{"id":51985,"date":"2019-04-17T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T13:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lionbrand.com/community/blog\/?p=51985"},"modified":"2023-03-03T16:36:18","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T21:36:18","slug":"the-big-snag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lionbrand.com/community/blog\/the-big-snag\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Snag"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My first visit to a yarn shop<\/a><\/strong> was discouraging, but not so discouraging as to keep me from knitting. I had no knitting teacher, and after commencement scattered our class to the four winds, I no longer had friends who knit. It was more than a decade before I went back to the shop in Harvard Square, or to any place like it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a solitary practitioner, I knit with\nwhatever yarns I could find. Usually they turned up at garage sales. I wasn\u2019t\nfussy about who made them or what they were made from. I could only knit three\nthings, anyhow\u2013garter stitch scarves, hats (worked flat, with a seam), and\nmittens (ditto). My sole, ghastly knitting book didn\u2019t even mention circular\nknitting\u2013or, come to that, minor details like gauge, fiber, or yarn weights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, I was knitting. I had in the back of\nmy mind the idea that one day, I\u2019d tackle a sweater. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That day arrived in the early 2000s, during\nthe first blush of the knitting revival. I\u2019d found a knitting group and a\n(friendly) local yarn shop. I\u2019d learned to swatch, to read patterns, and to\nknit in the round. I\u2019d even learned stranded colorwork, which was key to\nrealizing my vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal? An Elizabeth Zimmermann percentage\nsystem with raglan shoulders and a band of colorwork around the chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was pushed right into the deep end of the\npool\u2013knitting to fit\u2013because I am both short and stocky. My measurements, and\nthose of the imaginary gentleman for whom standard patterns are designed, have\nnothing in common. My chest belongs on someone five inches taller. My arms\nbelong on a boy entering the sixth grade. If you are thinking I sound like a\njunior tyrannosaur, you have the right idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was excited to imagine that I might, at\nlast, have a sweater that would fit. All of mine either strained across the\npectorals or bagged at the waist, and they almost always hung to my knees.\nElizabeth Zimmermann, in Knitting Without\nTears<\/em>, was obligingly upbeat about my chances of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor was she the only authority on my shelf. I\nnow had a tidy library of very good books about knitting, including Debbie Stoller\u2019s Stitch \u2019n\u2019 Bitch<\/em> and Maggie Righetti\u2019s\nimmortal classic Knitting in Plain\nEnglish<\/em>. I was hesitant to say much, or ask many questions, on my\noccasional visits to knit night. But it didn\u2019t matter\u2013the other knitters were\nvery forthcoming with suggestions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I swatched. I blocked the swatch. I measured,\nand measured again. I calculated, twice. I took a deep breath. I cast on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have nothing noteworthy to say about the\nfirst three-quarters of the sweater. I did as I was told by Elizabeth\nZimmermann, with frequent advice from Maggie Righetti. There were moments of\nuncertainty, as when I at last joined the lower body to the arms. There were\nmoments when I broke a sweat, as when I began knitting the colorwork band\naround the chest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet I found that my mentors were correct\u2013while\nknitting, a cool head and a lick of common sense will carry the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I began working the raglan decreases and\nwondered if I might be coming down with a fever. I recognize the feeling now. I\nget it whenever the end of a long-term project appears on the horizon. Often, I\nbreak a sweat from sheer anticipation. I want the thing, whatever it is, done<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this moment both my cool head and my common\nsense deserted me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was living alone in a modern apartment\nbuilding made from surprisingly soundproof concrete. I had reached what I now\nrecognize as my personal Knitting Danger Zone of eleven in the evening. These\ndays, when the clock strikes eleven the knitting is put away, no matter how\nalert I might feel. Because if I keep knitting after eleven, bad things happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did not understand this that night, alone,\nin my soundproof apartment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sweater had been an uninteresting series\nof tubes. Then it had become an unwieldy clump of knitting with tubes flailing\nin three directions. But now, about halfway up the shoulders, for the first\ntime it looked like a sweater. Maybe even a well-made sweater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was it well-made? Would it fit? I had to know.\nI had to try it on. Right then, right there, right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remembered, vaguely, that one of my books\nhad said a work in progress could be tried on if the live stitches were first\ntransferred to a length of scrap yarn. I didn\u2019t have a length of scrap yarn\nnext to my chair. And anyhow, I had decreased to the point where surely I could\nleave the circular needle in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So put the thing over my head, and shoved an\narm up into each sleeve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top of my head poked out through the live\nend of the work like an egg emerging from a ostrich. My hands caught in the\nsleeves, just above my ears. I couldn\u2019t see out. And then I realized I couldn\u2019t\nget out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was stuck. Stuck inside my unfinished\nsweater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I inhaled sharply and got a mouth full of\nstockinette. I wiggled. I writhed. The sweater would not pull on or come off. I\ngrunted. I jumped up and down. And that\u2019s when I hit the coffee table and fell\nover. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I was on the carpet, blinded, with a\nthrobbing knee and my hands still held captive above my head. I could hear live\nstitches popping off the needle. I half-heartedly shouted for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Help from whom? Nobody could hear me through\nthe concrete. If they had, what on earth could I have said? How does one ask,\nin a dignified fashion, to be released from one\u2019s own knitting? After that, how\ndoes one face one\u2019s rescuer in the lobby?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dignity, by now, was forgotten. I lay on the\ncarpet, hyperventilating into wrong side of the colorwork and trying to form an\nescape plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I could wriggle against the carpet? I\ndecided to try. My gyrations were unspeakable, unearthly. Obscene. Were the\nblinds closed? Was I being watched from the the building across the street?\nWould they call the fire department?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It must have been half an hour before I was\nentirely free. I slumped, panting, against the upended coffee table. The\nsweater was not in ruins, but certainly looked raggedy around the live end. The\nneedle had slipped its bonds and slithered halfway across the room. I gathered\nup the remains gingerly, expecting every live stitch to immediately ladder to\nthe cast on. In my head, I saw months of work disintegrating. Poof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life was over. They would be find me,\neventually, sitting dead in the exploded piles of yarn that had been my dream\nsweater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went to bed. There on the nightstand was my\nfaithful copy of Knitting Without Tears<\/em>.\nBefore I went to sleep, I added a note in pencil. Elizabeth Zimmermann had\ngiven me so much good advice, but had never said to be careful not to get stuck\ninside my knitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t get stuck inside your knitting,<\/em> I wrote.

And now, dear reader, I pass this hard-won wisdom along to you.

I did finish the sweater, and even wore it to my first fiber festival. But that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"franklin