Yesterday, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (aka Yarn Harlot) posted a small rant about public perception of knitters and knitterly writers. If you’ve not seen it, you should. It’s here: http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2007/02/16/represent.html.

I remember the universal shock waves that went ’round the ‘net in January when Blue Moon’s old bank decided that the Sock Club must have been a scam and subsequently refunded all payments and froze their account. Blue Moon Fiber Arts is home of the famous Socks That Rock sock yarn, and while the company may be considered relatively small in some ways, we’re talking about an important name in a very large industry. It’s easy to forgive someone who doesn’t knit for not recognizing a major product, but it’s not so easy to forgive a blend of criminal incompetence and sheer stupidity. It goes without saying that had the bank done its homework, it never would have taken that action—and lost what should have been a valued customer. Had that happened here, the bank would have been forced to provide compensation to Blue Moon. I’ve no idea if Blue Moon received anything from the old bank, or even if they received an apology.

And I understand Stephanie’s frustration when it comes to booking venues for her own speaking and book-signing events. The general perception is that knitting is a small, domestic hobby pursued by a small, aging percentage of the general population; it’s cute, old-fashioned, sweet, and totally irrelevant to anything of any importance. I’m not surprised to find that she and her publicist have to argue for larger rooms, chairs, and microphones. Nor am I surprised to hear that people consider her a non-author.

I’ve been thinking about that post since I read it, and watching the numbers of comments rocket. Stephanie has issued a challenge—a shout out to the knitting and fiber arts community—to stand up and be counted and show non-knitters that there are numbers, influence, and economic clout in the percentage of the population she represents. She’s asked for those who are able to show up for her new book launch in New York City on 22 March, and I find myself dwelling on a few specific ideas.

First. This isn’t a new dilemma, and it takes me to something I try and reinforce with my own students. Academia has traditionally been guilty of a kind of literature snobbery: Anything which was not literary writing (i.e., it was genre fiction) was lesser quality. If it wasn’t literary fiction, then it was genre fiction, and genre fiction was the cheap way out of writing literature and required less talent as well as less craft. I remember a creative writing professor who declared that genre writing was generally trash—except for detetctive fiction and while it wasn’t literary fiction, at least it had a few redeeming qualities. For their part, genre writers have typically been put on the defensive and have had to declare that their work required just as much skill and craft as their literary fiction counterparts. Within genre, romance writers are often denigrated; fantasy has been “lifted” a bit by the best-selling Harry Potter series and the film interpretation of the Lord of the Rings series. Writers of humor texts, how-to books, cook books, and coffee-table books have had to face similar attitudes.

More recently, genre writers are recognizing the value of character development and are moving out of stock characters, and literary fiction writers are recognizing the value of plot (something actually has to happen in the story) and are moving away from bathtub stories. Slowly, the two are coming to recognize that they both require skills, performance of craft, and even talent. The performance of those skills may be different, and indeed they may be slightly different in themselves, but they are both valuable. They are both work and both evidence of performance of craft.

Second. I recognize that the individual who told Stephanie that she wasn’t really a best-selling author because her books were about knitting had fallen into the trap of literary snobbery. I understand that part of the motivation here is see-saw egoism; if he denigrates her accomplishment, he casts his own lack of equivalent numbers in a more positive light. I recognize that part of the problem is that she is a female author, and that she still suffers from the stigma of not being a “serious” writer simply because she is a woman. I also understand that another part of the problem is that she’s writing about what is commonly perceived as a domestic pursuit, and that that which is perceived as domestic is usually considered to be trivia and is relegated to the bleachers. (It seems to me that we’re starting to reclaim and redefine “domestic,” but that’s an entirely different discussion.) Finally, I understand that such comments are built on insecurity and narrow-mindedness.

Third. What worries me is that we may be indoctrinating our students into those same ideas.

At least once every semester I have a student who tells me that the mark of good literature is that it “stands the test of time.” Every semester, I challenge that statement. Whose tests and what standards are we considering? It’s not even enough to say that a text must have universal appeal; who makes that determination, and appeal to which universes? If we’re talking about publication numbers, who controls those aspects? It’s an easy cliche that we’ve passed on to our students, and we do them (and ourselves) a disservice. And, it shows up in comments such as the one above: if it is not literary writing, it cannot be “real” writing.

I want literary programs which focus on texts from all genres, and discuss their merits and values across the board. And I want authors who succeed and have even a fraction of Stephanie’s numbers and following to be recognized rather than pat on the head and dismissed while the grown-ups talk about “real” issues.

Fourth. Certainly snobbery isn’t limited to the academic or writing worlds. Even within the knitting community, we have our own snobs. Most often it’s yarn snobbery. We use the term and laugh about it when we do, but some laugh about or talk down to those who use acrylics, while others scoff at the “only natural fiber” camp. They both have value, and somewhere our egoism needs to be set aside to recognize that. If I need to crochet or knit a project that is going to take seriously rough handling, is not liable to ever be handwashed, and needs a certain amount of indestructibility, do you honestly think I’m going to do it with an expensive cashmere or silk blend? For instance, that family who is constantly on the go and wouldn’t remember to handwash a sock—and suddenly has a new baby? Forget it. That baby blanket is going to be made out of Red Heart or Caron or whatever soft, machine-washable, dryer-tolerant, and baby-appropriate yarn I can find. They have enough on their plates without having to worry about handwashing and drying flat something which will cover the only surface which isn’t already covered with baby clothes, laundry, diapers, baby accessories, and the “droppage” of sheer exhaustion when they walk in the door at the end of the day. For them, being able to machine wash and dry something is a gift and an aspect they’d appreciate as much as the object itself. For a friend or family member who wouldn’t mind handwashing something in Woolite and who would value the craft in the gift—that’s a different question, and I’ll cheerfully use my own handspun or a delicate wool or alpaca blend.

It strikes me that, regardless of its forum, snobbery is a weakness in ourselves—a form of egoism which refuses to recognize value in that which is not ours.

Last. Stephanie is going to need a bigger venue and a lot more chairs.

I realized the other day that it’s been almost two weeks since I’ve posted, and it’s time to catch up.

Things have been busy with a lot of cleanup from last fall and some startup for this term, but there’s been some fallout, too.

General Academics/Teaching

I had an interesting conversation with a teacher a little while ago, and I find it still bothers me. The gist of it was that “good students will do well; poor students won’t.” The context was the Norwegian university environment, where required activity and participation is nearly nonexistent. Students nigh well operate in a sort of “independent study” approach, with one large lecture per week, and limited 45-minute small groups which meet once each week for part of the term. Attendance at lectures and small groups is voluntary, and grades are established by a single final exam at the end of the term. The recent budget cuts have made a system which provides little structure to its students even more unstructured; it requires even less of them. Students who have good study and academic work skills when they come into this environment will do the extra work and will at least survive; those who come ill-prepared, however, will struggle and may well fail.

That statement bothers me for several reasons, not the least of which is that it is simply a fallacy to assume that students come to college or university already established as students. While we can place the responsibility for study skill development on the student’s shoulders to a certain extent, we cannot assume that all students have high quality—or even sufficient—or equal degrees of preparation. They are certainly not carbon copies of one another with the same educational, environmental, familial, and personal backgrounds. Equally problematically, working under this attitude does not allow good students to hone existing skills, or poor students to learn how to become good students. In essence, it throws away the poor students before they ever arrive on the college’s doorstep.

I have a problem with that. In my own experience, students come to college moderately clueless about what they’re getting into. They shape their understanding of the environment and the new interactions and the new requirements within that first academic year. Only then do they really begin to grasp the planet on which they’ve landed themselves. It strikes me that to not provide the structure to help them make that adjustment is both shortsighted as well irresponsible on our (academia’s) part. College is not high school in a new location. It is certainly all part of the academic family, but making the shift is a learning experience all its own, and I firmly believe that if we want to encourage success in our students, we need to lay the groundwork. If we do not, then “poor students won’t do well”—but the fault will be as much ours as anyone’s.

This Week’s Reading

“Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton, Magret by Anne Karin Elstad (the second in the Folket på Innhaug series; in Norwegian), Eldest by Christopher Paolini, and The Care and Feeding of Spinning Wheels by Karen Pauli. How much more eclectic can one get? (By the way, the Eragon movie? If you read and liked the book, don’t waste your time with the film; it’s a waste and a terrible shame given the rich potential of the written text. The only folks who seem to like it are those who’ve not read the book.)

Writing

Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to Anne B. Ragde—author of Berlinerpoplene, Arsenikktårnet, and a host of other things—while she talked about her writing and herself as writer. One of the things that particularly caught my attention was what she believed were the key elements to any good fiction: motor og troverdighet, or drive and believability. There must be something which makes you turn the page, and you’ve got to be able to buy into that story. This is something I’ve tried to explain to younger writers, and it’s something we have to work at incorporating in our own work. What we say may be interesting but there must, after all, be a point. There must be a reason why we thought this particular story was important enough that we needed to write it—and important enough that our reader should read it.

“Believability” is a flexible concept, but equally important. While what we might believe changes from text to text based on our expectations of that text, we still have to be able to accept that characters behave the way they do, or that circumstances are and become what they are, and we have to care about those characters. The moment we stop caring or believing, that’s the moment we put the book or story down—and at that point the writer has failed.

I was pleased to see how solidly Anne B. understood those concepts—I would have been surprised had she not—but I appreciated too her sense of her writing as both work and craft. I think this is something that comes with time, but I’ve yet to see a successful writer who doesn’t make these very basic concepts a part of his or her writing identity.

Knitting

There’s been precious little of that happening since the legwarmers were finished. What there has been is:

Spinning

Since I finished that first test bit of spinning, I’ve been slowing working my way through some 3 ounces of Cormo roving. I have to admit that I like that wool! It’s very soft, and while I know my spinning hasn’t done it justice, even the finished yarn is soft and squishy despite a good amount of twist. I still have to work on consistent thickness and keeping my joins from turning into blooming blobs (literally), but I can look at this skein and see a real difference between it and that first test spin a few weeks ago.

It was not, however, a completely painless process. I really missing having a warm body at hand to point out when I’m screwing up or overlooking something which more experienced folks would do automatically or consider common sense. As my favorite Chief Master Sergeant once told me, “The problem with greenhorns isn’t that they don’t know enough to ask questions. The problem is that they don’t know enough to know what questions to ask.” That said, the reality is that I’m just a stubborn wench determined to figure things out, so I really don’t mind stumbling into things. If nothing else, it makes the learning process entertaining.

For instance, did you know that you should stop your single when you have a bit less than half the amount to fill your plying surface? You did? Ah, then you sorry bugger, why didn’t you tell me? (grin) In the process of spinning those three ounces, I cleverly (I thought) joined every new spindle-full to the end of the previous one, ending with roughly 200 yards of a single single. Since I wanted to make a large skein with no knots and as few joins as possible, I thought that was rather clever. I loved my long single, admittedly in part because it gave me a chance to even out the twist over longer lengths. The problem is that there is no way to fill your plying surface and keep plying without breaking the yarn and starting with a new batch. Once the spindle or bobbin is filled, you have to cut it and start again. Of course, if you only have one spindle and no wheel, that makes the problem even more annoying.

Coming to that realization was an adventure. I tried moving my singles from the spindle to nøstepinde to spindle and back, then to a combination of both, then to a center-pull ball. The house looked like a scene from Arachnophobia; singles were spun everywhere, and nothing—not even DH—risked moving. Thanks to some good advice, I finally understood that what I was trying to do was frankly impossible and that I needed a bigger plying surface. In other words, I needed a bigger spindle.

I improvised a CD spindle on a 24″ shaft using a 3/8″ dowel, a couple of CDs, some foam packing wrap (no grommet), and lots of tape. Ugly as sin, spun badly, wasn’t exactly ergonomic, but it worked. I unplied the several yards I’d already plied and then got busy. A few hours later and thanks to a couple of chairs, some miscellaneous furniture and body parts, a couple of dowels from two disassembled paper-towel holders, a yarn swift, a pot, and one entertained hubby, I had tightened the formerly-plied singles and plied the entire length with the CD spindle. I set the twist last night and hung the skein to dry, and I have to tell you that I’m pleased with my progress. I have another four ounces of Cormo to spin, and we’ll see how it compares with this first batch.

Wanna see?

I didn’t measure it, but based on what came off the yarn swift (oh, yes; it came out to play too), there should be somewhere around or above 75 yards.

For gauge context, there’s a dime on the left, and a Norwegian 1-kroner piece on the right.

You can see where I struggled with consistency because those areas bloomed more than the finer strand around them. In most cases, those were places where I joined the fiber. It’s something I need to work on.

On other fronts, MIL has decided I should use her grandmother’s old wheel. I don’t have much history, but I do have a little. MIL knows that her grandmother bought the wheel at a farmer’s market type of event (Martnan) in the Skogn area (Norway) in 1881, and that it was used when it was bought–which means that it’s older than that purchase date. She has no idea how old it was when her grandmother bought it, and I have no way to guess at it. A valuator would be able to figure it out, but all I have to go on is that conditions in Norway at that time weren’t great, and possessions–especially tools–were definitely not considered “disposable.” That means that the wheel could have been anywhere between a couple of years old or much older, and sold for economic reasons, or because the original owner died and the family either didn’t want or couldn’t keep it. The last option is less likely than the first given the Norwegian tendency to keep “arvegods” (inherited items) in the family.

The wheel isn’t in the best shape; it’s going to need a lot of work. The leather bearings are gone or need to be replaced, the footman needs to be replaced, the treadle is cracked, the wooden nails are slipping out of the wheel and need to be tightened, one maiden is broken, and the flyer is missing. All of those things are actually no big problem given a carpenter/woodworker, except for the missing flyer. The odds are that it was broken and then thrown out without someone realizing what it was, but I think we can find a similar wheel in the area and build a replacement. With luck, the neighbor—who happens to be a master carpenter/woodworker—will be interested in taking on the challenge. Cross your fingers.

13 Jan UPDATE: The neighbor did indeed agree to see what he could do. Even if the wheel never again spins properly, at least it’s now in safe hands and a part of DH’s family heritage will be preserved. That alone counts for something.