Recently on the Aloha Knitters board*, Keohinani wondered how we could get the Yarn Harlot to Hawai'i on her booktour and Monday night I very nearly tripped over Keohinani trying to get to a shiny new copy of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's latest book, Knitting Rules! The Yarn Harlot's Bag of Knitting Tricks. Monday night I also left out the decaf part of my drink order, and was up until 1 am reading the book. It's a book that is both informative and funny, and I'm putting it on my bookshelf next to Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears and Annie Modesitt's Confessions of a Knitting Heretic. If you'd like a DIY, get in control, punk as Henry Rollins** book on knitting, this is one of those books.
However. Page 49. "I understand that my affection for wool probably seems silly to Hawaiian knitters." Without going into the semantics of Hawaiian knitters vs. knitters in Hawai'i,*** or that it takes more than one knitter to prove this point, or that she's just sayin', y'know, and there very well may be knitters in Hawai'i who think wool is ridiculous, may I direct your attention to Exhibit A:
These are Araucania Nature Wool worsted weight 100% wool socks with holes in them. The holes came from constant wear. Oh, did I include sunny blue sky and flowers behind them? Kind of hard not to.
Exhibit B:
These are Peace Fleece wool/mohair worsted weight slipper socks with fleece-lined soles. Note the way the right slipper sock appears to be warped. That is because the sole is splitting. I would repair it, but the wearer would have to take them off. She says I need to just make her a new pair already (already? I gave her that pair at the end of December!). She is wearing a pair of cotton socks under the slipper socks. It is 85 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Hawai'i is known for its microclimates, and it can get quite cool in some areas and *(^%#@!! freezing in others (ask me about the time I was up on Haleakala for sunrise and realized I'd left my shoes in my car parked at an airport on another island). Even though my mother is standing on a linoleum floor in an area known for being hot and dry, her feet are encased in wool all day long.
Exhibit C, to show that you can love wool even if your mother does not have a severe, chronic case of cold feet:
My take on the Interweave Crochet Textured Tweed Clutch by Mari Lynn Patrick. My version uses two skeins of Peace Fleece worsted weight (color: grassroots), minus the bobbles, and with a buckle from a thrift shop belt. I made a few alterations to the buckle strap to accomodate the belt buckle.
Zeke agrees that it is a fine handbag, large enough to carry the necessities, including a sock in progress.
I have a real thing for Peace Fleece. My stash is organized into storage bins, sorted out as:
synthetic fibers
plant fibers
Blue Sky Alpacas Cotton
wool
Peace Fleece
Yep. I have a storage bin full of assorted wool yarn, and a storage bin dedicated to Peace Fleece wool yarn. My stash, admittedly, is on the small side, and you'll be needing a larger sample to understand the love of wool shared by many knitters in Hawai'i. I'm counting on other members of the Aloha Knitters to flash a little stash around (especially someone who has sock yarn exceeding life expectancy, *cough*keohinani*cough*) and talk about wool lovin'.
La Harlot gets much love for knowing that there are knitters in Hawai'i. Well, we are everywhere, we are legion, after all. Kelli-the-wonder-publicist, care to give us a chance to prove it in person? We're just getting started. We haven't even mentioned the island which has cacao farms, coffee farms, and vineyards (all on one island!), and a yarn shop too!
*in an attempt to raise our visibility, we also have a MySpace Group (groups.myspace.com/alohaknitters) and a MySpace profile page (www.myspace.com/alohaknitters).
**of course, if Mr Rollins, who is a writer, also happens to be a knitter, he could be in the running for most punk knitting book. My admiration of Mr Rollins' work is known but I must admit that given the choice between going to a talk given by Mr Rollins and a talk given my Ms Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot would win, no contest. Should Mr Rollins ever desire personal knitting instruction, he can call me.
***Hawaiian is an ethnic designation, confusing as, for example, if you are from California you can be called a Californian, but Hawai'i has the dubious honor of having been a sovereign nation prior to being annexed by the US. One can be a Hawaiian knitter or a knitter in Hawai'i , but only one of them gets preference when applying to Kamehameha Schools for admission.