A Knitting Jerk

My brother, Jonathan, and I love Steve Martin. We find his movie, The Jerk particularly hilarious. For those of you who have hereto far somehow survived without the pleasure of this movie, I will give you a synopsis.

An African-American family in Mississippi adopts an abandoned white child, whom they name Navin. As Navin grows up, he knows he is different but relates it to some deficiency on his part. Navin also believes that the color of his skin will eventually change. Then, Navin turns 21, and his parents decide it is time to tell Navin the truth: Navin is white, he will always be white and there is nothing he can do about it. Navin is shocked. We then see Navin’s adventures as he leaves the family farm and travels to California to find himself armed with the following wisdom: “The Lord loves a workin’ man; don’t trust whitey; and see a doctor and get rid of it.”

While Navin works his first job at a full service gas station (yes, they did exist way back in the long ago when your primary caregivers were young), the new telephone book arrives. Navin immediately picks up the phone book and flips furiously through the pages until he finds his name in the listing. He dances around proclaiming, “The new phone book’s here! The new phone book’s here! Now I’m somebody!”

In the knitting community, we are all Navins of one sort or other. We learn to knit. We see all these fabulous patterns and techniques and just know that we can do that. Then we have the Navin moment. That moment when our inner knitter reaches up, yanks the needles out of our hands and plays the drums on our head s with them. That moment when we pull a certain project out of our bag and we get the look from our knitting compadres as they scoot their chairs a comfortable distance from our own. That moment when we are knitting using a technique and pattern that thrills us, but the stitches don’t flow, gauge eludes us, and it seems that the only sane thing to do is take the entire mess, soak it in gasoline and flick a lit match into the middle of it while dancing around it as it burns. If you have ever felt this way, you, my friend, have had a Navin moment.

My Navin moment occurred while attempting to knit Fair Isle. I am a competent knitter. I have been able to knit most anything I have ever wanted to knit. I am unafraid to rip. Then I decided, “Hey, wouldn’t it be neat to knit something with colorwork!” I got the pattern – a book of mittens, something simple enough to start. I got some yarn – Dale of Norway of course. I sat down and started to knit. My first attempt at the two color, braided cast-on looked pretty spiffy. Little did I know, that was the end of the fun and spiffy on that project. I struggled the rest of the way through half a mitten. Either my stitches were too loose or too tight. When I twisted the yarn to change colors, I would forget which way to twist: under or over. The logic of the technique seemed just out of my reach, no matter how much wise and helpful counsel I received. Things got pretty rough. I felt discouraged and questioned my abilities as a knitter because I just couldn’t seem to get it.

It occurred to me some months later that I was a Navin. While not deluded to the point of believing “I was born a poor black child in Mississippi”,-when one quick glance in the mirror would prove that obviously wasn’t the case- I was deluded by thinking that my inner knitter was a Fair Isle knitter longing to escape if I could just get the brain and fingers working together. After all, I could knit Arans, I could knit lace, and I could knit socks. Nope, Fair Isle knitting just isn’t in me. At least not in the way cables, yarn overs, and socks flow from blood to fingers.

Now, I didn’t let that realization stop me. I did eventually add Fair Isle knitting to my repertoire. I am a passable Fair Isle knitter. When I am feeling the need to stretch myself and do something I am not normally inclined to do, I will knit the odd hat or sock in Fair Isle design – nope not a pair of socks, because I am lucky to knit one sock in Fair Isle. I still fantasize about knitting the amazing colorwork of Kaffe Fassett, but I fantasize about it in the same way I fantasize about going to dinner with Johnny Depp after spending an hour in the machine that gets rid of all cellulite and lets me program my ideal weight, bra size, and IQ.

Until then, I will embrace the knitter I am, keep my knitting fantasies in perspective, watch Captain Jack sail the high seas and sigh.