you are not having much fun now. You admit that your refusal to go skating with the children, because tying skates up cuts into knitting time, may be affecting their happiness as well. You have also agreed with your spouse that it is reasonable to expect that you would have time for “marital
   relations” at least once during the month of December, and you know that this means you will have to knit less. You have also admitted that you cannot warp the time-space continuum, despite the persistent belief and occasional proof that it is possible.
   

In short you have promised that next year you will not do “IT.” Never again.

But you will, and I will be here for you. I promise.

A
lthough I am, in general, a loving and tolerant yarn person, I cannot abide crochet. I know that this may shock and upset those of you who have fallen under its hooked spell, but crochet gives me hives. (I have not ever actually gotten hives while crocheting, but I swear that I could feel them starting.) While I have many reasons for hating crochet, I have to be honest: A big part of my disdain may have something to do with my abject failure to crochet properly. Not one piece I’ve crocheted has been even remotely passable. Being pro-yarn, I will try just about anything in the wool family of activities, but each and every one of my forays into crochet has ended badly. There are doilies of which we shall not speak, and nightmarish episodes in which I tried to make something with a ruffle called an antimacassar. That was especially bad, possibly because I have no idea what a “macassar” is, much less why I should be against it.

The important point here is that knitting and crochet are not the same. Just because they are both about yarn and making stuff
out of it, they don’t share the same skill set. Despite the general public’s inability to tell them apart (Have you noticed that knitters on TV are often producing crocheted objects?), they are as different as chickens and vertical blinds.

Not everyone feels the way that I do. There are turncoats. Double agents. Knitters who put crochet edgings on things, or crocheters who sometimes knit socks. There are even those who freely move between the camps, knitting, crocheting, and occasionally dallying with quilts or plastic canvas. I am not a double agent. I believe that knitting is superior to crochet. I pledge allegiance to the knitted swatch, and nothing you can say about crochet will convince me to try again. I am now anti-antimacassar (Up with “macassars”!). I still keep a crochet hook around, but I only use it to pick up the occasional dropped stitch. I always try to pick up the stitch without the crochet hook first, and I feel a little bit dirty if I have to give up and use it.

It’s time that someone told the truth about crochet and what it can lead to. Who better to set the record straight than a completely biased knitter who has never had a single positive crochet experience? Let’s examine a few facts about crochet and see if we can set the record straight.

Crochet devotees claim that it is faster than knitting. Okay. You have me here. Crocheting does make better time, if we are simply assessing square footage per hour. I know that there are millions of knitters out there who are halfway through an afghan that is sucking the very life out of them. If you are one of them, you just sat up straight in your knitting chair and said, “Really?” and are now suddenly considering a whole lifestyle change—but
wait! Think of the ethics of it. Crochet may be faster, but that’s because crocheters long ago devised underhanded “double” and “triple” crochet. I beg you knitters to search for your inner maturity. Speed appeals to the immature crafter who cannot delay gratification. Knitting’s simplicity, its reliance on the Zen yin and yang of knit and purl, is its nobility and no matter how incredibly stupidly slow it seems at times, it’s worth it. Knitting evokes the true artist’s commitment. You need to really hunker down with knitting and put in some serious time before you see results. Cabling and Fair Isle, both time takers, rank higher than straight stockinette. In this sense, “double knitting” may be knitting’s highest achievement, taking twice the work and producing a double layer of knitted fabric. Knitting gives away nothing for free. Clearly, knitting is for crafters who have attention spans, and can plan ahead. Besides, if we wanted fast, we could just buy the danged socks.

In my opinion (which I have admitted isn’t even slightly fair), high-speed crochet can lead directly to poor project choices. How carefully are you going to consider your final product if it only takes three hours to make a king-sized bedspread? A knitter will be spending 154 hours to cover the same area. You’re not going to take on that sort of project on a whim, not with that sort of time commitment, and you’re going to think through your color choices. Few and far between are the knitters who are willing to spend thirty-four hours making a Southern belle toilet paper cover, but you see it in crochet all the time. The speed of crochet leads to projects that can be executed so quickly that they don’t get due consideration. With knitting, you cast on and knit for a while; you’re only a few rows in before you realize that
you must have been having a stroke when you put those colors together. Two rows you can walk away from. Crochet is so fast that there is no time to think it through. After a couple of hours you’ve got half a slipcover for the couch. Who’s going to do away with that? I’m telling you, the quickness of this craft leads to reckless stitching. If you don’t believe me, I can mail you a crochet pattern for a Santa Claus toilet seat cover. It would take a knitter weeks to knit it, plenty of time to come to your senses. But with crochet? Three glasses of wine, one bad idea, and whammo; two hours later you’ve created a festive Father Christmas commode cover and a legacy. Speed kills.

Another bad thing about crochet: It uses three times more yarn than knitting to cover the same area.
Three times.
Can you afford that? Is this an economical and respectful use of the sheep? I believe that this viciously unnecessary cost leads crocheters to live cruel lives; they are forced to have smaller stashes of lesser quality or to work long hours of overtime to support painful yarn habits that are three times bigger than they have to be. You know what average knitters have to go through just to tuck away enough wool to be sure that they don’t run out in their golden years—storing away bits and balls of yarn for forty or even fifty years, still driven to purchase more at every opportunity, still wondering if they’ll have enough. Now imagine trying to come up with three times that amount of stash. Will your children have enough food? What about their educations? Where will your spouse live when his or her side of the home is filled with your huge stash? Switch to knitting and save yourself. Or if that doesn’t move you, switch to knitting and your stash
will go three times as far. Frankly, I’m concerned about the possibility that some sort of yarn cartel is responsible for hooking (pun intended) young crocheters into these big yarn habits.

There are other drawbacks. Crochet burns 80 calories per hour, knitting uses 85. Over twenty years, assuming that you will knit or crochet one hour a day, that means that knitting burns 36,500 more calories. That’s a lot of chocolate. Who needs more incentive than that? Crochet uses one hook. Knitting requires two needles, sometimes more. Impress your friends, frighten your family, think of the glory of multiple tools!

If that still doesn’t do it, think of the danger. Crochet never hurt anyone, but knitting? Knitting is full of tales of risk and harm. Knitters even occasionally suffer not just devastating pokes, but shallow impalings. It’s even conceivable that you could put an eye out. Crochet, with its rounded gentle hooks is playing it safe. Which is more exciting, a James Bond knitting adventure or Winnie the Pooh play-nice crochet?

It’s all about the combination of elements. The deadly mix of easy, fun, fast, and yarn-consuming is not where you want to go. This setup can lead to only one end: a desperate crafter, moving at the speed of sound on a wicked yarn high, making poor project choices he or she can ill afford. Before you know it, the evil lure of crochet with its quirky granny squares and fetching shell edgings has ensnared you. You find yourself making a ripple pattern freezer cozy out of the 100 percent petroleum knitting product you had left over from the toilet cover and you think you’re having fun.

Trust me, you’re not.

M
y friend Sinead claims to be allergic to wool. This assertion has caused a few problems in our relationship. Admittedly, the problems are mostly mine, since I am simply incapable of believing her. I can’t fathom it. She’s allergic to
all
wool? She’s Irish, for crying out loud—is that even possible? All those centuries of fine woolens being produced, worn, and revered by millions and millions and millions of Irish, and she says she’s allergic?

It’s not possible I tell you. I don’t believe it. I had some heated debates about this with Sinead, and I’ve got to tell you that she didn’t make a good case for her supposed “allergy.” She said wool made her itch. “That’s not an allergy,” I asserted firmly. “Some wool is scratchy. Some wool makes me itch. You can’t blacken an entire fiber group because someone gave you bad wool. What about merino? Have you tried merino?” I glared at her across the table. Allergic to wool, my arse. I’m a loving person, but I wouldn’t have my beloved slandered right in front of me without putting up a fight.

Sinead reiterated gravely, “All wool, Steph.
All
wool makes me itch. I can’t wear wool. I’m allergic. Knit me something with cotton or acrylic.”