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Sometimes, in the past year, having some knitting to work on has helped me past story tangles. (So far, writing has not helped me past knitting tangles at all. Unfair!) There are similarities. To make progress on either knitting or writing requires putting one little thing after another: a knit stitch or a purl stitch, a word or a punctuation mark. Untangling yarn from a badly wound ball (I wish yarn manufacturers would either make good balls or sell it in skeins) is like diving into a story that’s gone immobile and refuses to “come out.” The current yarn culprit is a ball of gorgeous purple heather which promised an easy pull from its middle and then developed such a tangle that the ball began to disintegrate and I still can’t get more than 18 inches at a time “free.” It’s also gauging differently than the other yarn I’ve been using (different brand, so not unexpected.)
The current story culprit is using the same tricks…refusing to move more than a short distance before jerking to a stop, and not acting like “normal” text in the pace or the ground it covers.
Meanwhile, what I was confident about (the other yarn, the same sock pattern I’ve been using) has turned into a fuzzy-edged mistake-prone territory that will be socks eventually, but not the socks I was hoping for. Ditto the story, which is fighting hard against me, and not with me.
As with yarn, when stories do this it usually means you’ve got hold of the wrong bit to yank on, and yanking harder won’t have a good result, not unless you like a lap-full of purple heather entanglement….or a lot of disjointed scenes that don’t seem to connect anywhere. I think this is last-book-itis, a complicated story-disease that comes from the collision between the necessities of publishing and storytelling, and the wish for an impossible eternity.
Stories end, or they aren’t stories. Books end. Groups of books sharing a story arc end. The previous books–all of them–offer a wide range of possibilities for the last book–a lot of choices to be sifted through–to make the last book do that thing last books are supposed to do, snag the main plotlines and a selection of subordinate plotlines, and weaves them neatly, firmly, and correctly, into the Turkish knot finial for the group. I thought I knew, two-maybe even three–books back, how this one would go. I was wrong. Both the books themselves and outside influences have dealt roughly with any certainty I had then, and now…the lapful of purple heather yarn, on the one hand, and the plotlines that are sort of lying there.
Two cures are possible, for both yarn and story. For the yarn, since I have two inches of ribbing already knit and do not want to do it again, it involves a very careful disassembly of the part of the ball that’s still a ball, threading the other end through a toilet-paper-roll and then wrapping the yarn neatly around the back of a kitchen chair (since I don’t have a ball-winder or a swift) and from thence wrap it into a ball around the toilet paper roll in such a way that the working yarn is coming out the hole. (My mother the knitter would be rolling her eyes: “Just undo the knitting, make your skein around the chair back, and roll from there and start over.” But…what’s life without trying the near-impossible?)
For the story–since it’s absolutely impossible to undo the previous books–I may have to go back to the previous books and do the series outline I never did in the first place because…I don’t do outlines. Except when desperate. I’m taking a leave of absence from choir until at least after WorldCon. No interruptions (other than ArmadilloCon, which is business) and a little knitting to ease my hands. Or–I could take the wild leap of faith that the Plot Daemon will rouse from his nap, or come back from the pub, or otherwise heave one of his big sighs and put me right again. It’s happened before.
For everyone’s amusement (this same picture is on LJ, but why not have it here?) here are “sockupines”…socks at the maximum moment of spikiness with five or six double-pointed needles in them. They’re not sockupines now–although they’re not (as mentioned above) the socks I was hoping they’d be…but they’ll be wearable (I think) and that’ll do.
Turned heels are at the bottom of the image. Left one has had its heel stitches divided, preparatory to picking the the stitches alongside the heel flap. Right one still has all the heel stitches on it. Purple needles (smaller size) hold the side stitches. Silver needles (larger size) are the ones used for the actual sock. Both are now rejoined, returned to four standing needles and one to knit with, so the opening resembles the gaping maw of a deep-sea predator as the “lower” needles have many more stitches then the “upper” two.
Comment by Heather — July 17, 2012 @ 9:54 pm
Always nice to see how another knitter turns a heel – I usually put the instep stitches on one needle to avoid the sockupine, but your way looks very tidy and easy to handle indeed.
I’m always tickled when knitting makes its way into the book – I especially enjoyed it when Beclan was shown how, and I always loved bit about those sturdy socks that Paks bought in Brewersbridge. I wonder if the farm wife proudly said, much later on, ‘You know Paks? The paladin? Well, I knitted socks for her.’
(there’s a joke about holy/holey socks in there somewhere!)
Comment by Margaret — July 17, 2012 @ 10:14 pm
I have never trusted that yarn- from-the-middle of the ball method. My mother always knit from the outside, so so do I. I like the ritual of hanging the skein from the back of the chair to make my balls, tho’ if I can have a real live person hold the skein it goes so much faster!
Maybe you need a horde of real life people to make the outline for you: volunteers who would outline one book each. Faithful Readers might just jump at the chance to do this!
Comment by Nadine Barter Bowlus — July 17, 2012 @ 10:35 pm
At some point in the events that lead Arvid Semminson to his interview with the Marshall in the Valdaire Grange, Gird scolds Arvid for wanting things made easy for him. Arvid has to struggle along and figure things out for himself for awhile. And I remember Paks telling Dorrin (?) that although the gods gift the power, they expect the humans to do the actual work. Maybe the Plot Daemon is hanging out with Gird and the others? 🙂
No matter what, I wish you well with both the writing and the socks. Currently knitting off the gusset stitches on my socks a few rounds at a time, as many as my hands allow. Positive thoughts.
Comment by Nadine Barter Bowlus — July 17, 2012 @ 10:40 pm
Margaret, I second the motion!
Comment by elizabeth — July 17, 2012 @ 10:44 pm
Heather: I have the instep stitches on two needles primarily because it’s a lot easier to put my foot through to check on progress than with three needles total(remember, I’m not working from a pattern–I’m using my foot as a gauge, esp. for when to start the uneven toe decreases.) It also folds up a little more neatly and there’s never any worry about stitches falling off a needle.
Margaret: I love that we learn the details from our mothers–and they from theirs or their grandmother, and so on. But somewhere back down the line, one strain of foremothers said “Knit from the inside of the ball so the ball doesn’t roll into the fire” and another strain said “Knit from the outside of the ball to avoid those tangles.” My mother was a “knit from the inside” knitter. I held yarn for her while she wound the ball the way she liked it (she used a fat pencil, usually, and her balls were snug, neat, with a little hole and the end hanging out, ready to go. Her balls never tangled. I have been known to knit from a skein hanging over a doorknob–not very efficiently as I still have to stop and turn the skein now and then.
I’ve seen now a little yarn bowl thing with a special shape (hard to describe) that lets you knit from the outside without the yarn rolling–it rolls in the bowl and the yarn feeds either under a kind of slot-flange thingie or through a hole in the side of the bowl. However, from the picture, it’s really sized for a 50 g. ball and I’m using 100 g. balls or skeins.
Ball winders produce a big fat ball with a big hole in the middle.
Comment by Chuck — July 18, 2012 @ 12:48 am
I don’t knit, but I live with a knitter and weaver, and happen to be a better untangler, so I get drafted into yarn stuff all the time. What my partner does is place the rewound ball of yarn in a stainless steel bowl from the kitchen, puts it down beside him (on the sofa or the floor) and knits from the outside of the ball.
Comment by jjmcgaffey — July 18, 2012 @ 1:01 am
The other tool I’ve seen on various DIY sites is a 2-liter soda bottle with the bottom cut off and then jammed back on after the ball of yarn is inside. The working end threads up through the neck, and it holds still much better than a ball alone – whether you’re working from the inside or the outside of the ball.
Comment by Celina — July 18, 2012 @ 1:59 am
Last spring, I was at an museum, and they had an exhibition about village life around 1500-1800 century. The women could tend animals and knit at the same time. I thought that was pretty incredible, to be able to knit a sock while making sure no animals ran off at the same time.
Comment by Karen — July 18, 2012 @ 2:06 am
Your socks are glorious! As someone who rarely wears socks (I have the kind of feet that my cats cuddle to for warmth), I sometimes long for the comfort of color and verve that can be hidden by unassuming pants and shoes.
As for yarns that don’t come undone smoothly — I wish you would send them to me. I’ve thought it through, and don’t consider it to be a symptom of OCD (‘though I won’t rule out elements of the syndrome in other aspects of my life), I find great joy in taking a tangle and seeing how both ends — after a lot of work and twisting and turning them this way and that — eventually meet in the middle. I often find that loosening, loosening, and loosening again is the way to find, and elude all of the knots that may have formed because one strand of the wool got twisted more than the others.
My cats, on the other hand, greatly dislike my efforts to make meaning out of chaos and must be sternly admonished that the good wool yarn is not tantamount to good eating mutton in strands. Bad cats :-/
As for stories, I have no doubt in your ability to feel your way along the thread — I’m just sorry that it’s giving you a few knots to untangle along the way.
Is there any chance that this means a sixth book might be necessary?
Comment by Jenn — July 18, 2012 @ 10:29 am
I call it disemboweling the yarn ball for a reason (even the “magic” pull thread that doesn’t). I can never get just the thread or the middle.
Once I was visiting my sister and my nephew (4) wanted to help me knit so he would loosen the yarn for me. The next thing I knew the monkey had pulled out the whole 200 yd ball and I had a rat nest to rewind. He was lucky I love him 🙂
I turn heals with the wrap turn method which give that mitered corner look and is fun if you want to change color for the toe and heal.
Good luck with the book.
Comment by Jenn — July 18, 2012 @ 10:31 am
Celina,
It can be done. I have learned to walk and knit (small things sox or mitts). Some times I will keep a ball and 4’s in a jacket pocket.
Comment by elizabeth — July 18, 2012 @ 11:09 am
On women knitting and watching animals–I love to knit outside when it’s not too hot or pouring rain (better light–and imagine those tiny windowless huts so many lived in.) Also aprons–my mother had some older aprons (now long since disintegrated) that had pockets in front. You could easily drop your knitting into one and go after the critters if you had to. But these would mostly graze–so most of the time a herder spent with sheep (even cattle on lush grazing) would be doing nothing–or knitting. People knitted.
I’ve seen pictures of women going to market, sitting sideways on a horse (not a side-saddle–actually sideways) loaded with panniers of eggs, live fowl, and other goods for sale at the market, knitting away for the journey, which would an hour or two. Husband or kid is driving along some sheep or a cow or two. This would be a fairly prosperous farm family, and farm produce would include eggs, feathers, livestock, cheese, and handiworks (knitting, small wooden items like spoons, possibly strips of embroidery if the woman was especially skilled.) In that same period you’re talking about, in Europe, the production of clothes was already organized with men who contracted with women to make stuff and provided them the raw materials–a family might be given 5 pounds of wool to spin–the yarn would be then delivered to someone else to knit up–and at each stage the person or persons arranging the supply and transport would make a profit by selling the product on. So the women knitting as they watched sheep graze, or the woman knitting on the horse while headed to market, might not be knitting wool from her sheep that she’d spun into yarn.
Heel turns: One of my books discusses the amount of gusset room in relation to the choice of heel design. The “short-row” heel that makes the mitered corner offers the least room when you put your foot in or out of the sock–and is best for lower insteps; the “French” and “Dutch” heels have more gusset room and fit those with high insteps better than the short-row heels. I have had trouble getting my instep-heel through the narrow gussets of many commercial socks (esp. cotton, which is not that stretchy.) It’s easier to do the “big gusset” heel from the top down (another reason I like the top-down approach).
I also call it disemboweling the ball of yarn, or eviscerating it–it really is the only term for sticking your fingers into the hole and dragging out the wiggly strands, very much like critter-guts but at least not slimy and stinky–but at least that mass usually knits up fast and *then* the yarn pulls nicely. It does from Berroco and Ella rae yarns at least. The luscious purple heather, Cascade 220 Superwash…no. I excavated carefully, found the inside end fairly quickly, but once I started knitting more and more came out in blogs and jumbles, so the outer part of the ball had no cohesion. And it started spalling off the outside simultaneously.
Waiting impatiently for the Ella rae Superwash turquoise to come in. The online images of Ella rae yarns are definitely inferior–so color’s not easy choose from the sites. Apparently they all use the same original color pix, which weren’t good, and nobody thinks to photograph the yarn. I suspect they’re taken from old, somewhat faded print photos.
Comment by elizabeth — July 18, 2012 @ 12:00 pm
And talk about wishes being answered. Just got email from the yarn shop that it’s in. Yay! Changing gears from writing to driving–need jeans, not flannel pants, a different shirt, clean socks, shoes, lock the back door (R’s out building fence) etc, etc.
Comment by Annabel (Mrs Redboots) — July 18, 2012 @ 1:43 pm
Untangling is what husbands are for, surely?
Comment by GinnyW — July 19, 2012 @ 8:46 pm
Glad about the yarn. The gods of Paksworld seem to be unraveling a tangle that has been getting more and more convoluted through the centuries. Possibly Flessinathlin put a glamor on you so that you can not see the big picture for the individual threads. It should wear off gradually, don’t you think?
Comment by Jenn — July 20, 2012 @ 10:55 am
GinnyW
I’ll bet it is a plot of the webmistress with all those threads.
Comment by Pat Connelly — July 20, 2012 @ 8:11 pm
My wife is the knitter and uses the circular loop needles for socks, loves them
This link below is the oddest knitted thing I think I have ever seen:
http://www.secretopia.com/knitted-dissection-animals/05/2010/
Comment by elizabeth — July 20, 2012 @ 10:11 pm
That needs a “Could squick you!” warning. Some people…are odd. I prefer the crocheted/knitted coral reefs or the knitted foods.
Yes, lots of people like the circular needles for socks, with the “magic loop” arrangement. I prefer the double-pointed needles. It’s one of those divisions among knitters, I gather, like a preference for wood v. metal needles, or the endless debates over yarn content. (I’m a wool fancier, but I also use acrylic and various blends, so I’m not a purist, except for my own socks.)
Comment by elizabeth — July 20, 2012 @ 10:12 pm
I thought I got rid of her. Possibly not (starts looking in the flour bin to see if there are any webspinning larvae…nope.)
Comment by Jenn — July 21, 2012 @ 10:17 am
The webmistress lives. Yesterday in the middle of my row there it was…a manufacturers knot! arrgh!!! I had to stop, pull back, undo the knot and splice together the ends that should not have been there.
Sigh. My life is so difficult.
Comment by Iphinome — July 21, 2012 @ 3:41 pm
@Lady Moon
Slightly off-topic but socks are clothes. Did you happen to read one of the flurry of recent articles about (partially intact) renaissance underclothes found in Lengberg Castle?
Comment by elizabeth — July 21, 2012 @ 7:08 pm
Iphinome: No, I haven’t seen that. Online? Do you have the URLs? I find old clothes fascinating (usually being really really glad I didn’t have to wear that.) I have a book–staring around I don’t see it and don’t know where it is–but anyway, it has photographs of old clothes and then information on how to make replicas. I’d be a dud at that, but one thing that interested me was a king’s shirt (Swedish I think) that was preserved…the blood stains from his battle wounds on it. You’d think that would be discarded, but it wasn’t. It’s in a museum.
Comment by Iphinome — July 21, 2012 @ 8:28 pm
I do. http://www.historyextra.com/lingerie Link is from BBC history magazine.
they found 2 bras (breast bags) and what looks like a string bikini bottom. Any cloth that old is a cool find and since the period artwork doesn’t tend to show the underclothes. Well I hope you find it interesting
Comment by Iphinome — July 21, 2012 @ 8:41 pm
Second post: _As you know_, any cloth that old is rare. It was used, it was cut, it was used, it was cut, it was rags, and they wore down to nothing, or it rotted away. Really old textiles are worthy of study and display.
The only really useful book i have on the subject of recreation rather than costuming is _Costume Close-Up_ by Linda Baumgarten and John Watson. It covers some of the extant 18’th century cloths in the Colonial Williamsberg collection. Photos, construction techniques, patterns drawn from the original material. embroidery details.
Not a period you’ve been setting stories in but I can bring the book to worldcon if you want to page through it for a couple days. I can always bring it to one panel and pick it up at a different one.
Comment by elizabeth — July 21, 2012 @ 9:22 pm
Thanks, but no, on bringing the book…my experience at WorldCons is that I’m in high gear to the point of face-planting in the bed the moment I get to my room. It sounds fascinating, but this isn’t the occasion for it.
The article itself–amazing. I know my mother made her own bras way back–as a young woman and during the Depression, she could not afford commercially made ones, and the one she made herself, she said, fit her better. By the time I remember watching her dress, she was using commercially made bras. Hers were made of gingham, mostly–no elastic. So I was familiar with the concept of unelasticized bras. Interesting too that at one time wearing them was considered indecent–and by the 20th century not wearing them was considered indecent.
Comment by elizabeth — July 21, 2012 @ 9:27 pm
And speaking of yarn stories…my yarn pusher…er..online yarn supplier…included an issue of a knitting magazine with the delivery of the latest order, Verena: Europe’s top knit magazine. Not only am I oversupplied in the stash department right now, but more delectable yarns are dangled in front of me. And designer knit garments with patterns. Luckily for me, I don’t do patterns. (Yet)
Meanwhile, Book V rattles on. Friday was a good day, with something tangled for months finally breaking loose and progressing. Unfortunately, its closely related neighbor chapter, actually written much earlier, now requires major reconstruction. Oh, well.
Comment by Iphinome — July 21, 2012 @ 10:07 pm
I’m psyched. Actual proof of the underclothes rather than vague descriptions. I always thought just a chemise under there would be too bouncy.
No worries on the book, maybe your local library has a copy if you get curious enough.