The Knitting Fiend

Look, that’s not real yarn.
Listen to my sage advice:
hand washing is fun!

---

Have you ever noticed that no matter how normal a pattern is someone will find a flaw?¹ This knitter has noticed another knitter using “fake” yarn.

You know what fake yarn is, right? If you don’t, you must not live near me. You must also be much younger than I. ²

Because when I was in college, many, many yarn stores were infested with “experienced knitters” who would buttonhole “young inexperienced knitters” and share their wisdom. This wisdom generally involved a true understanding of the evils of acrylic and tip on how easy it was to hand-wash everything you wore in the sink in your dorm room. If you mentioned there was no sink in your dorm room, they waved their hand and insisted that was a small detail.

(Yeah. Right. Small detail.

All you had to do was carry all your laundry stuff to the community bathroom, fill a teeny-tiny sink with sudsy water, and deprive the other girls of access to one of the sinks while you soaked your sweater, drained and rinsed. Then, you squeezed the water out, rolled the item in a clean towel or two, carried everything to your dorm room and figured out where to lay the sweater flat without irritating your roommate. Laying your hand-washed sweater on your bed kinda-sorta worked if you did your hand-washing early in the morning so the sweater could dry before bed time. Then you laid the wet towels on the forced air heater which at least had the benefit of humidifying the room. So easy and convenient! )

Sadly, your contemplation of the joy of hand-washing would be interrupted, you overheard the “experienced” knitter loudly complain that her college age nephew threw a pair of lovingly hand knit socks in the dorm washing machine and felted them. At that point, you, the younger inexperienced knitter, would, smile inwardly, grab enough Bulky Berella to knit a machine washable sweater³, rush to the register and leave before the “experienced” knitter decided to share more of her “knowledge.”

---

This sweater appeared in McCall’s Needlework and Crafts during the ’50s, long before I was knitting.

---

1. I admit: That someone may be me.
2. Oh, forget about the “much younger” thing. There are plenty of “experienced” knitters in my generation who want to tell you what to knit.
3. I admit: I mostly knit wool and I do hand-wash stuff. But then, I no longer live in a small dorm room! And I don’t knit dorm residents hand wash only socks!