Knitting Stars

There aren't many stars in the knitting universe...so what does it take to make a name recognizable by almost all knitters?

In the 18 years that I've been knitting, there have been only three names that I can name that are inarguably recognized as knitting stars,

Elizabeth Zimmermann, Alice Starmore, and Kaffe Fassett

These knit designers have created a large following and inspired a large number of knitters to take up needles.

Elizabeth Zimmermann is one of the pioneers of knitting inspiration. It wasn't her brilliant designs that brought knitters to her, it was more her philosophy of knitting that gave new knitters the courage to try things. She helped transition knitting from a time when it was a chore to a time where knitting could be something a person chose to do for fun. Personally, I don't subscribe to some of her ideas. I have no aversion to purling, and I think most of her knitting patterns are devoid of any style. However, I heartily agree with her spirit of adventure in knitting, and the undaunted, unapologetic way she encourages knitters to be pioneers themselves. That's what makes her great.

As for Alice and Kaffe, both of them pursued knitting fame in a different way than Alice. They both took a specific knitting technique, and made it an artform. They both brought joyous amounts of color into the knitting world. Alice through her incredible Fair Isle and Aran designs and Kaffe through his incredible intarsia masterpieces. Both of them were incredibly prolific in their designs, and they both inspired knitters around the globe to spend inordinate amounts of money on books and yarns to make their own pieces of art.

Again, Alice and Kaffe diverge in their knitting styles. Alice's designs brought a precisioned and detailed eye to both Fair Isle and Aran designs, while Kaffe encouraged a more reckless approach to throwing as much color and patterning as he could into his sweater designs.

Now I'm sure that there are a number of other well-known hand-knitting designers that you could name, but I put them in the category of sub-stars.
Knitting Sub-Stars that I can quickly list are Debbie Bliss, Jo Sharp, Ron Schweitzer, Penny Straker, Michele Wyman, Lily Chin, and Jean Moss. All of them (and many more) have made huge contributions to knitting. But none of them have broken through so that they are known by their first name only as Kaffe, Elizabeth and Alice have.

New Star Auditions
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We are in desperate need of a new Knitting Star. Alice is busy with her lawyers, Kaffe has seemingly left knitting to his protege, Brendan Mably, and Elizabeth has passed on the crown to her daughter Meg Swansen. Today's entry is a call for a new star. The knitting community need someone to follow and worship. Someone who will appeal to a wide audience of knitters.

I submit that Carol Lapin could be a possible candidate. Here are her qualifications:

1. She has been designing for a long time. In fact, one of her designs is in Scottish Collection...the widely sought-out Alice book from the Broadbay days. For those of you who own that book, did you know Carol is the model for the entrelac sweater in the book?

2. Carol's designs are always stylish and sophisticated and they continue to get better and better. Her most recent designs in the Jamieson Simply Knit book are artful to say the least. Metamorphosis, one of her new designs in the book is absolutely beautiful and well designed. People who haven't even gotten the book have been ordering kits for that sweater already, despite the $128 cost.

3. The editor at Unicorn Books who was partly responsible for bringing Alice to star-status, has been pushing Carol's designs very strongly. He is an amazing publicist as well as editor, and the combination could be very effective.

4. Finally, Carol continues to be very prolific in her designs. She has recently completed a multi-color overcoat-like garment that is truly stunning.

Given that I'm a personal friend of Carol's, my opinion is obviously biased. But truthfully, it was my love of her designs that brought us together as friends originally. I'd like to hear if there are any other stars out there who you think are ready to pop out.

Knitting Progress
I had to say, I've finished the back and I'm almost up to the collar shaping on the front of the Sister Sweater. This picture may look like I've done even less than the last picture. That's because the last picture only showed the almost completed back, and not the incomplete front chest section.



I'll finish the front and start on the sleeves this weekend (hopefully).

Knitting Identity

#15 from 100 Things About Me states:

"I derive a significant amount of self worth from my job."

I identify as a Consultant...it's who I am, it's what I do. Similarly, I identify as a knitter. There aren't many folks that have my skill sets in either the area of knitting or consulting, and I take great pride in that. I am proud as hell that there isn't a knitting pattern or a pattern stitch that I can't do...or even a commercially knit garment that I couldn't replicate if I wanted to. I can do Fair Isle, Intarsia, and duplicate stitch. I can do lace knitting, Aran knitting and cabling. I know how to turn a heel, do a toe-up sock and Kitchener stitch a toe.

What I don't need is validation of myself as a knitter. I don't care if Julia Roberts or Tyne Daly knits. Although it makes me like them more, it doesn't justify my passion for creating fabric with needles and yarn. I don't care that magical knitting is portrayed in the Harry Potter movie, even though I can appreciate some of the beautiful hand knits that actors wear in movies. And getting upset about how knitting is being portrayed in a Homo Dépot commercial is simply ridiculous.

I think part of the reason I don't care about what people think of my knitting is because I'm a guy. I've had to work through a lot of those issues early in my knitting experience. The first time I took my knitting out in an airport, I didn't know what the reaction would be, but I was resolved that it didn't matter...I am a knitter...it's who I am, it's what I do. I've had some less-than-positive experiences where friends have ridiculed my avocation, or family members have their own embarrassment of my knitting in public. All of those experiences strengthened my resolve...brought me to the place where I realized I won't be denied my passion because someone thinks less of me for it.

Knitting Gifts
With all this talk of my "knitting identity", it's always nice when friends and family recognize that knitting is important to me. My sister-out-of-law gave my partner and I teddy bears for Christmas one year. Thaddeus' bear was dressed as a fisherman...mine as a knitter.



Now don't get me wrong...none of my dresses are as frumpy as the one this bear wears, but I was glad that someone close to me recognized that knitting was a part of who I am...a critical part. It's nice to be understood that way. I'm not sure how different that is from feeling validated by knitting references in books or movies, but it definitely feels different to me. It's a more personal recognition of something important to me...not some random reference.

Knitting Progress
I've gotten some additional work done on the sister sweater. Now that I've started knitting back and forth to allow for the sleeve opening, the picture looks like I've made a lot of progress. In actuality, I'm almost done with the back, but I still have the upper front, collar and sleeves to go.

B.A.D. Hangover

Now that Blogger Appreciation Day (B.A.D.) is over, I think I celebrated too much.

Double Good News
I headed over to my local yarn store yesterday for a couple of reasons...believe it or not, neither reason involved the purchase of more yarn

First thing, the editor of the Jamieson Shetland books was at the yarn store to discuss a great new line of yarns, and to gather new designs for a book using the new yarn line. As part of that discussion, he mentioned that Jamieson Shetland Book 3 will include one of my designs...the very design I'm making for my sister!! I'm very excited. Book 3 isn't scheduled to be out until August, but it's still great to know I'll be a published designer. Just think, when I become the next Alice Starmore, you can all say you knew me when...

Second great thing is that that new Jamieson Simply Knit book has arrived, although it's sitting in customs at the moment. It's expected to be distributed out to stores at the end of next week. This is the picture they used for the front cover.



Simply Knit (the store, not the book) has been taking advanced orders for the book, although it's not on their web site yet. Phone ordering is the only way to order it so far.

Christmas Gift
I thought it was somewhat odd that my blog-sister, Wendy doesn't just celebrate her birthday, but she celebrates an entire birthmonth. I think she's still getting birthmonth gifts. Well, I have no room to talk now, I just got the following Christmas gift from my sister.



Did anyone else order from Amazon this year and have them mislead you as to the delivery date. Both my sister and I ordered books that Amazon claimed would arrive in time for Christmas and then a week after ordering revised the delivery date to 2 or 3 weeks after Christmas. I ended up cancelling and ordering the same book through Barnes and Noble. My sister wasn't quite that proactive.

Regardless, I love the book. It's got some great color combinations, and while I will most probably never make an afghan, I will definitely be stealing design ideas from this book for other garments.

Cat Grief
Gage (the cat) and the FDL (Feline Defamation League) gave me a boatload of grief about the picture and reference to "spawn of satan" I included in recent posts. I've made up with my little darling, in fact he was just lying on my chest purring peacefully before I sat down to write this. If you look closely at the picture below, you'll see the holy glow surrounding the angel-cat.

Blogger Appreciation Day

If I can declare knitting a sport as I did yesterday, then I can certainly declare a global holiday to honor bloggers.

I have been inspired by them, I have laughed with them, I have learned from (I have stolen HTML from them), so now it's time to say thanks to all the bloggers who have been doing this "blog thing" for a lot longer than me...way before I even heard of the word.

By far, Wendy has been the biggest influence. I love reading her blog, I think her knitting is as good as it gets and she's been keeping her blog going for an incredibly long time (and that is no easy task). Stop by her site and say hi, and tell her QueerJoe says hi too.

Marilyn (The Knitting Curmudgeon) has one of the most entertaining knit blogs on the world wide web. I love her caustic humor and her writing is flawless. Being a writer by profession with past jobs as editor, she puts together an amazing site. A true breath of fresh air after reading endless Knitlist bullshit.

Kate's blog is a must read for any knit blog reader who appreciates reading about young knitters with interesting design ideas and just interesting ideas about life. Plus, her husband is cute as hell (I would imagine most straight guys or lesbians would think the same thing about her).

I love reading Justin's blog just to see what he and his two lovers, his children and his pets are up to. Having never seen a picture of what he looks like, I have a very clear picture of him in my mind based on his clever writings about raising children in a seemingly very Bohemian family environment.

Some of the more recent entrants into knit-blogging, but also great daily reads are Antonio...love reading his blog, and check out the amazing graphics and interesting knit content on Matt and Rob's site at Crowing Ram.

There are tons of other great knitting blogs, and I find more and more each day. So far, these are the blogs that have inspired me to designate January 24th as Blogger Appreciation Day.

Knitting Progress
Got a few more inches done on the Sister Sweater. I thought you might want to see a glimpse of my design tools when knitting a sweater like the one for my sister.

Here's what the sweater's looking like now...see I'm finally into the third stitch pattern section. Just an inch or two more till I start the arm hole shaping.

Knitting as Sport

As a male knitter, I've decided that knitting can now be elevated from the category of craft or hobby to an official sport.

I know folks (like Wendy) who can create entire virgins with text above their heads in a matter of days.

Knitting Competitions
Like a track and field event, Knitting should have clearly defined events:

Speed Knitting - Obvious choice, it already exists
Endurance Knitting - Who can knit garter stitch continuously for the longest time without losing their mind?
Tag Team Knitting - Pick up your partner's knitting and make sure your gauge matches
Fiber Stash Enhancement - The competetition gets fierce at the local sale bin
Knitting Iron Man (is there a non-gender term for this?) - A tri-athlete event (formerly known as sheep to shawl)
Concurrent WIPS - Who holds the world record for number of concurrent WIPS?
Ice knitting - Graceful performance of Sock knitting with double toe-loops
Speed Balling - The sprinting event for getting yarn from hank to swift to ball in the fastest time
Blocking/Finishing - Okay, we'll keep this one out of the competition...no one would want to participate

Training Exercises
How would you train for these fiber events?
Two-handed, stranded knitting exercises
Knitting cotton with weights attached to the ends of your needles
Standard injury avoidance stretches


Equipment Fine Tuning
Finely honed and waxed double-points in mahogany for speed
Ball winders with 5:1 gear ratios
Yarn swifts with spoilers and aerodynamic attachments

Knitting Progress
Slowly moving along on the sister-sweater. I've gotten about 10 inches done...five more and I start working the front and back separately.



Devil Cat
Here's another picture of the spawn of satan who doesn't beg for table scraps, but will find the smallest piece of yarn and ingest it immediately (no he's not hanging from the rafters like the demon he is, he's playing under the stairs).