THE ALPACAS

Those of you with a keen eye will have noticed that there are alpacas of various sizes on display in the window of Montoya Fiber Studio.  They are stuffed animals made in Peru and covered in authentic alpaca fleece.  They are a wonder to behold and a delight to touch.

Some time ago, the middle of last December to be exact, I found myself with nothing to do at the store.  Up till then my responsibilities had consisted of ringing up sales, unpacking newly arrived yarn, putting the correct prices on that yarn, arranging the yarn on the shelves so they always looked neat and tidy, and taking out the garbage.  On this particular day all these things had already been done and there were no customers in the store so I started wandering around.  I noticed that the alpacas looked rather forlorn.  They needed a splash of color in their lives.  I found some unwanted yarn remnants, I grabbed a pair of needles and I began to knit one of the alpacas a scarf.  Nothing complicated.  All garter stitch.  In less than an hour there was a warm decorative scarf wrapped around the alpaca’s neck.  He seemed happier, as if I, with one simple creative stroke, had transformed his life.  His existence was no longer drab and empty.  “Hmm,” I said to myself.  I knew that it was too late for Christmas, but I vowed that I would knit something for all the alpacas for Valentine’s Day.  There were five of them at the time.  Whenever I found myself with some spare time at the store I’d start a scarf or a hat or a blanket to drape over their backs.  Shortly before the 14^th of February my new line, all red of course, was ready.  The alpacas were pleased.  And now that they had personalities, I sensed that they would also like names.  They were christened Zachary, Millard, Rutherford, Grover and Harry, in honor of five of my favorite U.S. Presidents.  St. Patrick’s Day was right around the corner so I found it necessary to inform Cathy that I would be appropriating some of her green yarn.  The alpacas would now be female so the new line would be a little more sophisticated.  Different stitches, different shades of green, that sort of thing.  After all, you can’t just go and dress lady alpacas in all garter stitch outfits and have them all clad in the same boring green.  Naturally, their names also changed.  They were now called Margaret, Abigail, Lucy, Frances and Bess, the names of the respective wives of the aforementioned Presidents.  Frances was sold in late March.  A sad day at Montoya Fiber Studio, but business is business.

Last week while I was in charge of the store while Cathy was away, I declared myself the Official Alpaca Holiday Dresser.  That same day I also issued a proclamation naming me the Poet Laureate of the store.  The Yarn Bard, if you will.  The duties of this office are to write poems for special store events.  Like for whenever the alpacas change outfits.  The way I figure it, the more responsibilities I have in the store, the greater the possibility of Cathy naming me Vice-President of Operations for Montoya Fiber Studio.  Once somebody becomes a Vice-President, then profit sharing is just around the corner.  Anyway, the Independence Day designs naturally involve red, white and blue.  This increase in the amount of color easily allowed for a bolder design element.  The new outfits also demanded some new names.  The four alpacas were now called Ed, Dwight, Sue and Hamilton.  An official poem was begun, though not completed.  And then tragedy struck!  Without my authority and on a day that I was not in the store, someone had sold Dwight.  No names will be mentioned.  The outfits, so carefully designed for each alpaca, were now all wrong as Dwight’s outfit had been split up between Ed and Sue.  The balance, so necessary in all haute couture, was now destroyed.  Worst of all, the poem commemorating the four alpacas was now useless as the alpaca population went from four to three.  I share with you the unfinished poem.  I pray that I have the strength to tackle a new one.

A quick word about my poetry style.  I have always fancied myself a hybrid of Ogden Nash and Sylvia Plath, two poets who have had a profound literary impact on me.  So, without any further ado ….

                               THE ALPACAS ON THE FOURTH OF JULY

                                           Ed, Dwight and Sue

                                          Wore red white and blue.

                                          And Hamilton sported the same.

                                          They went to the zoo

                                          To see Eunice the Ewe

                                          And found her all bloody and lame.

                                          Her wool had turned orange,

This is where I was in the poem when I heard that Dwight had been sold.  Back to the poetry drawing  board, I guess.  Oh yes.  One quick question while I have everyone’s attention.  Does anyone know of a word that rhymes with orange?  You wouldn’t believe the number of unfinished poems I have in my poetry drawer, all because of that troublesome word.

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Congratulations to the nine people who successfully completed the crossword puzzle.  You have my respect and admiration as the puzzle was burdened with a few clunky entries and clues.  Alas, only eight of the nine of the entries were eligible for prizes.  Though everything was above board, I felt it best to disqualify my father-in-law’s entry.  Can’t have a family member winning, after all.  And besides, what’s he going to do with a pair of knitting needles?  If I know him, he’d use them for shish-kabobs.  Cathy and I pulled three names out of a hat on May 17 with Cecilia G. winning the Knitters Pride Cubics Needles and Ann L. and Margene L. winning the other prizes, two cute little knitting pouches.  For those who were stumped, here is the completed puzzle.

THE YARNMAN COMETH

The Goodman Theater in downtown Chicago is currently mounting a production of Eugene O’ Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh”.  I’ll let others write about why this is one absolutely remarkable play.  I’d definitely go see it if it weren’t for the fact that it’s over four hours long.  Once you’re in your fifties, certain body parts don’t react well to sitting for such an extended amount of time.  Wagner operas are also out of the question for the same reason.  Anyway, the main character (played by the incomparable Nathan Lane in the current Goodman production) is your classic salesman.  A great talker, full of charm and bluster and who will entertain you for as long as you let him or until he’s ready to make his pitch.  In the play he’s a hardware salesman.  The meaning of Iceman in the title is something else entirely.  Read or see the play and the metaphor will become evident.  So my mind was wandering one day (as the minds of retired people often do), and I was wondering how the play would change if O’Neill had named it “The Yarnman Cometh”.  If Hickey, the hardware salesman, had been a yarn salesman instead.  Well, let me tell you something.  It wouldn’t work.  You think of the classic negative stereotype of a salesman and you might automatically envision a used car guy (or girl).  Now this vision might be justified and it might not.  I’m sure that somewhere in America there are some very nice used car salespeople.  But people who sell yarn definitely don’t fit the stereotype.  I will attempt to explain why.

Make no mistake, yarn salespeople, or as they are more commonly known, yarn reps, still have to sell a product.  Like any other salesperson, sometimes they have to be aggressive. Occasionally, the qualities of certain yarns might even be gently exaggerated.  Being a most accomplished fly on the wall, I have seen some reps in action.  There are all sorts of different types.  Some are better at it than others.  But the nice thing about being a yarn rep is the actual product they are selling.  I like to think that all yarn has merit.  Even the cheapest (price-wise and quality-wise) of yarns has a purpose.  Because of this, because of the fact that yarn practically sells itself, the bravado of a yarn rep is very mild when compared to the demeanor of other types of salespeople.  Thank God for that.  One day, I was momentarily picturing myself as a yarn rep.  But the picture faded away very, very quickly.  Even though yarn reps are generally low key, I myself couldn’t handle that type of a job or any job that involves sales.  The reason goes all the way back to a childhood event.  In retrospect, I suppose, it is quite humorous.  Back then it was anything but.

I was raised a Catholic and one year there was an unremembered cause for which I and my Catholic school classmates were forced to sell Christmas cards.  Here comes the funny part.  The block I lived on was predominantly Jewish.  I was nine years old.  At that age, how was I supposed to know that Jewish people had no need for Christmas cards?  I don’t think I fully understood the nuances that distinguish the Hebrew faith from the Christian faith till I was in high school.  So picture this innocent young Catholic lad going to the homes of all his neighborhood Jewish friends and asking their Jewish mothers if they would be interested in purchasing some Christmas cards.  Disaster!  I still cringe when I remember the strange looks on their faces as they politely informed me that no, they would not be interested.  That traumatic childhood event cemented one thing in my mind.  I would never, ever sell anything again.  I have stayed true to this oath.  Working in Cathy’s store doesn’t count.   That’s more of a keeper of the cash register type position.  I believe I’ll leave the selling of yarn to the nice reps that visit Cathy’s store.

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Cathy will be in Denver for a few days in mid-May so the day I’ve dreamed of will soon be here.  While Cathy is gone, I will be manning the fort otherwise known as Montoya Fiber Studio.  All by my lonesome.  From May 11 through May 15 (except for Saturday, May 12, when our good friend, Ann will be in charge).  Now I can finally implement some of my more radical business ideas.  For example, spend a thousand dollars and I will sing you my world famous Vicuña Song plus wash your car.  Or spend two thousand dollars and I will buy you a pair of tickets for “The Iceman Cometh”.  What a bargain!  So please feel free to stop in and say hello and buy all the yarn you like.  Just don’t ask for any complicated knitting help.  If anything, maybe someone can come in and help me.  I’m currently having a dickens of a time trying to graft together two separate parts of a scarf with something called a Kitchener stitch.

Also, there’s still time to submit your crossword puzzle.  What crossword puzzle you might ask?  Check out my blog entry of April 15.  All the details are there.  The names of the winning contestants will be drawn out of a hat on May 17.          

KNITTING FOR CELEBRITIES OR EVEN ZSA ZSA GABOR

The phone rings.  You answer it. An unknown yet slightly familiar voice speaks.

“Hi.  This is __________ (A-list celebrity).  I was at an airport and I saw this ___________ (scarf, sweater, shawl, etc.) that I absolutely fell in love with.  I approached the person wearing it and asked them where they purchased it and they informed me that you knit it for them.  I was wondering if you would be able to knit the same thing for me.  Money is no object.”

So after you verify that it truly is George Clooney or Queen Elizabeth II or Riccardo Muti, you pick your jaw off the floor and you make arrangements to actually knit something for Brad Pitt or Oprah Winfrey or Paul McCartney.  Then when the check arrives from Meryl Streep or Bill Clinton or Tiger Woods, you never cash it but frame it and hang it proudly on the wall opposite from where you usually knit so it will forever remind you that you are officially a knitter for the stars.

Well not me!  Nosiree!  Too many things can go wrong.  Dealing with celebrities has to be a royal pain.  And I’m not just referring to Queen Elizabeth II.  These A-listers, I just envision them being really picky and fussy and demanding and the pressure of getting the project just right gets to you and the next thing you know, your hands begin to shake, and once your hands begin to shake, there’s no more knitting and then you can’t feed yourself anymore and you begin to shrink to a shadow of your former self.  No thanks!

And then there’s Zsa Zsa Gabor.  I’m not quite sure when it started, but for most of my life I have been endlessly fascinated by this woman.  I must have been five or six years old when I first heard her name and that was it!  I was hooked.  It was the sheer sound of her name that got to me first.  Zsa Zsa.  What a name!.  Zsa Zsa!  So simple yet so exotic.  The Gabor part was just icing on the cake.  Zsa Zsa Gabor.  What poetry!  And then when I was older and I became aware of her life story, …  well, … how can one not be slightly bewildered by this woman.  Her film career is negligible but her real life story?  Wow!  I mean nine husbands?  Really?  Nine husbands?  Nine divorce settlements?  This woman was a force of nature in her day.  She was beautiful (Miss Hungary 1936) and she was smart and she was blessed with remarkable charm and a biting wit.  Who is comparable to her in this day and age?  The Kardashians?  Please.  Paris Hilton?  Be serious.  Though how curious that Zsa Zsa was once married to Paris Hilton’s great-grandfather, Conrad Hilton. 

For many years I paid homage to Zsa Zsa in a most unusual way.  I used to make up stories for my children when they were growing up.  These stories had recurring characters so it was an ongoing series of rather unusual adventures.  One of the characters was Zsa Zsa Gabor.  I regret now that I never wrote these episodes down.  The many chapters in that ongoing saga are too faint now for me to try and reconstruct.  A shame.

Zsa Zsa is still alive.  She is 95 but she has had terrible luck with her health, the one thing money cannot buy.  So if I were to get a call saying that Zsa Zsa Gabor would like me to knit something for her, I would not hesitate to say yes.  Whatever she wanted.  She could ask for socks and I would gladly do it, even though double pointed needles and I do not get along.  And no, I would not cash her check and yes, I would indeed have it framed and have it hanging in a most visible and cherished place.

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A handful of correctly completed crossword puzzles from my previous blog have already been turned in.  There is still a lot of time.  So get those pencils out and get those puzzles in before May 17.  First Prize is already set.  A pair of Knitter’s Pride Cubics Needles, a brand Cathy has just recently started carrying.  Second and third place prizes are still to be determined, but they will be doozies, I’m sure.  Maybe for a fourth place prize an 8x10 photgraph of Zsa Zsa Gabor?

FIRST ANNUAL PUZZLE CONTEST

So here’s the conversation I envisioned happening:

Fred – I constructed a knitting themed crossword puzzle for my blog.

Cathy – Good for you.

Fred – A prize will be awarded.

Cathy – Oh?  What kind of prize?

Fred – Not sure yet.  Some knitting related prize from the store perhaps?

Cathy – And who would pay for this knitting related prize?

Fred – I thought you could take it out of my salary.

Cathy – But I don’t pay you anything.

Fred – Then maybe it’s time you doubled my salary.

But I was pleasantly surprised to have the conversation actually go like this:

Fred – I constructed a knitting themed crossword puzzle for my blog.

Cathy – Great.  As a Grand Prize I could give away one of these new needles I just started carrying..

That’s the thing about yarn store owners.  Even when you’re married to one, you can never really predict how they’ll react to something out of the ordinary. 

So anyway, here is my First Annual Puzzle Contest.  It might be my last.  I was not aware of how hard it is to construct a traditional daily newspaper crossword puzzle.  I could have knit a giant sweater in the time it took me to create this puzzle.  Even then, I had to cheat a little and make up two entries.  You’ll know them when you see them.  Cathy is generously donating a pair of Knitter’s Pride Cubix Needles as the Grand Prize.  If you’re not familiar with these then all I can say is that you have to see them.  They are square.  Now if that doesn’t pique your interest….  Winner gets to pick the size.  And you never know, if Cathy is in a good mood, she might give away a second place prize or even a third place prize.  And who exactly is the winner?  Well, if only one person submits the completed puzzle with all the correct answers, then obviously that person is the winner.  But if we have multiple correct entries then we’ll put all those names in a hat and pull out one lucky name for the Grand Prize and a few more names if there are other prizes to be awarded.

Just a few rules.  One entry per person.  You can submit the finished puzzle personally at the store or you can mail it in.  The contest will be open for one month.  This will allow my many fans in the Shetland Islands and in Mongolia to also participate.  We’ll be pulling the lucky name on May 17.  If you’re mailing it in, send it to:

Montoya Fiber Studio

2566 Prairie Ave.

Evanston, IL 60201

So how hard is this puzzle?  Well, I had two guinea pigs tackle the puzzle simultaneously. Cathy is an avid Crossword puzzle fan and it took her around 18 minutes to finish it.  Our daughter Beth is not a puzzle aficionado and she was close to finishing it when she finally put down her pen.  My thanks to both of them for improving some of my clues.  As I mentioned before, it is knitting themed, so I’m sure a lot of the answers will be a breeze.  If you have a problem printing it off the blog, you have two options.  You can pick up a copy at the store or Cathy can email you a copy.  The business email is montoyafs@yahoo.com    Good luck to one and all.  

 

ACROSS

1.    Scruff                                                                               

5.    Exaggerated in style                                                         

9.    Expectorated                                                                      

13.  Continent where ChiaoGoo needles are made                                                                                             

14.  Target practice necessity                                                   

15.  Sign of holiness                                                                  

16.  Critiques severely                                                            

17.  Slope                                                                                  

18.  Terrible czar                                                                                                                          

19.  Flashy sock                                                                         

21.  Product under the jurisdiction of 26 Down                        

24.  Bunch of Australian sheep                                                

26.  Film Noir, for example                                                   

28.  Solutions for boring yarn                                                

30.  Advertisement for house lacking clothing storage                       

33.  Solemn promise                                                                  

37.  Feverishly opposed to the 16^th letter                                 

38.  On the _____                                                      

40.  Formal address for Baseball Preacher                               

41.  Character in the Book of Ruth                                           

42.  Vinegar’s comment after the breakup with oil

44.  Ubiquitous Smart phone software

48.  A New Yorker is either Yankeeish or _____

49.  Worm fiber compared to sheep fiber

51.  Knitted garment with buttons

55.  Haystack resident

60.  Black and white dunker

61.  Unconcerned fiddler

63.  Cambodia neighbor

64.  Cried

65.  “Giggling gaggle of geese” is loaded with them

66.  Purl’s partner

67.  Young lady from Scotland

68.  Ingredient in a gin liqueur

69.  Neither good nor bad

DOWN

1.    Western Wine Valley

2.    To roast in Spain

3.    Turandot character

4.    Garter stitch level

5.    Job options

6.    _____ de casa: Lady of the house

7.    Caesar’s 3,101

8.    With mom, chauvinistic small business

9.    Used to make a part fit

10.  Cover with concrete

11.  Winged

12.  Quality of sound

20.  Very fast letters in the Alphabet song

22.  Unusual yarn source

23.  Apt. alternative

25.  Irish dance

26.  Possible Stock Exchange symbol for the Goat & Camel Textile Association

27.  Miss Doolittle

29.  Separates yarn by color

30.  Catch a criminal

31.  Mrs. Lennon

32.  Mai ____

34.  Showy in a pretentious manner

35.  Essential part of a hand knit sock

36.  Feminine possessive

39.  Kubrick film plus a thousand

40.  Type of saw

43.  This insect would need one if it didn’t have antennae

45.  Greek letter

46.  Sty inhabitant

47.  Informal languages

50.  Genuflect

51.  Type of neck

52.  Length x width

53. Yarn salespeople

54.  Design element rarely seen in knitwear

56.  Fraternal organization

57.  Actor Royal _______

58.  Superman’s gal

59.  “This” in Spanish

62.  _____ Speedwagon

KNUTE'S KNITTING KORNER

Ask anyone under 30 to name the most famous set of female twins and they would most likely name the Olsen twins, Mary Kate and Ashley.  Ask anyone from my generation, however, and I think most would mention Esther and Pauline Friedman.  I know, I know.  Right now you’re saying, “Huh?  Who the heck are the Friedman twins?”  Friedman was their birth name.  These sisters married men named Lederer and Phillips.  Still don’t know who I’m referring to?  What if I were to mention the newspaper columns they wrote?  “Ask Ann Landers” and “Dear Abby”.  Aha!  Now you know who I’m talking about.  Only the two greatest advice columnists ever and read religiously by so many baby boomers back in the 20^th Century.

I have decided that what this world needs is a knitting advice columnist.  And I aim to fill that position.  Now I’m not talking about someone who can help you with technical knitting problems.  As a knitter I would put myself in the advanced beginner column so I’m hardly qualified to be doling out advice on technical matters.  No, what I’m thinking about is someone who will advise on matters more philosophical in nature.  It’s hard to explain exactly what I mean by this, so I think it’s best if I show you a few examples.  This advice column, soon to be published in some famous knitting magazine or other, will be called Knute’s Knitting Korner.  I’m a big fan of alliteration and Knute is the only name I can think of that begins with the letters “KN”.  So here are three sample letters and their corresponding answers supplied by Knute.  (Besides Knute Rockne, was there ever anyone else blessed with this name?)

Dear Knute,

     I play Bridge with the same three people twice a week.  One of these ladies always brings her knitting.  I think she purposely drops out of the bidding so that, more often than not, she ends up being the dummy.  Then she promptly begins to knit while the rest of us finish the hand.  This can become rather tedious when one is partnered with her.  After all, this is not a knitting circle.  It is a serious game of Bridge with a small but not insignificant bit of money involved.

                                                                                          Trumped in Tennessee

Dear Trumped,

     I had to get out my very worn copy of Hoyle to fully understand what exactly a “dummy” is in Bridge.  Couldn’t they have come up with a better term?  Silent partner or something?  Anyway, you have to understand that some people are so fond of knitting that they have to have a project with them at all times.  Why don’t you make some lemonade out of this lemony situation?  Insist that if she is going to knit at these twice a week events, then the knitting project she’s working on has to be intended for one of the three of you.  She may continue being a rotten Bridge player but at least you and the other two Bridge aficionados will get a nice scarf or hat or maybe even a sweater out of the deal.

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Dear Knute,

     I am an avid knitter and I would very much like to get into the Guinness Book of World Records with something that I personally hand knit.  Any suggestions?

                                                                                  Ready to see my name in print

Dear Ready,

       You don’t mention your age.  This is a crucial element.  Ideally, one should begin trying to set an individual knitting world record when one is 10-years-old.  The world record for the longest scarf knit by one person is 11,363 ft. 11 in.  That’s a little over two miles long and it took 23 years of knitting to complete.   You could try to top the record for the world’s fastest knitter.  Right now this is held by a lady who knit 118 stitches in one minute.  I just timed myself so I could fully grasp the meaning of 118 stitches in one minute.  The result?  23 stitches in one minute.  Other records are equally as daunting.  The longest I-cord is over 16 miles long.  The biggest knitting needles actually used to knit something by hand were 11 and-a-half feet long.  My recommendation is that you knit something totally outlandish.  A 20 foot long Cardigan sweater perhaps?  Looking forward to the next issue of the Guinness Book.

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Dear Knute,

     I recently read through all of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and I could not find one quote that mentioned knitting.  Surely at some time, someone must have said something quotable about this noble art.

                                                                             Quincy the Quoteaholic

Dear Quincy,

The problem with Bartlett’s is that some of their most famous quotes are actually misquoted.  Rene Descartes did not really say “Je pense, donc je suis.” (I think, therefore I am.)  His correct quote is “Je tricote, donc je suis.”  (I knit, therefore I am.)   And Hamlet, in his most famous soliloquy, is contemplating whether he should knit or crochet hats for his buddies, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, when he states, “To knit or not to knit.  That is the question.”  Speaking of crochet, Alexander Pope favored this art over knitting and once said, “To knit is human, to crochet divine.”  But seriously.  Forget Bartlett’s.  You want a book full of incredible knitting quotes?  Read anything by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.  Here’s a favorite from her book, At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much.  “Heirloom is knitting code for - This pattern is so difficult that you would consider death a relief.”

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And now, while I wait for Vogue Magazine to make that life-changing phone call to Knute, I shall find my size 3 needles and begin this ridiculously hard heirloom shawl pattern I found on the Internet .

THE KNITTING INDUSTRY - PART TWO

When we last encountered our young (?) hero he had eliminated sheep farming from his list of possible careers in the knitting industry.  Actually, in my mind there are already a few facets of the industry that will not be given serious consideration.  But one must be fair and at least explain why some of these careers hold no appeal whatsoever.  For example: the very next step in wool production, after being a sheep farmer, would be the spinning of yarn.

I love how the term spinning yarn has two different meanings.  First, the actual process of taking a raw fiber and converting it into a knittable product, and second, the telling of tales.  Concocting fanciful stories, if you will.  Or to put it in a very blunt manner, lying.  Usually for the purpose of entertainment, of course, but still, it’s basically lying.  One day I’ll have to do some research as to how the term “spinning a yarn” came to have such a completely different meaning.   I’ll tell you something.  I do have a minor talent for this second interpretation of yarn spinning.  Maybe another time I’ll go into the details of why and how this is.  But right now we must focus on the literal definition of yarn spinning and why it is not something I’ll be taking up soon.

My immediate mental association with spinning yarn is a rather bizarre one.  I start to think of Franz Schubert.  That’s right.  Franz Schubert, the Stephen Sondheim of his day.  Franz Schubert, the greatest classical composer of songs ever.  It would take too long to explain how and why I know this, but let me tell you that one of the greatest songs this 19^th century genius ever composed was a German song (or lied, as the Germans call it) titled Gretchen am Spinnrade.  In English that would be Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel.  To analyze and explain why this song is a masterpiece is another thing that would take too many paragraphs.  But here is a fact.  At its core, the song Gretchen am Spinnrade is utterly depressing.  So let’s follow the dots that my mind instantly connects.  1.) Spinning yarn    2.) Franz Schubert   3.) Gretchen am Spinnrade    4.) Depression   It’s sort of the same way my mind works when I hear the word “gin”. 

1.) Gin    2.) 16 years old    3.) Ridiculous dare    4.) Queasy stomach    So in less than a second my mind associates gin with queasy stomach and spinning yarn with depression.  Freud would have had a field day with me.

Despite this mental block I have against spinning yarn, I will acknowledge that there is something rather mystical about it.  And we’re talking about hand spinning or using a spinning wheel here rather than industrial spinning.  I’ll leave industrial spinning to the industrialists.  But I suspect that in manual spinning there’s a strong link to the past, to a time when people had to spin yarn out of necessity.  This aspect of spinning must give immense satisfaction to the many who take it up as a hobby or to those happy few who do it as a living.  And in the same way that there is something very Zen about knitting, I’d wager that spinning has an even more intense meditative quality to it.  I also must admit that the idea of knitting yarn that you yourself have created has a strong appeal.  It would double that wonderful sense of accomplishment one gets when finishing a knitting project.  You know what?  I’ve almost convinced myself that this would be a worthy and noble thing for me to take up.  I might even ask Cathy to buy me a spinning wheel for my birthday so I could spend hours spinning at the store and having customers say, “Look at that man spin!  Spin, crazy man!  Spin!”  But then that ultra-sad image of poor broken-hearted Gretchen at her wheel pops into my mind and the romantic illusion of spinning yarn vanishes as fast as that evil bottle of gin did back in 1971.          

THE KNITTING INDUSTRY - PART ONE

Now that I have accepted knitting as a worthy way of passing time, I find myself thinking of expanding my horizons.  I am contemplating finding a second career somewhere in the knitting industry.  There are so many possibilities.  I’m sure I will find one where I can excel.  I will give strong consideration to every aspect of the industry before I choose.  In today’s little essay I will focus on a most essential element in the production of yarn: Sheep Farming.

About 25 years ago, I remember reading an article by some famous Literary Critic.  In it he listed what, in his opinion, were the 10 greatest novels ever written.  He went on to elaborate on why those 10 masterpieces were a mandatory read for all educated people of the world.  I instantly noticed that I had only read three of the ten.  And these had all been mandatory school assignments.  I vowed to read the other seven before another year passed.  Well, here it is, 25 years later and I’ve only added two more to the list.  But one thing I did do was to find out what each of the books that I had not read was about.  One of the books on the list was by Marcel Proust.  Back then, the common translation of the French title, "A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu", was "Remembrance of Things Past".  Nowadays I believe it’s called "In Search of Lost Time".  No matter what it’s titled, it is one very, very, very long novel.  I don’t think I’ll be adding it to my reading list soon.  There is one famous scene in this book that literary types gush over. In this scene a character takes a bite out of a Madeleine (a cute little French sponge cake) and a monsoon of memories comes flooding forth from his brain.  These pleasant recollections all had to do with a time during his childhood when he had similarly eaten a Madeleine.  Well, just the other day, I had my own little episode of involuntary memory.  I was knitting away on a project and I was glancing at the yarn label.  100% wool, it stated.  I started wondering about the sheep that had produced the very yarn I was knitting.  Did it have a name?  Did it mind having its protective coat stripped from its body?  Did it mind that its pleasing natural color had been dyed into a sultry blue?  And then it hit me.  Something I hadn’t thought about in decades.  My grandparents were farmers.  They had raised, among other things, sheep.  When I was eight-years-old, I had spent a depressing summer on their farm desperately wanting nothing else but to return to my comfortable home in Chicago.

I think we can all agree that farming is a noble profession.  Without farmers the world is doomed.  But working on a farm?  Oh my!  Here are some things that knitting with sheep’s wool made me inadvertently remember about that summer.  Watching a hog get slaughtered can traumatize a young boy to the point where he will not eat bacon or ham for a long time.  Waking up very early in the morning to help milk the cows has a negative impact on the quality of one’s sleep.  Milk directly from a cow, even after it’s boiled, tastes awful.  A rooster will attack you if you look at his chickens in a funny way.  Sheep are dirty (I will refrain from listing the many disgusting things that stick to their wool.).  Sleeping in a bedroom that doubles as a storage facility for barley makes one detest that particular grain.  Until one learns to appreciate beer, anyway.  So many other nasty things I could list about that summer.  Granted, the whole time wasn’t a total downer. I still cherish some memories from that particular summer, though they mostly had to do with learning how to shoot marbles.  Thankfully, it wasn’t sheep shearing season when I visited.  I might not have had a pleasant reaction to such a spectacle.  To this day I've only seen a display of that peculiar craft on television.  From the sheep’s perspective it is not a walk in the park.  I, for one, would not relish the idea of having a barber forcibly give me an all-body crew cut.  Check out sheep shearing on YouTube if you’ve never seen it being done.  Nevertheless, we have to face facts.  No sheep shearing, no pretty yarn to knit with.  But as far as sheep farming being a new vocation?  I’ll pass, thank you.