Knitting Rules! by Stephanie Pearl–McPhee Read Free Book Online

softness, the colors, the textures … the things I like about yarn. But none of that really gets to the meat of it.
    In the end, the reason we fill our houses with it, visit it in yarn shops, speak of it in glowing terms, and hoard it with passion is that it is pure potential. Every ball or skein of yarn holds something inside it, and the great mystery of what that might be can be almost spiritual. These six balls of wool could be a shawl my mum puts around her shoulders when she’s cold, or maybe it’s a blanket a friend wraps her baby in. Maybe that baby takes a shine to it and it becomes his beloved companion blankie, comforting him for years and years. Maybe it’s a sweater that my daughter is wearing the day she gets her first kiss, and from then on my yarn is a part of her memory of that day. Maybe, just maybe, those six balls are a scarf and hat that get tucked away for years and long after I’m gone someone pulls them out and says, “Remember how Grammy was with all the wool? Remember how she knit all the time?” fingering the soft wool and pondering who I was and what I did while I was here.
    It’s a mystery, each ball of yarn … and I don’t know what each one is going to be or what life it will take when I finally set needles to it. But each one will be something I made with my own two hands. This yarn, then — my whole big sweeping stash —
is the stuff of dreams.

three
Know Your Stuff
    K NITTING ISN’T JUST ABOUT THE YARN and the projects. As the friends and families of knitters will tell you (as they look for a clear space to sit), knitting comes with a lot of stuff. From needles to patterns to tape measures, these bits and pieces are as necessary as yarn to our craft, and have a variety and volume that matches any yarn stash.
    The wise knitter (that would be you; since my knitting stuff is a disaster) organizes her stuff, keeps it handy, and knows how to use it. The unwise knitter (that would be me) rummages around, makes do with what she’s got, and still has a pretty good time. Part of the occasionally bitter song and the often wonderful surprise of knitting is that your projects don’t always work out as happily as an after-school movie. There are simply too many variables for there to be no surprises, but over time I’ve learned that understanding your stuff (even if your stuff isn’t very good stuff) improves the odds of getting a predictable knitting outcome.
    When it comes to my spare time (and my working time too, now that I think about it, as I work at writing knitting books), it would appear that I’m a woman of limited intelligence. It’s not that I consider myself unintelligent, I’m pretty sure I’m about as smart as the next knitter. Rather, I mean that the scope of my intelligence is limited. I know a great deal about just one thing. I don’t know anything about barometric pressure; I can’t make sushi; really, all I care about deeply (my family and spiritual life aside) is knitting.
    I suspect that many of you are the same, and, considering the relative simplicity of knitting, that it occupies a space in your heart, mind, and home that’s largerthan expected. This limited intelligence, or focus, makes the processes of knitting matter a great deal. Knitting is simple, and this means that once you have the basics of knit and purl down cold, attention to detail starts to matter and knitters tend to get uptight about smooth knitting needles, lost gauges, errant tape measures, and the accuracy of patterns. It turns out that if you’re a Knitter (note the capital
K
) and you’ve taken up the process of knitting at all seriously, you’ll be with me in thinking that figuring out the best kind of needle for you makes a lot of sense.
KNITTING NEEDLES
    Without knitting needles, we would simply be surrounded by piles of beautiful string. Needles come, infuriatingly, in several kinds of sizes,