Knithropology

[This is a long one, folks - blogging as catharsis, perhaps?]

One of the many fabulous parts of my job is researching new software for faculty and grad students to use for research. Zotero, the extraordinary add-on for Firefox, provided me with loads of fun. I needed to do all kinds of research to really push the add-on, so what did I do? I turned to my specialist subject. Though I’m still going through the majority of the resources I found, I’d like to share some bits and bobs from a thesis I obtained via ILL thanks to this experience.

Purls of Wisdom: Motivational factors of contemporary women knitters, a master’s thesis by Catherine A Hunt from Iowa State University.

Much of the material covered in Catherine’s relatively recently-written (2005) thesis would probably be well-known to knitters who have read the few knitting history works out there and who have taken the time to think critically about the needles and yarn in their hands, though if you’d like someone to back up what you already know, or you’d like another source telling you how fantastic knitting is, then this is still worth reading. The text is written in a style that wouldn’t alienate non-knitters or anyone who is not conversant with the social sciences (Catherine’s field is Textiles and Clothing) and has much to offer those who aren’t knitters themselves; I suspect that members of her advisory committee, if they aren’t already knitters, may have a new appreciation for the craft.

One topic in the thesis really stood out to me, and I think it could bear closer examination: the resurgence of knitting in the US as a response to the 11 September 2001 attacks. Hunt’s informants - thirteen in all - were all white, middle-class and nearly all of them highly-educated women (Hunt 2005, p 30) with graduate degrees. Three of them, in interviews conducted separately in the informants’ own homes, mentioned a possible connection between the terrorist attacks and ‘cocooning’, getting back to basics, learning traditional skills that should be preserved (Hunt 2005, p 43-44). I think it is very telling that these women espoused this idea independently of one another, though Hunt’s pool of knitters from which to pull informants may have resulted in these women already knowing each other through knitting groups or other fibre-related places or activities. It would be extremely interesting to know if other knitters of any gender felt this same pull specifically after 11 September, either as a reaction to the attacks themselves or as a reaction to how things have changed since then. A further step might be to take those findings and compare them to how knitters felt after other major conflicts (assuming studies like that were done at the time or could be done now by speaking to those who remember). But it’s an interesting idea and one unique to knitters from the United States.

I have no real complaints about Hunt’s thesis (grammar and punctuation, but that’s for her committee to critique, not me), but reading it makes me really wish there were more knitting ethnographies out there. Perhaps this could be my own clarion call.

Should you have the chance to get this via ILL, I recommend it. I’ll just have to take it back to the library first.

One of the next items on my reading list is I Knit Therefore I Am: An Ethnomethodological Study of Knitting as Constitutive of Gendered Identity, a doctoral dissertation by Kristina M Medford of Bowling Green State University. And it’s online, so you can read it too!

Let’s move on from theses now, as I’d like to chat about a recent project: Alkar. Alkar is an Irish Hiking Scarf I knitted recently - yes, just an Irish Hiking Scarf, nothing special - but he has deeper meanings than anything else I’ve knit so far. I mean, look at him:

The Knitting You Can’t Give Away. That was nearly the title of this post, despite the use of ‘you’ instead of ‘one’, which would infuriate an English teacher I had when I was much younger. I can’t give Alkar away, nor can I wear him. He will probably live on my scarf shelf forever, unused, unloved, but respected. Fellow sci-fi enthusiasts may get the name.

My mother had brain surgery Thursday morning; I think I’ve mentioned before that she had a tumour that was causing her a bit of bother. I won’t go into what happened just before her surgery or since, but I am assured she’s doing well and will probably be out of the hospital today. She and I aren’t currently speaking, so I haven’t heard any of this from her.

I’ll stop there, I think. I don’t know you internet people well enough to go into all of it. But let me tell you how her surgery fits into Alkar’s story. Alkar is…well, he’s the anti-prayer shawl. Sort of. When I was dealing with all of this passive-aggressive nonsense, the rejection by my mother, the worry about what might happen, the resurgence of my feelings about having an alcoholic parent, about how this last course of school has been so ill-timed, how all of my friends are experiencing extreme heartache of their own (so why bother them?), how I’m still so unhappy with myself…ad infinitum, ad vomitum. And all that was poured into a skein and a half of Cascade 220 Heathers in a lovely light purple.

Alkar. He’s on top of my stash cabinet right now because I don’t know where to put him. I suspect that if anyone tried to wear him right now, they would spontaneously combust or fling themselves off a cliff. I wouldn’t gift him to my worst enemy. So he’ll sit somewhere I can see him and he’ll remind me of how knitting can help - wait, we all know the EZ quote. “Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises.”

Thanks, Alkar. Just don’t come near me for a while, yeah?

All this has got me thinking about perfection, probably because I’m having my own personal extravaganza of imperfections lately. When I look at other peoples’ projects on Ravelry - tikru’s [insert colour here] Gables come to mind first, as I’m dying to knit one of those - I don’t see the mistakes. I suppose most of us don’t generally see other peoples’ mistakes, knitting or not, unless we look closely - and after all, they’re design features.

I struggle to remember that should I knit something and it is a colossal disaster (sort of like the Titanic, but with string) it isn’t time wasted nor is it the end of the world. Figure out what went wrong, frog, relax the yarn and try again with the newly-learned lessons in mind. If I do this, I’ll be a better knitter and a more patient person. That’s the ideal outcome, anyway.

I’ve also been having some body image issues recently. I live in the thinnest state in the country (she says, sighing, because Colorado is only (!) 19% obese), and I’m not the svelte young woman I was a few years ago. Depression, anxiety, depression and anxiety meds and dislocation have left their mark on me and it hasn’t been easy erasing it. I console myself by saying that, when I’m not languishing in too-large jeans and t-shirts, I sort of have a pin-up’s body - acres of breasts, a small waist and hips you could bake a small pizza on. I don’t think I know quite what I mean with that last bit, but it makes sense at the mo. I’m not obese, I’m not even that heavy, I’m just not the radiant goddess I feel I was in my early twenties. So I’m trying (though not very hard) to lose weight. I eat an amazing diet; we never eat out anymore, we cook everything from scratch, eat loads of fruit and veg, beans and lentils and even our sweets are homemade (though the chai buns aren’t really all that healthy, but the watermelon sorbet is alright). Diet-wise, we’re doing great. It’s just that pesky exercise. I need to learn to knit and walk.

Back to knitting, though. I would like to be thinner for purely practical knitting reasons: garments would take less time, less yarn and less hassle. I could wear things knitted in worsted weight and not cry because I thought I looked like a badly-stuffed sausage. I don’t know. I know I’m not that overweight, and if I put up pics of myself on t’internet, you’d know as well. I suppose those Tomato pics are up waaaaaay back in the archive, but I’m thinner than that now. Hrm. You’ll have to trust me.

And finally, the slight finishing spree. I managed to crank out those coasters (though mine isn’t yet fully…fullled), make a tissue packet holder and finish that Colourwork Bag. Pictures!

The Lad’s coaster:

My coaster (for my massive, massive sheep mug):

Tissue Buffer:

Colourwork Bag (both sides):

When I’ve finished all of the Pi-Topper hats for my mother, I’ll post pics of them here. If you’re on Ravelry, you can pop over to my notebook to see them for now.

Right, it’s time to end this blog entry. I have to revise for my makeup exam tomorrow and there’s no time like the present for reviewing the importance of olfaction for Lemur catta.

Life is somewhat poor right now, but it’s getting better. “Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crises.”

Yeah.

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