A Curious Statistical Anomaly

I was lucky enough to attend the book event at Borders in the Annapolis Maryland mall and hear Stephanie Pearl-McPhee speak about life, knitting, and some of the things she’s learned. It was an entertaining talk. I’d bought the book at the event and brought it home to read.

The book is small (about 6.3 inches by 4.2 inches) and fits in a purse for quick moments of reading just about anywhere you’re stuck waiting. There’s an introduction and 45 things learned with a few lists interspersed. So, it’s a perfect book for short breaks as most of the ‘things’ are on average about three pages. It took me a while to read because I chose to read it in short spurts reading 1 or 2 or 3 things at a time.

If you’ve read the Yarn Harlot’s blog you have a good idea of her writing style. It’s simple and down to earth, witty, humorous, and often slyly thought provoking. I say slyly thought provoking because she often says she writes knitting humor and she does. But, what she doesn’t stress is that her writing is humorous because it based in the knitting culture and in society in general. The introduction talks about attention and filter theories in science and psychology and how they apply to knitters. Often knitters take a lot of flack for knitting items that could be purchased cheaper elsewhere or for wasting time (usually said by someone just sitting and doing nothing). Stephanie Pearl-McPhee uses science and common sense to refute some of those charges and to prove to knitters that not only are they taking part in an activity that brings them joy but that also keeps their brains active and engaged, produces usable products (mittens, sweaters, socks, scarfs, and so on), and teaches them new things about life and the world everyday.

She has short essays on lesson learned such as: “Patience is a Virtue”. Knitters, she writes, aren’t knitters because they are patient but patient because they knit. Basically, on observation, she believes that if you took a knitters knitting away when they are in a situation that requires patience, such as waiting in a doctor’s office, the knitter would shortly be climbing the walls. I can certainly agree with this lesson since I find knitting is superior to picking lint out of the air, pacing, or “gasp” staring at the walls wondering if I could climb one.

Another lesson is Practice Makes Perfect. Knitting is an activity that is done over and over again. It’s basically of two stitches — knit and purl — and with these two stitches you can make socks, sweaters, mittens, and so on. The more you knit the better at it you get. It’s a simple concept, but with knitting it is easily seen by an individual. Of course, the book explains this lesson in a much more humorous and illustrative manner. A knitter who wouldn’t dream of do-overs for many of life’s mistakes will with no prompting unravel and reknit something over and over again until they get it right. This ‘practice’ can transfer and allow knitters to keep trying when things get difficult because with knitting eventually you’ll succeed. In life that doesn’t always happen but some people never learn to try, try again — they give up. Knitters persevere.

If you are a knitter, you’ll enjoy the book for those flashes of recognition of your own behavior or the behavior of other knitters that you know. You’ll also find that after the laughter, when you remember and think about all the lessons learned, that this is not just knitting humor, this is a litany of what knitters know and what they should recognize about themselves and their craft. They are persistent, meditative, creative, good at math, thoughtful, generous, and caring. If you’re not a knitter, but know some or hope to be one someday, reading this book to give you an idea of the sorts of things that are involved in knitting. It’s not just a craft but as with any art — a way of life that can profoundly effect how you look at the world.

Highly recommended.

I read the Yarn Harlot blog, which is written by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. She also writes books on knitting humor and I’ve enjoyed her writing since, I don’t know when — I guess since she was on the Knitlist and posted short items there. She’s always seemed to be to be a person who thinks a lot about life, the universe, and everything, and finds the absurd and the joyful in it.

So, when the tour for her new book was listed and I checked and saw that she’d be giving a talk at Borders at the Annapolis, Maryland mall, I marked my calendar and waited patiently. Last night was the night. I figured they’d be a crowd but my husband worked late and we only got there thirty minutes before the event started. We purchased the books and got signing number 173. One of the women there said that she’d heard that when the phone calls confirming the event started to come in Borders realized that they’d better do numbers for the signing. Since I was 173 and more than a few came in after I did there was a large crowd.

The crowd filled practically all of the space available on the second floor of the bookstore. But the wait was pleasant as we all oogled each others knitting projects and shared tips and hints on various patterns and yarns. There was a pretty good mix of young, old, and all in between as well as a mix of sexes and racial backgrounds. In other words the usual non-demographically defined crowd of knitters.

The talk was very interesting. First, she spoke more on the inability of anyone to define knitters as in ending the phrase, “Knitters are ____” with a word or phrase that would work for every knitter. She then went on to talk about how knitting and its repetitive nature allows us to enter a theta state that is good for reducing stress, giving us access to our creative side, and many other good side effects. Some of this information on brain wave states was from a study done with Buddhist Monks before, during, and after mediation. The researchers specifically mentioned knitting as a way to achieve this theta state but also stated that it was unreasonable to expect people to carry around emergency knitting in order to reduce stress. This got a big laugh from the audience as most of us had brought our knitting with us to avoid the stress of waiting for the event to begin.

As you can see, I managed to get my copy of my book signed and a photo of Stephanie and myself holding each other’s sock-in-progress. I can’t believe she was still friendly and approachable after signing for nearly three hours.

If you get a chance to go to a talk by Stephanie, make the effort, it’s well worth it. I’m certainly glad we went. It was a great evening with wonderful people — they were all knitters — what more can be said.

In between all the other things I’ve been doing lately, I’ve been working on these socks. I turned the heel last night. I was going to knit plain until one inch from top but just switched to 2×2 ribbing since I want to make them a bit higher and I hope the ribbing will help them stay up.

But, alas I’m not a one project kind of person so I have a pair of traveler socks in the bedroom that I’ve done the top pattern and just started the second pattern. The pattern is by Nancy Bush in her book, Knitting on the Road. I’ve made a couple of pair of socks from this books and I just love the simple clear directions.

I’ve also finished the body of my sweater I was working on. Now I just have to pick up for the sleeves and knit down to the wrist. No finishing required since it’s top down and I used an i-cord for the bottom. Hopefully, that one will show up here in the blog with a week or two. Depends on my knitting time. I’ve about finished the follow up to all the zines going live — now it’s gearing up for the 1st of April — and that means lots of reading time. I found one of my book holders and I bought a weighted bookmark so I’m going to try reading and knitting (at least the plain knitting).

I’ve spun up a bobbin of wool/angora mix that I bought a few years ago. I’m not caring for the color as much as I did when I bought it but it spins up nice. I’m hoping to get a cardigan from it when I’m done. It’s sort of scratchy so I’m thinking outer garment not next to the skin.

Lots of plan. Little time. But full of joy at the thought that soon spring will be here.

And if you laugh at that, you’re probably tired-er than I am. It’s been really hectic the last couple of days and I really needed a break. I think I mentioned a while back that my favorite kicking around the house sweater is falling apart after years and years of faithful service. So, I bought yarn and decided that I wanted to learn to do a top down sweater. I got all my books out and decided to do a full yoke but I wanted it to be loose so I could wear it comfortably with turtlenecks and shirts.

So, I did a gauge swatch, measured it, then calculated how many stitches I’d need for to get the neck size I wanted (I measured that with a cloth measuring tape). I cast on the stitches and started with my knit 2, purl 2 border. Well lets just say as with my usual experience with gauge that it could have fit me and several of my close friends. So, back to the frog pond with it. Since it’s a fuzzy boucle-type yarn, I lost some of it in trying to rip it out.

Now that I got the obligatory lying scumbag of a gauge swatch out of the way, I eye-balled the stitches as I added them on giving care to remember that once I knit a few rows they’d loosen up a bit. Looks like I’m on my way. I’ve got 10 rows of K2P2 ribbing and then increased 20 stitiches, then I’ve been increasing 20 stitches every 6th row since. Now I’ve got to figure out the depth of the yoke.

I may decide I’m getting the hang of this flying by the seat of my pants knitting. Guess this will be my knitting challenge this year to just try out different things and not be afraid to fail. Knitting as a metaphor for life I guess. I’m writing down the directions as I go and hope to have them available when I finish this — then I’ll post as a pdf. If anyone’s done a full yoke top-down sweater and has some sage advice/helpful tips, believe me I’m all ears (or eyes in the case of reading off screen).

I was thrashing my brain trying to think of a post and someone asked me how I did my socks without a pattern. So, thought I’d try to explain. When I first started with socks I followed patterns and then I sort of got the hang of it. Eventually, after reading several book and blogs I found that there wasn’t any real trick to it.

Toe UP:

First I use a figure 8 cast on. Actually when I first did it I didn’t really know what it was called but it seemed to make sense to me after doing all those kitchener stitch toes when doing top down. Knitty.com has a great explanation with pictures of the figure 8 cast on. They call it the figure 8 toe. After trial and error I more or less do it this way now.

Once I have used the figure 8 to cast on 16-18 stitches (8-9 on each needle), I knit one row — this row is usually the most difficult. Then on the next row, knit one, M1, knit to next to last stitch, M1, K1 (for each needle) on the next row I usually split the stitch over 4 needles with an same number of stitch on each needle.

Next row knit all stitches.

Now on first needle, Knit 1, M1, knit to end of needle. 2nd needle you knit to next to last stitch and then M1, knit 1. 3rd needle: Knit 1, M1, knit to end. 4th needle: Knit to next to last stitch, M1, Knit 1. (You’ve increased 4 stitches in this row. All increased are on the outside of the toe.

Repeat until you have enough stitches to get to the widest part of your foot by the upper toes. This is where I usually start a pattern if I’m going to or ribbing if I want a ribbed sock. If you do a lace pattern keep the stitches that will be the bottom of the foot plain. If you’re doing ribbing you can do the whole foot as ribbing (sort of makes the sock fit snugger — if that’s a word).

When you’re within two inches of the heel you need to decide on a heel type. You can do a regular heel (follow any pattern and don’t worry that you’re going in the opposite direction), a short row heel, an afterthought heel, whatever you’re comfortable with. There’s an article on heels on Wool Works website, a great website with lots of photos on heels and other sock knitting tips, the directions for an afterthought heel on Sockknitters, and the Knitting Fiend has lots of good sock links.

Once you’ve done the heel, well you’re home free. Knit up as high on the leg as you want though if you’re going to go mid-calf you may have a problem with slipping down. I usually go either 8-9 inches or keep to a 2×2 or 1×1 ribbing so it holds up a bit better.

Well, that’s my fuzzy method of knitting a sock. On my next pair I’m planning an hour-glass (or short-row heel). I just loved the way it looked on the vintage socks that the Yarn Harlot just finished knitting. I don’t think I’d ever have the patients for those tiny leaves but I really like the looks of the heel.

Meanwhile, I’ve started a top down sweater and I don’t have a pattern so I’m sort of hyped to get it going. Only got 3 rows so far so it will be a while before a photo shows up here. Why doesn’t work, chores, errands, and loved ones just fade into the background when there’s a new project on the needles — it will only take me a day or three before the newness wears off and I won’t mind being interrupted so much.

Today I sewed in the ends and finished a pair of UFO socks. These socks were the ones that I found moths had eaten a couple of holes in. I frogged until I got below the eaten holes, clipped out the bad yarn, reattached and started knitting again. I also had a brain storm and decided to do upside down heels — the socks were toe-up but I put in a regular heel making no changes for doing them from bottom up so the thicker bit is under the heel.

The yarn was a variegated in wild orange and blues. But, even as I began the second sock I noticed that the sock looked like I was making it from a different colorway. It’s not. I bought one skein, split it in half so I could have half for one sock and half for the other. It’s all a matter of how the colors pooled. Since I wasn’t using a pattern but knitting on the fly I did notice when I finished that one sock was a bit wider from the ankles up than the other so that might account for the difference in color pools.

Anyway, I’m glad to be done with this pair. I’m wearing them now and they fit pretty well. The bind off doesn’t pull in and it stretches a bit more than usual because every 10th stitch I did an extra knit of the stitch before binding off so give a looser binding. It does fit better.

Oh, and those who read yesterday’s blog. I did watch all the Super Bowl ads online and not one of them is memorable. I remember some of them were really funny as I watched them but right now I only remember that I watched them. So, I guess nothing replaces my all time favorite — EDS’s Herding Cats.

Wow, times certainly does fly when you’re under a deadline. Towards the end of any month, I get a bit frazzled and let things go, like my blog posts, in order to get the zines up and live on time. SFRevu and GumshoeReview both go live on the first of the month. SFRevu focuses on science fiction, fantasy, horror, nonfiction, and related genre areas — so each month has lots of reviews of books, author interviews, media reviews, and more. GumshoeReview is the same but with a focus on mysteries and thrillers. We made it and they’re both on line — so take a look.

It’s February now — and that means a new coffee cup. The picture is of my new cup — roses, pink, words of amore — very Valentine’s Day-ish. I saw it on the shelf and it was like at first sight. There’s only one problem and I’m fairly sure hardly anyone other than another lefty, such as myself, will notice. The flower inside the cup is only visible as you sip IF you are right handed. There is no mirror image on the other side of the cup for left handed coffee/tea drinkers. What’s up with that? Would it be that difficult to put the artwork on both sides of the inside so everyone can “have a nice day”. Oh, well. As a lefty in a right-handed world I’m sort of used to it by now but every now and then it makes me feel left out.

Next up — remember I’ve missed posting for a few days — I finished my first sock making a normal heel but on a toe-up sock so the heel is essentially backward. What that means is that the thicker part of the normal sock heel which usually goes along the back of the heel from bottom of foot up the back of leg is now under the heel against the floor. Here’s a close up (sorry, it’s a bit fuzzy).

It fits well and feels okay. I’m now nearly done with the other sock of the pair. I’m up on the cuff and have about another 2 1/2 inches to do.

In case you’re wondering — I knit like any other knitter — right-handed. Knitting is actually a two-handed activity so left and right, at least to me, doesn’t matter when knitting. Since all patterns are written for right-handed knitting it makes sense to learn to knit that way. I recently managed to learn to knit backwards for a projects that hopefully will be my next UFO to finish (so more on that later).

Well, I unknit the sock down past where the moths had eaten it, clipped out the ends of the eaten bits, and rewound the ball. Then it was a matter of figuring out where I was in the process and continuing on.

This project originally stalled because I didn’t want to do the usual short row heel and I was trying to figure out how to do a normal heel but from the bottom to the top– if that makes any sense. Then I was reading the Yarn Harlot’s blog and she talked about the afterthought heel and how it was just another toe. It was like a light bulb went off. I got out a pair of socks that I’d made last year (top down) and looked at the heel. I thought that if from the toe up I just made a normal heel then the thicker bit usually running along the back of the heel would be under the heel, where it actually would do the most good, and the thinner bit would be at the back of the heel and since I wear clogs mostly, this would be fine (no rubbing on the shoe’s back edge).

The trick was realizing that a heel was a heel was a heel — whether toe up or top down it works and fits the foot the same way. Of course, until I finish and wear them a while I won’t know if this works as well as I think it will but it does make a nice looking heel for a toe up sock.

I think I’ll have a cuppa and admire it for a while. At least don’t tell me 40 billion other knitters already knew this and it’s an old technique until I’ve had a chance to enjoy my cleverness for a few minutes at least.