Moth Heaven

Cross Post: Book Review

I don't know how many people who drop by here read the blog over at Twist Collective, but I posted this today and thought I'd put it here too since I actually say some things in it that I am willing to repeat. 

I welcome your comments.

There was a moment two weeks ago that inspired me to write this post.  I was chatting with a woman I am acquainted with in that spinner's kind of way, who I have seen around for a number of years, whose face is familiar to me but whose name I have never learned, but no reason to stand on such formality.  This is the 21st century.  I KNOW her.  Sort of.  I know the wheel she spins on at least, and that she favors Romney, most likely because that is what she has in her little flock. And that she likes Cambodian food.  She is older than I am, but not so much older that she didn't hesitate, after some knocking around some conversational chesnuts like the weather and how comfortable we found this New Hampshire Sheep Festival compared to "other" festivals . . . to confide in me that she was wondering where all these upstart spinners had come from. "Like who, for example, is this Amy King?"

Imagine my reaction, through which I kept my best poker face, to this rumination. Only a spinner myself for about 5 years, and a middling one at that, I suspect she would start at my own spinning provenance. Assumptions about the association between age and years at the treadle aside, Amy is a rock star in my world. I am lucky to own some of her fiber, I am on a first name basis with her (heck, I know HER name), and I am currently following her personal advice for spinning for a sweater (which is: "just do it").

Here's the rub: among the spinners I have met, I get a sense from some of them of a protective, even proprietary ownership of spinning, and an almost canonical impulse there that demands that a spinner "with opinions" needs to offer a pedigree of academically approved tutors, if not numbers of SOARs attended, then at least an ability to invoke Alden Amos or to quote a relevant point from one of Maggie Casey's long list of Spin Off articles.  There is an almost generational quality to it, and in some ways, a reluctant one too, to admit that there are afoot in the world a fresh crop of "young" spinners embracing the craft for reasons all their own, and that maybe they (that is, we) have a new batch of teachers who have blogged and taught locally (and nationally) for years before surfacing in the paper publishing world more accessible to spinners such as my friend at the sheep festival.

Interweave Press has published at least three instructional books in the last year about spinning: Maggie Casey's Start Spinning, Judith MacKenzie McCuin's The Intentional Spinner, and now Spin Control by Amy King.  Each of them are terrific, each promote the craft with good if interchangeable photographs on technique, and each speak to their own audience. At 35, Amy is among the younger generation of spinners and teachers like Abby Franquemont who have developed an ardent following on-line and are now transitioning to more traditional publishing outlets (Abby's book Respect the Spindle is due later this year).  Amy's articles have appeared in knittyspin, and her viability as a teacher may feel underground to the wider spinning community, but if you are reading this, you probably need no further introduction. She has become esteemed in the blog community for her good humor, her pioneering online shop Spunky Eclectic and associated fiber club, has exhibited around New England sheep and fiber shows for a number of years, and now owns a destination brick and mortar shop in Mid Maine.  

In Spin Control, Amy speaks to a reader who has grasped the basics of drafting, maybe even taken a class or two, and wants to develop a sense of control over their product.  In friendly gal pal language, Amy walks the apprentice spinner through basics they might have missed, and advocates the "just do it" approach to the yarn making: use different whorls, pull apart your fiber, ply a little bit, and knit a swatch. And she asks this question: Do you like what you see? It's a beginner's book for certain, but also a book of basics for intermediate spinners with an interest in core spinning and other novelties. Every piece of advice is to encourage an understanding of your wheel and your hands as tools that can be adjusted for predictable and personal results, and celebrates the spinner's own taste in their craft. While there are preferences for certain qualities in a yarn for the demands of a particular project, Amy never lays down any rules but instead trusts her readers to decide for themselves.  If that makes Amy an upstart, then hooray for upstarts I say.

The gates to the spinning kingdom may be guarded by the well-meaning, but any spinner will recognize the keys to the kingdom in this book, and should consider it worth handing over along with that first gift of fiber to their new spinning friends.

Public Lament: Where will you be tomorrow at 10 a.m.?

(Imagine me at Speaker's Corner, standing on a milk crate, rending my garments --no, not ones I knit myself, that would truly be awful-- and howling this at the top of my voice, but I won't shout here because that would be, you know, like, rude.)

I can not go to Sock Summit.  I want oh so badly to go to Sock Summit, but I cannot go.

I can not go to Sock Summit, which is going to be so incredibly cool and fun and the kind of event people will talk about for years, decades, generations to come, dear cousins. Socks, you say?  You don't do so much the socks?  But who cares? They have all kinds of things going on.  Cast ons, bead techniques, men, spinning, and a dance! It's going to be like the World's Fair of Knitting.  I can not go.  I hate that I can not go.

(why? oh, this is not going to sound like a big enough reason to you, I know.  But I have this ancient family cabin that I fell out of schedule with for about three years, and after much grovelling and playing most excellent distant relative, only last year have I re-ingratiated myself to the forces that be, and have been allowed back in to the fold, as it were, and the schedule of my penance directly conflicts with Sock Summit, so . . .fraked I am. If I blew this off and went to Sock Summit, I might never get back into the family graces, and this is the kind of thing my children and my children's children would never forgive me for.  Bad timing.  No getting around it. Barring a scene out of Hamlet that leaves me a Fortinbras, I am stuck.)

so go, have fun, take good classes, and say hi to Barbara Walker for me. I will be drinking coffee tomorrow morning, far far away from my computer.

Getting There

That we are having a spring, by which I mean 60 degree days and cool nights rather than the usual New England segue from frigid winter temps to blazing and muggy, has served to encourage my knitting on the big wool cardigan. On it goes.

I'm a little farther along that this, so I'll post about it again in a day or two.  I'm knitting in the round at this point, ready to do a sewn steek when the color work is done.  You can check out my Twist blog post on sewn steeks if you are still incredulous about cutting the knitting.

The Numerologic of Nature

In early April, I planted about a pound of peas. I have accumulated a few wisdoms about peas over my few years in the garden.  One: it is possible to plant them on St. Patrick's day, it's true, but even if you do, they still won't be ready any sooner than the ones you throw into the soil the first week of May.  July 4th.  That's when peas will be ready to harvest in my garden, early planting regardless.

Two: The more the better, because even if I plant several beds worth, we will eat them all and want more.

Three: a new one this year.  Squirrels love to eat the seeds.  After this long winter, my tree born rodent population has been ripping tulips out of the ground and defoliating my witch hazel. Peas in the ground were another entree in their spring gorge fest.  The day after I planted them, I found my pea beds looking like a triggered mine field, with craters and dirt flung onto the walkways.  I had little hope or illusion that anything would survive.

Four: This one is also a new one, and possibly a corollary of Two: there's safety in numbers.

I give you: survivors.  

In Memoriam: Lydia Grew

Today I'm going to take a moment to remember Lydia Grew, a local shepherd and iconoclast who passed away last month, leaving all of us who knew her a little in shock and also quieted by her death.  Lydia was a taciturn character in the old world fashion, infamous for her opinions and her generosity with them, for the standards she held her dogs to, and also for the high quality of her fleeces which she prized above just about everything. Almost every spinning session in town was occasion for sharing a story about her, and we will miss her annual shearing day at Gabriel's Fold and her blunt humor.  I remember when I had my first piece published in Interweave Knits, the little author's bio at the bottom of the page identified me as a spinner. When Lydia read that in her copy, she called me on the phone and demanded that I bring my spinning down so she could critique it.  That was pure Lydia: gruff yet helpful, clumsy attempt as it was.  I smile remembering her.

In the Nicest Places

Skiers may spend their day considering the potential of every surface, were it covered in fresh powder.  Track stars may wonder how long it would take them to cross the street once the light changes.  Teenage boys attempt basketball-style lay-ups to touch every sign overhead, even in the produce section.  It's all a matter of what moves you forward that can sometimes slant the world just a little, making it all seem to be one giant playground for your own personal hobbyhorse.

I look at the world from a knitter's perspective.

I order flannel pajama pants for my boy from L. L. Bean (item # TA58123).  They arrive, and we open up the box.  The flannel pajama pants come in little matching flannel knap sacks.

Why?

My son, 7 year old paleontologist sees this:

(only natural, after all since the flannel is printed with dinosaurs) Me?  I see this.

Happily, I had ordered two pairs of flannel pajama pants, so there will be no tears.  I hate it when he cries.

Bird in Hand mittens, by the way.  And to answer the same question about the previous post, Melissa Lumley's Hebrides Cardigan for Mostly Merino, bought as a kit at New Hampshire Sheep and Wool last year.