New York Minknit

Fashion Design Books

Address: 250 West 27th St.
Phone: 212-633-96446
Website: www.fashiondesignboks.com

Adam spotted the re-opening of this store the other day. This is the campus bookstore for F.I.T. (the Fashion Institute of Technology). They have a large wall of yarn, all made by…

LION BRAND YARN!!!

At first, I was a little excited because I thought they might have Cotton-Ease, this hard-to-find Lion Brand yarn. But they don’t, though they do have fun fur and lots of other somewhat weird novelty yarn.

I’m really disappointed in this store. How could a fashion college have such a terrible selection of yarn? They even have these brand-spanking new Lion Brand booklets that are straight from the 1970s. It’s one thing when you’re a weird creepy sewing/yarn store from way back (very popular in the outer boroughs) and have dusty, faded brochures that were never sold; it’s another thing when you ORDER new Lion Brand learn-to-knit brochures that still teach you how to make horrendous acrylic slippers. Knitting has evolved so much since the selection here, and for a fashion college to renovate and choose to trap its knitting section in 1982 is really a shame.

I think Lion Brand has been trying to evolve a little bit, but they’re still trapped by their loyal fun-fur-loving customers. (What’s weird is that the Lion Brand HQ is right near Union Square–I used to walk by it all the time at lunch–and yet it hasn’t really evolved as a brand. Though I have to admire the intensity of this.

Knit.1 used to be sponsored by Lion Brand, and they had some cute patterns, and they still use a decent amount of Lion Brand. Anyway, if you work near F.I.T. or go to F.I.T., this might be good if you absolutely need something, but since School Products is pretty close by, I would suggest going there instead.

Downtown Yarns

Address: 45 Avenue A

NY, NY 10009

Phone: (212) 995-5991

Webpage: www.downtownyarns.com

This is a cute little yarn store in the East Village. I’m pretty sure that Stitch and Bitch was shot here. It has homey library-like shelving, which one of the employees said the owner buys at upstate antique stores. I’ve been in here a couple of times while waiting to eat dinner in the neighborhood and the staff here is really nice. I’ve never bought anything here, but I think the owner has a good eye for color and texture, and there’s a good selection of yarns here. In the photo I’m handling some Katia Jamaica cotton–here’s a cute baby kimono that someone made with the yarn.

I think this yarn store is a little bit like Purl, but it carries a larger selection of more inexpensive brands, I think.

Here are some traveling project shots in the new Greek and Roman Galleries. I was predisposed to dislike these galleries because they replaced the old cafeteria, which was beautiful and a nice spot for homework reading in college. The new cafeteria is depressing and underground, and has none of the glamour of the old cafeteria. The new galleries are nice, I just miss the cafeteria.

 (The gimmick with these photos is that the galleries have two statues of Hercules, a young Hercules and an old Hercules. The young Hercules is holding the hide of a slain lion and the old Hercules is wearing the lion as a hooded cape. I am trying to pose my knitting like the lion skin. The fourth picture is just a picture of me holding the shawl near a noseless bust.)

 The old cafeteria was where the kids bathed in The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Also, I recently learned, it was decorated by Dorothy Draper, which might be why it was kind of old-lady fabulous. Here’s a photo of

me at the Dorothy Draper show at the Museum of City of New York earlier this year.

On a somewhat random tangent, as I come upon my tenth anniversary of moving to New York, I’ve been thinking a lot about how it’s easy to be angry at the city. Sometimes, it’s hard to live here, and it can be frustrating and kind of a trial. But I’ve also been thinking about how much I wanted to live in New York as a kid. Books like that Mixed-Up Files book gave me such a glamorous notion of the city, and on a regular basis, it still feels like a treat. I remember a couple of weeks after graduating college, I went to the Met to hang out, and then, feeling a little depressed due to my then-unemployed state, I went to Payard to have lunch at the bar. My lunch was so nice and posh, my bartender so dashingly good-looking, and my newly met lunch companion so flamboyant and generous that I felt quite cheered up.

I loved Crazy Aunt Purl’s post today, and it reminded me of that story. Sometimes, in an effort to save for the future, I forget the niceness of now. Thanks New York, for putting the New York in the New York Minknit.

Sometimes, I like to read Sheri’s blog at The Loopy Ewe. I have never ordered anything from this online store, so I cannot speak for their customer service. That being said, I think Sheri’s blog is pretty good and certainly a smart promotional tool for her business. She writes three times a week, gives updates about the online store, provides free patterns, encourages community among her customers, and gives a sense of the woman behind the business. This is a corporate (or in her case, small business) blog grand slam. So many businesses have trouble getting a great blog off the ground, and hers is not only interesting but she also creates demand in her customers. So far, so good.

I don’t generally read comments on her blog, but recently, I read the comments on this post, and I was shocked. People either have no idea how business works or they have become deranged by their desire for yarn and have forgotten basic capitalist principles. Namely, you give someone money. They give you a product. That is it.

[Random, but related aside: For example, at EVERY magazine that I have ever worked at, readers would send mail asking why we had so many ads, and could we reduce the number of ads or, as one letter said, “If you must have ads, could you put them in the back so we don’t have to see them?” C’mon, do the math. Look at the current rates for Glamour: a 1/6th page ad, in black and white, costs $22,010 PER ISSUE. You pay $15/year for a subscription. Glamour is not going to “put all the ads in the back.” If you read the comments on this knitspot post, people are complaining about the same thing in Vogue Knitting–that there are too many ads. Almost ALL magazines–with some exceptions, like Consumer Reports–are advertising supported.]

Anyway. People were outraged, because some fab new German yarn, Wollmeise, quickly sold out within minutes of it being posted. Customers suggested, nay, demanded a limit on the yarn. If people were reselling the yarn, like with those “I am not a plastic bag” bags, then perhaps that would make sense. But if people are just buying it to horde it and stroke it and run around naked with it, then hello! This poor woman runs a business. Her goal is to sell yarn and to turn a profit. Not to make sure everybody gets what they want. People have some kind of weird consumer entitlement, where they feel businesses should be run to make them happy*, not to make a profit.

*Businesses, not, say, health care. Health care is a different issue. But you do not need yarn to live. That is not a right you are entitled to.

Okay, I’m curious about your opinions, and I would love it if you would respond. Obviously, I am biased, but I am open to hearing other opinions.

(1) What is your feeling about advertising in print and online? Do you feel it distracts from the editorial content? Or are you interested in the stuff they offer?

(2) Are there situations where you think items should be limited? Like Hermes Kelly bags, or more to the point of this blog, yarn?

It is time to discuss subway knitting. My main activities on the subway are sleeping and reading the newspaper–though I have never mastered the newspaper fold necessary to read the Times without stabbing everyone in the face–but I do sometimes knit on the subway. Considering the five worst subway stories I have ever heard*, I would think that knitting on the subway would be considered a really boring activity. But it is not! People are always talking to me about it.

On one hand, I understand. I have been known to strike up conversations with complete strangers on the subway, including asking people for help with crossword puzzle clues. On the other hand, I generally am not interested in talking to people about my knitting. Sometimes, the people who ask ARE knitters, and want to know what kind of stitch I am making or something, but mostly, they are not. No one has ever been mean about it (unlike the horrible experience this knitter had, ugh) but they always want to know if it’s hard, how they should pick it up, and my, doesn’t it take patience? Then they stare intently at my needles and yarn. (Once again, I am somewhat sympathetic, since I always always read people’s celebrity magazines over their shoulders.) And then talk with their friends about my knitting. The whole experience is kind of uncomfortable. **

*I will not go into detail about these horrible stories, but they are horrible. The least horrible involves vomiting on a stranger.

** Though one of the more amusing interactions was with two teenagers. The boyfriend said, “How come she has four sticks? I thought knitting took two.” And the girlfriend said, “She’s knitting socks.” [Calls out to me, “Hey! You’re knitting socks, aren’t you?” I say yes.] Girlfriend continues, “I saw someone else yesterday with those little sticks and yarn, and she said she was knitting socks, that’s how I knew.” [Calls out to me, “Hers weren’t pretty like yours though!”]

In other news, I have finished Harry Potter 7, but I will keep the ending quiet. I did randomly find this Etsy seller with yarn named after Harry Potter characters, in case you are interested.

My shawl is looking like a group of moldy lit*le alien bu*ts.

This is my first lace project and it’s pretty interesting. I like the Addi Lace, but I haven’t used the Knitpicks, so I can’t compare. I wanted to knit on vacation, so I didn’t wait to order the Knitpicks version. The Addi Lace needles are definitely better than the regular Addi. (And in response to the comments in the last post, yes, they are sharper than the Addi bamboo. I’ve tried Inox sock needles but not the circulars, so my review knowledge is limited.)

Sorry for the lack of exciting post material; I only have these moldy li*tle alien bu*ts.

From left to right: Addi Turbo, Addi Lace, Addi Natura, Clover Bamboo

Addis are too expensive. Anyway, here’s a photo for a comparison of their tips.

Not much knitting info here, but here are some great free patterns I’ve discovered on Ravelry:

Slightly More than Scarf , from Living in Stitches

Spring Cable Socks, from SpaceKnitty

Ribbed Lace Bolero, from 10 Feet High

Adam and I came back from a week at the Jersey Shore. Only a little knitting on the bus, ’cause my arm has been feeling ache-y.

The shawl on the bus ride down.

I read two books (The Patron Saint of Liars and The Magician and the Cardsharp) and Adam embraced his inner nerd by reading a Dune book:

We went to Cape May for a day and I briefly went to a yarn store:

Fiber Arts Studio                 
Address:
315 Ocean Street
Washington Commons
Cape May, NJ   08204
Phone: 609-898-8080

website:http://www.yarnsrus.net/contact.htm

I was only in here for about twenty minutes (it was hot outside and I quickly realized I did not need any more yarn) but it seemed like a nice yarn store. Not particularly spectacular, but it seemed very well stocked with every kind of yarn you might want (cheap yarns, expensive yarns, cottons, sock yarn,  baby-clothes yarn) and a decent-sized book section. It also seemed to have a lot of business–in the twenty minutes I was in there, there were tons of customers coming and going (about 15 or so), most buying quite a bit of yarn.  Cape May seems to have a lot of slocals–summer locals–who spend the whole summer in town, so there are a decent amount of knitters with a lot of free time. I overheard one customer saying she comes in every summer and another customer, who came in with a couple of kids, saying that they were going to knit bags for all of the cousins and aunts. It’s right next to the bus station, so it’s easy to find if you happen to be in the area.

Back to work!

I kind of felt bad saying this show sucked, but it did. First, three digressions.

1. At first, I was going to apologize for writing digression no. 2 (below), because I was thinking it sounded kind of pretensious and obnoxiously-pinkies-out-ish. But then I realized that I don’t think it is pretensious to care about art and literature. To quote from this funny hipster makeover article I just read, from TimeOut New York, “I resent being labeled a hipster. Just because I don’t dress like a preppy douche bag or listen to the pop garbage that pervades the airwaves? C’mon. Anyone with even an ounce of good taste can appreciate those choices.” Since I have notoriously bad taste in music, and I like to dress like a preppy douche on a regular basis, I don’t think the specifics of this sentiment apply to me, but the feeling does. I don’t think learning about art, literature, history, or other stuff makes you a pretensious snob, it makes you interesting.

That being said, another quote from this article (really funny, you should click through to it) also rings a bell, “Normally, I’m something of a book snob. I prefer reading—translated, of course—authors like Jean Genet or Hermann Broch to Dan Brown and David Baldacci. So it was with some trepidation that I entered Borders and purchased a Star Wars novel and a copy of Maxim. Reading these gems on the L train was humiliating. I wear my cultural trappings as a badge of pride, and apparently, I also like to impress people whose opinions I claim not to care about.” I am proud (perhaps obnoxiously so) of my attempts to learn about The Culture, so I will concede a bit of prentensiousness. Moving on to digression no. 2.

(1a. As this article proves, no hipster considers himself a hipster, and thus, no one should be offended by my description of the Renegade Craft Fair as being filled with “twee products and nerdy hipsters” since that would require self-identification as a hipster. Also? Nerdy hipster boys: cute. Twee products are also ridiculously cute.)

2. Sometimes I see something (something artsy, that is) that I don’t think is particularly great and in fact, kind of boring, but then I keep thinking back to it and realize that actually, it was good, because it had such an amazing hold on me. Examples include the movies Les Enfants du Paradis, The Saddest Music in the World, and the Golem, and these Francis Bacon paintings I once saw. The knitting show does not fall into this category.

3. There’s been a lot of drama around the knit blogging world about being mean (see Yarn Harlot, Knitting Curmudgeon, and January One, for various takes on this). Part of it, I think, is at least a little gender related. Women, for the most part, have been taught to get along, and there’s both a veneration and condemnation of Heathers-like behavior. Reading about the blog drama reminded me of this really great book, Civilities and Civil Rights. When is something an issue of civility and when is something an issue of civil rights? Does saying mean things about another blogger create a Hostile Blogging Environment? When is trying to silence or shame another blogger into silence an issue of taking away their rights? Should the Ku Klux Klan be allowed free speech? And so on and so forth. Discuss amongst yourself.

I introduce this digression to say that I felt a little bad about saying the knitting show sucked, but, hey it did.

All right, my many digressions aside, don’t you want another photo? Here ya go!

This was a piece that Adam and I both particularly disliked. To quote from Adam’s flickr caption: “It was supposed to represent the grid of Midtown Manhattan, but it just seemed like the artist pulled that BS explanation from where the sun don’t shine.

I told Claire [New York Minknit] that the piece and its accompanying artist’s statement reminded me of a really bad college paper that you know is bullshit and poorly reasoned but that you have to turn in because, hey, at least some credit is better than none.”

Overall I think the show really failed. If it was aiming to be a craft show, there no sense of great craft–nothing that really inspired me or made me gasp at the technique. As an art show, it did even worse. Some of the best art shows I’ve seen have created an immediate reaction of awe–Richard Serra’s sculptures (haven’t seen the NY MoMA show yet, sadly–though here are some photos of a knitter at a Serra sculpture in SF) or Pipilotti Rist’s video installations; challenged me to think, like the Kara Walker show last year at the Met; or hell, were just beautiful, like that Amish quilt show I saw in fifth grade. That Robert Moses show, though not an art show, was informative, interesting, and thought-provoking. That, at the least, is what a curator should strive for.

To say in the intro (first photo above) that the works are “commentaries on the traditional and stereotyped roles associated with the techniques and the practioners” is fine and dandy, but when you do it with something so facile as knitting a dress out of cut-up dollar bills, or having custom blankets made out of historical knitting photos, you have progressed into the realm of dumb.* I know that not just grandmothers knit–what does that really say about the role of women today? Or handicraft today? This was a question that, in my opinion, was not successfully answered by most of the art works, even though the plaques offered bs-y interpretations to claim that a wedding dress made of coffee filters represented the disposable nature of fashion. (The best piece was probably one that involved knitters reknitting corporate logos and sending them to Nike and other corporate HQs to protest sweatshop conditions, but there were only videos–no actual pieces–on display. It seemed a little protest-gimmicky to me, but I think it was the most successful at answering the questions about what knitting means today.) To go along with Adam’s commentary above, the bs-y explanations remind me of the time in high school when I almost told my class that when Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote “WE wear the mask that grins and lies,/ It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,” he meant butt cheeks. Fortunately for my English class, I realized this was a stupid comment and did not share it, though not before Sarah guessed what I was going to say, and started laughing and couldn’t stop. (Though secretly, I still don’t think it’s that crazy of an interpretation. Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?)

This show did nothing to convince me about knitting as an art, versus a craft. Also, to sound totally cheap, this show cost $9! I know that art should no price, but when I am coughing up $9 a person to see something, it’s frustrating to feel that a show is a waste of my time and money, when I could have paid nothing to see, say, the awesome mummies at the Met.

* What, you say, about Tom Sachs? Is he dumb? I personally like Tom Sachs because I admire the level of craft and wit in his art, but perhaps my opinion of him has improved as his fame has grown.

I have not been knitting very much at all, but I did see a bunch of knitting related stuff last weekend, so here is a post for you.

From left to right, top to bottom:

1. I go to Knit Away in Brooklyn to try and track down some Addi Lace needles. Success!

2. I attend the Renegade Craft Fair and huddle in the Traveling Rhinos booth while it rains.

3. The calm before the storm. Twee products and nerdy hipsters are everywhere!*

4. After a half-hour of hiding in the Traveling Rhinos booth, I decide to buy some yarn. I have more than enough yarn in my possesion, but sometimes, I feel a need to Buy! Buy! Buy!

5. It is pretty, no?

6. Traveling sock visits the Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting Show on the show’s last day.

7. Craft Kills. But actually this show kills, mainly because it sucks.**

8. One of the better pieces in the show–someone knitted shedded snake skin replicas.

9. Oh MoMA. I can see you lurking on the other side of the street, with your surely awesome Richard Serra show, whereas I decide to spend what remains of my disposable income by going to a crappy knitting show.

No links because I am tired. C’mon people–google.

(Maybe I’ll add links in the future when I am not so tired.)

* / ** The critic in me feels bad. I will expand “it sucks” in a later post. So that I am a thoughtful hater, not just a hater.