I’ve begun my latest fact-checking assignment, and it is clear that there is a lack of good sources. My subject is not a politician but an actress, and one known for her scandalous private life rather than any actual acting.
So the first difficulty was that all online research on this women turns up screens full of her naked image, so I can’t do online research while my kids are at home. She is a living person, and not one who is mentioned so much in books, so that knocks out more of the usual sources. I foresee a trip to the library to use the newspaper files.
#2 son gave me more detail on the sweater he wants, and I ordered the yarn for it. I used to knit sweaters for my children all the time when they were small and would cheerfully wear whatever I put on them. Now I make sweaters for them only very hesitantly — a scarf or a hat that is not worn is not that big a deal, but a sweater represents so many hours that I really don’t want to make it if the recipient isn’t going to wear it.
Not everyone feels this way. There are several popular knitting bloggers who brag that they make sweaters for themselves which they never wear. It is the process of knitting that appeals to them, and the product is not as important.
We have a number of sweaters that my grandmother made which are being worn by the third or fourth person to own them. I can’t help but feel that she would be gratified by this.
At the other end of the spectrum are the table linens I inherited from her. There were stacks of hand-embroidered pieces which had been labored over and then put away and never used. I unfolded pieces in the styles of the twenties and thirties and marveled at them. Were they stored for Special Occasions by their makers? Were they made by dear friends of my grandmother’s as gifts for her and put away because she hated them, but never felt she could throw them out?
I gave some to the museum where I worked for their women’s history collection, since the makers had themselves apparently chosen to put them away and never use them. A museum is the place for that.
I also gave a knee sock I had knitted from Scottish wool. “A” sock is correct there, because one of the socks was lost or destroyed, so the other was useful only as an example of handwork.
But I kept some of the lovely bridge cloths and things. I use them carefully and rarely. They will not last as long in use as the ones in the museum, but I imagine that the shades of the women who made them must be happy that someone is using and enjoying them
As sweater season is at least in the offing, I went through my stack of sweaters and had to admit that I can’t really wear Siv and Hopkins any more. Oversized and comfy is one thing, but these sweaters are just too big. I contemplated frogging them and reusing the yarn. I thought of the hours of Viking cabling and Celtic colorwork and couldn’t bring myself to do so. Perhaps I will be able to at some point… After all, reclaiming the yarn would allow me more enjoyable hours of cabling and colorwork. I thought also of cutting them up and making cushions from them. In the end, I folded them and put them away to decide about later, and that might be how all those linens were preserved, too.
I must get back to my scandalous actress before the boys get up. I’m working on the Log Cabin sock’s gussets while I google (and, now that I know what “gusset” means to the Brits, I can savor the irony of that), and I will show them to you tomorrow.
Does this mean you are losing weight?
I can’t wear my flying blue squirrel costume, I mean Einstein Coat. I could rip out the sleeves and alter the pattern and do it again, but no, I don’t think I will.
My mother used to knit extraordinarily elegant suits for herself — basic Chanel-type skirt and jacket, often in a tiny herringbone or other very discreet pattern. Intricate work that took forever. And when she didn’t have a knitting project in mind, she would ravel one of those suits and use the yarn to knit another suit, just to have something to knit.
People often tried to commission one of those suits from her, but she always refused the commission, on the grounds that she wasn’t willing to work for what the hourly rate would be. If she’d been offered a fee that would have come out to at least minimum wage, she would have been willing to do it. This amused me, since she never sat down at home for more than five minutes without knitting in her hands and would have been knitting anyway [see above]; it seemed to me that she might as well be paid for it. But I never had any luck persuading her of that.
Once you get paid for something, it’s not as much fun any more.
Most of the sweaters (jerseys) we wore as kids were knitted either by my aunt-in-law, who used to knit some lovely stuff or by my mother who cheated and used a knitting machine. The only thing that used to mildly irritate my sister and I was that anything that we got (either home-made or bought for that matter) would be exactly the same except for the colour (Li’l Sis was blonde so she always looked all sweet in pinkish colours. I wasn’t and didn’t.). We used to feel like Mrs Binns’ twinss.
i have purchased sock-weight yarn! and double pointed needles! and have detailed instructions (printed out, even) from the ladies at the yarn shop AND a promise of help if i need it. i’m quite optimistic!
regarding pretty things: when my grandmother passed away i inherited some awful crocheted potholder/trivet type things which i suppose i was glad to get (ok, not really) but i constantly forget to use them. (they’re obviously tucked away someplace special). i wonder if my kids will inherit them some day and think i never used them because i cherished them so? AND you’ll notice that my dad and his sister didn’t want them….they skipped a generation and landed on me. hmmmmm.
Would it be possible to steek the now-too-large sweaters?