Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter

By Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

One woman shares hilarious personal stories of her obsession, frustration, reflection, and fun with knitting.

An obsessed knitter who can’t seem to put the needles down, author Stephanie Pearl-McPhee reveals the tangled and sometimes maniacal path of her knitting triumphs and disasters in Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter.

Sharing both humorous and poignant tales of knitting escapades, such as fleeing from a yarn-thieving squirrel, dismantling a car to find a vital needle, and what it feels like to wrap a newborn baby in the work of your own hands. Yarn Harlot exposes the extreme sport of knitting, and adventure that can be fulfilling, exasperating, and wickedly funny.

From the moment Stephanie’s family discovers that she has taken to storing yarn in the piano to her attempts to foist knitted socks on a friend with a wool “allergy,” Yarn Harlot looks at knitting with humor, insight, and sympathy for the obsessed.

“Stephanie Pearl-McPhee turns both typical and unique knitting experiences into very funny and articulate prose.” —Meg Swansen, Schoolhouse Press

“An intimate view of the passionate knitter’s psyche: a transport of hilarity for knitters and the knitted-for; I laughed until my stitches fell helplessly from my needles!”—Lucy Neatby, author of Cool Socks Warm Feet

“A sort of David Sedaris-like take on knitting—laugh-out-loud funny most of the time and poignantly reflective when it’s not cracking you up.” —Library Journal

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 1, 2005
• ISBN: 9780740789014

Book preview

introduction

I am a person who works well under pressure. In fact, I work so well under pressure that at times, I will procrastinate in order to create this pressure. Naturally, as with all human failings, this system of procrastination occasionally backfires and creates more pressure than I had really intended. Such was the case a week before the manuscript for this book was due. I had accidentally created a little bit more pressure than was really wise, and as a result had been reduced to writing day and night, only stopping to complain to my family (who were pleased as punch that it had come down to this again) about having to write a book day and night.

At about the time that I had started to order pizza for several meals in a row and the family began to ask me ever so delicately if I ever intended to do a load of laundry again, I took my laptop (and a glass of decent merlot—though perhaps we should forget that) up to my bedroom. After a hot bath, I ensconced myself, delirious and exhausted, in my bed to write the introduction to this book.

I began to type then—it was something completely trite, I’m sure, though I’ve now forgotten. The next thing I remember was my lovely husband gently waking me up by pulling my sleeping face off the laptop. The next morning, when I returned to the screen, I discovered that somehow, as I slept with my face on the keyboard, my nose had typed seventeen pages of the letter Y.

Initially I didn’t see the poetry in that. Perhaps if I had somehow managed to fill seventeen pages with J, I would still be stuck. But now, I see the gift my slumbering nose presented. There is Meaning here. There is Significance.

Why indeed? Why was I killing myself over a book about the joy of knitting? Why have I had, over the course of decades, a love affair with knitting that consumes me so completely? Why would any sane person give up so much closet space and money to a craft that seems simple and silly?

The answer: Because knitting is more than it seems. Knitting is a complex and joyful act of creation in my everyday life.

It really does seem so simple. Knitting is only two stitches, knit and purl, yet with those two ordinary acts we knitters can take a ball of yarn and a couple of pointy sticks and create something useful and beautiful. An average sweater takes God-only-knows-how-many stitches to make, each one of them a simple act. Wrapping yarn around needles over and over and over again disconnects me from my cares. Knitting makes something from nothing, and it’s usually such an interesting something.

Even when it isn’t going well, knitting can be deeply spiritual. Knitting sets goals that you can meet. Sometimes when I work on something complicated or difficult—ripping out my work and starting over, poring over tomes of knitting expertise, screeching I don’t get it! while practically weeping with frustration—my husband looks at me and says, I don’t know why you think you like knitting. I just stare at him. I don’t like knitting. I love knitting. I don’t know what could have possibly led him to think that I’m not enjoying myself. The cursing? The crying? The fourteen sheets of shredded graph paper? Knitting is like a marriage (I tell him) and you don’t just trash the whole thing because there are bad moments.

I love knitting because it’s something that can be accomplished no matter how poorly it’s going at any given moment. It’s a triumph of dexterity over string. I can’t make my kids turn out the way I want; I have no control over my editor; world peace remains elusive despite my very best efforts; but all of that be damned—I can put a heel in a sock and it will go exactly the way I want it to go. Eventually, at least.

Knitting is magic. Knitting is an act of creation and a simple transformation each and every time. Each knitted gift holds hours of my life. I know it looks just like a hat, but really, it’s four hours at the hospital, six hours on the bus, two hours alone at four in the morning when I couldn’t sleep because I tend to worry. It is all those hours when I chose to spend time warming another person. It’s giving them my time—time that I could have spent on anything, or anyone, else. Knitting is love, looped and warm.

So—why this book? Because there are fifty million knitters in North America. I can’t be the only one who feels this way.

Raise your needles (straight or circular) if you’re with me.

The Red Wool of Courage:

Or; Projects I Have Known and Loved

The Green Afghan

I am, by most accounts, a normal woman. It’s possible that I have a little more yarn than is really the national average, but lots of people have an obsession. I like deadlines, I work well under pressure, and procrastination runs in my family the way that tone deafness runs in others. I have an aunt or two a little on the odd side and an uncle who played the ukulele, but as far as I know, there is no family history of insanity. We are, however, really big dreamers, and I wonder if that is what started this whole thing.

You’ve heard of the Red Scourge? the Black Death? the Yellow Plague? Meet my nemesis, the Green Afghan.

My brother Ian proposed to a woman I adored and set a date for the first wedding in our family for years. I was completely thrilled. The woman in question, Alison, is not only kind, gentle, and clever, but had demonstrated one of the finest qualities in a potential sister-in-law: an appreciation for handknits. In fact (not that I was snooping around or anything, that would be wrong), I had noticed that there were handknit pillows on her couch. This, together with my brother’s love of all things woolly and warm and my natural knitterly inclination to demonstrate my love with yarn, made my path clear. I would knit them a wedding present.

I started thinking about the possibilities. The wedding was five months away and I felt pretty darned sure that I could finish just about anything in five months. I mulled it over: 150 days, 3,600 hours. I started thinking big. I thought about His and Hers sweaters. I thought about knitting lace edges for pillow cases. I thought about a hundred things. I considered matching socks, really beautiful ones, but rejected that idea when I thought about it further. Socks wear out. What sort of omen would it be if they walked huge honkin’ holes in their wedding socks by their third anniversary? I imagined them looking at the holes, then looking at each other, and wondering if it was a sign. Whatever I knit, it had to be enduring. Something they would use, something that would be cozy for both of them, something that would last a long time. Something that would last long enough that they’d still treasure it on their fiftieth anniversary (or at least something they’d both fight for in divorce court).

I started to think about an afghan. You can’t outgrow a blanket; it can’t be the wrong size, and it would last a whole marriage if I used good wool and gave them a stern lecture on how to wash it. They could still be using it a long time from now if I picked a classic color.

Everybody’s got a lime, gold, and orange granny-square afghan that Aunt Shirley crocheted for you in 1973. It’s the afghan that you never throw over yourself when you have a hangover, since it turns the headache into a pounding so violent that you can actually feel your hair grow. Instead you’ve got it jammed in the hall closet on the top shelf. You take it out twice a year: Once when you’ve got a friend staying on the couch and you are desperate for an extra blanket, and once when your aunt Shirley’s daughter Enid comes over and you artfully drape it over the couch so she can’t catch you out.

I didn’t want to be Aunt Shirley. I made a note to myself that I would try to pick something really chastely classic. I sat down with my pattern books and started thinking it over. What to do? I wanted something interesting enough that I could stand to knit it, but not so interesting that it would get tedious. A wedding afghan must absolutely be big enough to cover the both of them so I’d make the thing about eight by five feet. (Please note that I was, in fact, aware that most afghans are about three and one half feet by five feet. I have absolutely no explanation for why I chose to make this behemoth so big, except that I really love my brother and sometimes the expression of love in wool needs to be little oversized. Also, I may be insane.) That meant that whatever pattern I chose, I’d have to knit forty square feet of it. Forty square feet of garter stitch is a knitter’s lobotomy. Brain damage would inevitably ensue. I have jammed projects into permanent imprisonment in the hall closet for less. I had to be careful too. Ian and Alison wouldn’t like something frilly or fussy. They are not doily types, and if you can find a speck of lace in their house I’ll give you a dollar. I needed plain, but not too plain, and interesting, but not too interesting.

I settled on a pattern that started with small squares. Four squares came together to form a larger geometric shape; these big squares were joined with vine-patterned strips in between, then a leaf border went around the whole thing. The modular aspect meant that the whole thing would stay portable until I started doing the strips and the border. I was looking forward to it. It was going to be stunning and totally doable in five months.

At the yarn store I started realizing the enormity of the project. I was going to need almost thirty balls of wool. That’s a lot of yarn. That’s so much yarn that when I told the yarn store lady what I needed, she let out a low whistle and gave me a look that told me that she thought that maybe when I’m not knitting oversized afghans I amused myself by trying to pick up marbles with chopsticks. It’s so much that she had to go into the basement to look for two cases of the yarn in question. As she stacked the yarn on the counter she seemed a little incredulous. This should have been my first warning: When a person who sells yarn for a living thinks that maybe you’re buying a lot of yarn—well, it’s a sign. A different sort of knitter would have taken that as a hint. Me? I thought she was a knitter without aspirations.

The price tag for the enormous bag of yarn was dizzying, but I shrugged it off. I wrestled my new yarn out of the shop (ignoring the stares of the new knitter over by the mohair who was buying a single ball of something blue and clearly thought I might be dangerous). Forcing the yarn through the door of the bus, trying to avoid whacking people with it, I decided that it was worth it. My brother was getting married. It’s beautiful yarn and I was knitting an heirloom that would last forever, and, furthermore (my furthermores are always a sign of really bad thinking), I do like a challenge.

At home I dumped the big pack of yarn onto the couch and looked at it. For the first time I faltered a little. This project was going to require miles and miles of knitting. I started trying to figure out where I was going to keep the yarn while I worked on it. My living room is pretty tiny and this was taking up a sizable chunk of real estate. At least I like the color, I thought, as I considered replacing the throw pillow stuffing with balls of yarn. I’d chosen a deep green, green enough to count as a color, but muted, like the greens in the shadows of a pine forest. It was manly enough that my brother wouldn’t get nervous, bright enough that my new sister-in-law would think it was pretty, and plain enough that there will have to be a room in their new house that it would match. It was classic.

I found my 4-millimeter needles and cast on the first square, ignoring that part of my brain that noted that bigger needles would make the work go faster. This was not a project for shortcuts. I worked the pattern, humming to myself. The yarn was good, the pattern intriguing … I bet I’d finish it next week. I wouldn’t be able to drag myself from it. Sure enough, at the end of the day I had two squares done. Two down, I thought proudly. I felt a pang when I finished the sentence. One hundred and fifty-eight to go.

The next day dawned bright, and so did my enthusiasm. All day I knit, wrote, and did laundry. At the end of the day, with really very little effort, I had three more squares. The pang eased. If I kept this up, this was going to be a walk in the park. The wedding was in about 150 days, and I had about 150 squares to knit, and I was managing at least two a day. No problem. That meant that all the squares would be knit in half the time, and then I’d have the rest of the time for the strips between the squares and the border. I stopped just short of giggling. (Those with experience in these matters would recognize my overconfidence at this point as foreshadowing. You know, like the moment in a horror movie when the attractive young man turns to his girlfriend and mocks her for worrying about the ax murderer on the loose. You just know he’s got a date with destiny.)

The next day, well, the next day I didn’t knit any squares at all. In fact, since I had so much time, I didn’t knit any for a week. I did, however, make a really cool pair of socks, and then a hat, and then I started a new sweater … Suddenly a month had gone by. My mother dropped by and I decided to tell her about the afghan. Maybe if someone else knew about it I’d feel pressured. When I explained my plan to turn the mountain of green yarn into squares just like the five on the table, she laughed. I ignored her. She doesn’t knit, and she doesn’t know about these things. She thinks that all knitting was a lot of knitting. This was still a doable project. I just needed motivation.

After she left (still chuckling), I went and got the big bag of greenness and settled back in again. It turned out that a change was as good as a rest. It was at least, oh, four or five more squares before it started to wear a little thin on me again. (By wear a little thin, I mean that I felt the urge to have a drink or five to take the edge off the way my teeth itched when I worked on it.) I began to dream in green.

When I had knit thirty-four squares I realized that I’d managed to commit the pattern to memory. This was a small victory, but one that at least reassured me that no matter how it felt, the impression that the afghan was melting holes in my brain must be an illusion.

By the sixtieth square I’d started to play little games with myself. I could knit a round of my sock when I finished a square. I could work on the sweater for an hour when I had four squares done. I raced myself to get the best possible time on a square. The afghan lurked in its enormous, ominous way all the time, especially when I tried to ignore it. I beat down the first waves of resentment. After all, it was not as if I’d been forced to knit it at gunpoint. It was my decision to knit the biggest freaking unmercifully huge afghan in the universe.

Reviews for Yarn Harlot

[soccermomknit-881753 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a wonderful book. Stephanie is hilarious at times.

[pferdina · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Humorous essays about being a knitter.

[sumik_18 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So far, I'm loving it. This isn't new - I really enjoy Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's humorous writing. Surely, this is not just because I knit?

[reluctantacademic · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Want to read more Harlot!

[njmom3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very fun book to read. A collection of essays or blog posts. Most made me laugh. A couple made me cry.I am a new knitter and learning to appreciate some of the things she talks about. Can't wait to read more.

[meggo_2 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I have to say that Pear-McPhee thinks rather a lot of herself, and, truth to tell, overestimates her own capacity to interest others with her stories of knitting. One book is interesting; two books are tedious.

[rainbowdarling · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is funny and interesting. She equates knitting to real life in a way that I never would have considered, and keeps the pages moving as fast as a fiction novel - even without a decisive plot to tie the whole book together. It is a series of short stories, where the only thread (pun intended) is knitting. I loved it from start to finish and can't wait to read more of her work.

[knittingpanda87 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A great book. Stephanie aka Yarn Harlot is just an amazing and funny writer. I love her books and could read them a million times each and I would still laugh out loud each time.

[margaretsinclair · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Stephanie is wonderful at keeping the world at bay. I love that she refers to 'the blog" as a part of her family. "Let's ask the blog." And all sorts of answers begin to roll in. Maintaining sanity

[brsquilt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Funny book, especially to those of us crafters/knitters/quilters (etc) who are obsessive about stashes.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fun series of articles about knitting and Stephanie's life as a knitter, scary in some places with her stash accumulation, a warning to those who are heading that direction!

[jennyo_587543 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was an entertaining book written by a Knitter with a capital K. Pearl-McPhee explains what it's like when the yarn takes over your home and your family endures your knitting compulsion with a wary but loving tolerance, if not actual excitement. The stories are generally light and funny, but there are a couple of real tearjerkers in there too.If you knit and, like me, are well on your way to becoming a yarn ho yourself, you should read this book. Besides, the chapters are short and self-contained, so it's easy to pick up and put down between knitting projects.(By the way, it's now almost impossible for me to type the author's name correctly. I keep wanting to type "Purl-McPhee". I believe she should have it legally changed.)

[rainwood_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

That rustling noise you hear is a million knitters nodding their heads and saying "Uh huh. Me too!" Brilliant, funny, sometimes sad, worth buying and adding to your library.

[mamacate_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This second offering by the Yarn Harlot has a few serious moments, but is mostly a light and entertaining peek into the warped world of obsessed knitters. If you are one, you will find yourself nodding frequently and quoting passages to your spouse.