Read Online At Knit's End by Stephanie Pearl–McPhee - Free Book Online Page A

day.
    I will consider that intarsia, or Fair Isle with three or more colors in a row, prepares nobody for sleep and cursing loudly while flinging knitting around the living room is about as far away from soothing as you can get.
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    Lack of money is the root of all evil.
    â€” G EORGE B ERNARD S HAW
    I f I were going to shoplift something (not that I ever would, of course), it would be lace-weight Shetland wool.
    Many yards is still a skein small enough to fit in a pocket, it is exquisite, and it is expensive. The perfect crime.
    I will remember, the next time I hear that someone has been charged with theft, to extend my sympathy and try to find understanding. After all, maybe she stole wool.
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    A successful marriage requires
falling in love many times,
always with the same person.
    â€” M IGNON M C L AUGHLIN
    I am happily married to a wonderful man, who is generous, funny, and kind. I have never even for one moment contemplated leaving him or being unfaithful. At least, that was true until I found out that one of the women in our knitting guild is married to a man who owns a yarn store and builds her cedar-lined, moth-repelling closets as his hobby.
    I can’t stop thinking about him.
    I will remember (in the midst of an obsession with a man I’ve never met) that my husband has his own special qualities.
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    You know you
knit too much when …
    Your knitting children have
accused you (openly, and
more than once) of giving
them only your “crap wool”
for their projects.

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    I detest converts almost
as much as I do missionaries.
    â€” H. L. M ENCKEN
    O ne night, as I sat knitting in a restaurant after the movies, the waitress asked a few questions about my project. Next thing I knew, she was sitting at the table with needles in her hands.
    When she had gone back to her work, my husband asked me whether this was what it had come to. “What?” I asked.
    â€œMissionary work,” he replied.
    I will remember that spreading the word of wool around the world is a good thing, and that many, many people want to learn to knit. I will also remember that if they start looking nervously at the exit I may have taken it too far.
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    The universe is full of magical things,
patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
    â€” E DEN P HILLPOTTS
    T here are many ancient stories of knitting, and there are even some that tell of knitting as a magic charm — spells that can be wrought in the stitches of sweaters, blankets, and socks for purposes known only to the knitter. One of these stories recounts how knitters used to knit a hair from their own locks into the garment for another, thus binding that person to them forever.
    I will accept the legend of this magic charm, both because it is lovely and because it is easier to believe in magic than to try and pick my hair out of my knitting all the time.

NONIA:
    Newfoundland Outport Nursing and
Industrial Association
    I n 1920, there was a shortage of doctors, nurses, and midwives in the isolated outports of Newfoundland, Canada. The British government sent over some nurses but, as is often the way with governments, the funding for this health service was touch and go. The nurses came up with the idea that if they were to knit items to sell, they could fund the program themselves. They recruited women from all over Newfoundland, gave them wool, and taught them to knit (if they didn’tknow already). The women knit what pleased them, and NONIA picked up the knitting, paid the women, and then sold the knitting to pay for more health care. It was without a doubt one of the cleverest women-helping-women schemes ever thought up. The nurses kept their jobs, the women earned a little income, and everybody in the outports got health care.
    I will remember that knitting can be a powerful force for helping others.
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    The only difference between me and
a madman is that I’m not mad.
    â€” S ALVADOR D ALì
    T here are knitters in the