New York Minknit

Here’s a link to an interesting project–send your sweater to this guy’s mom and she re-knits it into a scarf or this month, cut-off gloves. (My concern would be if you sent a seamed sweater instead of a continuously knit one, but anyway.) 

In knitting news, (which I almost just typed as “knews”) I have a completed project to show you! But probably not until this weekend, when Adam finds his camera battery charger so he can help me take photos. (By the way, I just looked on the dining room table, and I think I see it.)

My sister recently made a joke about the recession leading to a zombie apocalypse, which I figured was just some college kid joke, but then I was reading this Ravelry thread (“Will Your Stash Outlast the Recession?“) and I noticed that other people seem to associate the recession with a zombie apocalypse. I’m not sure what zombies have to do with what New York Magazine is calling The Greatest Depression, but there you go. Anyway, whether the zombies do or do not arrive, I am stashing up while we are still zombie-free, in order to have yarn to last me through the recession.

Aren’t these colors beautiful? I picked them out at Purl, three skeins of Canopy from The Fibre Company, but they were a gift from Adam. I recently discovered Zeitgeist Yarns, the beautiful blog of Kate Gagnon, one of the women behind Kelbourne Woolens, which distributes yarn for The Fibre Company. I want to make all of her patterns, and I grabbed a skein of white Noro on sale at the Point, (also a gift from Adam, who was combining birthday shopping with pity buying for me, I think) for her striped silk kerchief pattern.

I have a bit more stash too, which I will unveil as time goes by. Don’t try to come take it! 🙂

New York Magazine has an interesting article this week about the state of retail in the city, and how everyone is cutting back. They came to a lot of the same conclusions I did about yarn stores last week–lower profit margins and higher volume is the new formula for profit (ie sales), better customer service, and even after all that, inevitable closings of favorite stores. (I am kind of lured by the idea of going to Italy though, where a small town will be having a non-stop film festival with Mondo Kim’s videos. How Cinema Paradiso is that?) Yarn is even more of a luxury item than many of these other goods, but it is, relatively speaking, inexpensive, so people might hold on and keep buying yarn even as the economy keeps sliding. I’m not sure what will happen, especially on the wholesale side–will entire yarn lines disappear? If you have noticed any closings or changes at your LYS, leave me a comment, I would love to hear what’s happening in your part of the country.

Yarntopia, from across the street. I am taking up digital photography, so you have to excuse the learning curve on these photos. Adam, who is the better photographer, normally shoots the pictures for New York Minknit, but I am trying to learn, so bear with my efforts.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday, and swung by my old  neighborhood, Morningside Heights. I stopped by the local yarn store up there, Yarntopia, which opened a couple of years ago. I’ve stopped by this store a couple of times the first year it opened, and I went back today. It’s a one-woman operation, and it has a solid range of yarns (Malabrigo in all weights, including sock, large selection of Noro, tweed yarns), all available in fairly broad range of colors. Ivete pointed out on Yelp that the prices here are a bit higher than the suggested manufacturer retail price, which is actually something I’ve noticed across the board in New York yarn stores. Almost all of them–including the ones I frequent–charge more than the prices you’ll find listed on the internet. I assume it’s sort of unspoken collusion (not anything nefarious, unlike the Sotheby’s and Christie’s scandal of a few years ago) among the stores–if Purl can charge $14 for Koigu, then so can Knitty City, etc., and probably a result of the higher rents and costs of doing business in New York City. Even Knit-a-Way, the somewhat odd Brooklyn yarn store, sells their Addi Turbo needles for more than Purl, and definitely more than internet vendors. It is a problem though, and for customers who are watching their budgets more carefully now, stores that continue to charge these higher prices may find themselves having stiffer competition from the web. Many of us who are willing to pay a premium to support local stores, as well as to see and feel the yarn in person, may consider ordering from the internet instead when the difference in prices begins to significantly affect our shrinking disposable income budgets.

Duane Reade. Awesome or evil? You decide. Isn’t the snow on the trees pretty?

It’s a tough decision. I know that part of why I love New York is its collection of small, non-chain stores, and though this kind of  Stuff-White-People-Like-rant is a cliche, it’s also true. The loss of great independent bookstores (read: record stores, grocery stores, or whatever you love) across the city and country strips a community of its personality, even if many of these stores are/were run by crochety and/or snobby weirdos. (The Strand, I am looking at you.) But, at the same time, if these stores cannot compete with chains or the internet, I am not sure that our society should require that we support these stores out of a loyalty to a notion of the common good. (<–This is my closet Republican talking. Two of my friends, a Republican couple, gave me a book yesterday entitled Why Higher Taxes Are Wrong, or something, saying that it would push me over the edge to the “right side.” I was like, um, I do have closet Republican leanings, but as someone who voted for Obama twice, in the primaries and the general election; who grew up in San Francisco; and whose father worked her whole life for a civil rights organization, I doubt I am going to join the dark supply-side. But you never know.) Asking people to shop at your store because of a fealty to an ideal is a quick way to go out of business.

A sculpture at twilight (no, not the vampire Twilight, just regular twilight) in the garden at St. John the Divine. Also on my to-do list: learn photo post-processing.

I believe that these stores must find efficent ways to compete in order to survive. First, some may have to fail, (just like Lehman Brothers, or as one of the above mentioned Republican friends bitterly said yesterday, “the only bank allowed to fail.” He is, unsurprisingly, a former Lehman banker). New York just can’t support this many yarn stores, and though some, like The Yarn Connection, were perfectly great stores, there is not enough demand for all to survive. Secondly, the remaining stores must offer product that is unavailable elsewhere. Purl is a good example–their selection of Koigu is vast and constantly changing, and they have a number of colorways from Lorna’s Laces and Blue Sky Alpaca that are custom-made for them and not available anywhere else. Third, they must be willing to sell over the internet, WITH A WELL-DESIGNED INTERFACE. I cannot tell you how many online yarn stores have crappy websites that make me want to stab myself.  The future is here. Fourth, they need to promote either cheaper projects (one-skein projects) or lower prices to match the internet, and try to sell more. Volume, must, unfortunately, make up for diminishing profit margins. Finally, a number of these stores have to improve their customer service. I don’t want to pick on Yarntopia, but the customer service there has been, all three times I’ve browsed there, a bit brusque. If high-end restaurants are lowering prices and sucking up more than ever to customers, all of retail has no choice but to do the same. Of course, it’s easy for me to talk as a consumer, rather than a yarn store owner, but I think my analysis is correct, and the stores that don’t change will go out of business.

Okay, truly a crappy photo. But the height inside is really cool.

On a more cheerful note, unemployment has given me the chance to appreciate the poetry in everyday New York. Sometimes I forget, but New York is a really beautiful city. I went into St. John the Divine yesterday, and I forgot how magnificent it is inside. Plus they have a new insane sound system, so the organ is more like a cinematic surround sound roar of faith. Just walking around and seeing the trees all dusted with snow was so beautiful.

Yarntopia:

Address: 974 Amsterdam Ave
SW corner of 108th St
(between 107th St & 108th St)
New York, NY 10025
Phone: (212) 316-9276

I’m almost done with my scarf, though I’ve already knitted nine more repeats than the pattern, and I haven’t decided how many more to do. I’ve also started another project, which will be the subject of my next post. <–And if that preview sentence isn’t the most exciting one you’ve ever read, then clearly you haven’t been reading this blog very long. It’s true: My next post will talk about knitting.

Anyway, the scarf, at least, has been having a mildly interesting life, even if its knitter has not. Here, it and a Claes Oldenburg shuttlecock get ready for lift-off, at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, in Kansas City, MO.

Here, it watches the New York City Marathon.

Here is a funny bit of news about how an elderly lady who was slashing her neighbors’ tires (because she thought too many people were parking in her neighborhood) was sentenced to knitting sweaters for all of her “victims.” [via The Rainey Sisters] On a semi-related note, I was reading my Folk Mittens book, and it mentioned that in certain cultures, children were not allowed to go out and play until they had knitted a certain amount of rows (I think the Faroe Islands) and that brides were expected to knit mittens for all of their wedding guests (I think Latvia).

I’ve had a couple people suggest that I sell some of my projects, and I’m like, um no, because then I would turn into a sweatshop serf at home, instead of having a fun little hobby. I would guess that’s how people who had to knit might feel, instead of those who do it for fun. Here, obviously, is the place to link again to that Freakonomics article about knitting, with the salient quote being, “Whether or not you’re getting paid, it’s work if someone else tells you to do it and leisure if you choose to do it yourself. ”

Though on a side note, I am actually rather fascinated by the economics of how people try to make money from their knitting hobby, particularly designers. Sometimes I think that the knitting designers (on the Ravelry boards, at least) seem to get all up in arms about things like copyright, in an attitude very similar to freelance magazine writers. I was a full-time freelancer for a while, and still do some stuff on the side sometimes, and I’ve found that freelance writers seem to get upset (on message boards, at least) in the same way as knitting designers. In a way, I think it’s because neither profession is particularly profitable, so people get outraged about copyright infringement and all-rights contracts (hot topics for both designers and writers) because they need to hold on to every dollar they can. Sometimes I think the better solution would be to (a) find a more profitable line of work and/or (b) look at the future of their business and actual challenges they’re facing. I think the internet has really changed the notion of access and copyright, and for lack of a better term, the “knowledge economy.”

The internet had totally changed something like knitting. In ye olden times, people pretty much knit what their neighbors and families knit, and then when books and magazines became popular, maybe people learned from that. But the internet has totally broadened people’s knowledge of techniques and styles, and more importantly, provided that information mostly for free. I mentioned to Adam yesterday over dinner that I was interested to see how Twist Collective does, compared to Interweave [an internet-only magazine, versus a traditional print magazine], and he said, correctly, I think, that Interweave should be much more worried about Ravelry. Ravelry allows you to search with such speed and ease for patterns for pretty much anything that you want, whether free or paid, that it has become a de facto crowdsourced knitting encyclopedia. For freelance writers and knitting pattern designers, their specialized knowledge has become almost obliterated by everything from Wikipedia to Ravelry.

For something like a medical problem, I would still prefer to go to a doctor who went to medical school, rather than trying to self-diagnose myself, but I think many less-specialized forms of knowledge have shrunk in value, as a direct result of the information posted for free on the internet. So, on that cheerful note, I suggest that all of my readers learn a new skill to see them through the economic recession. Or go to medical school.

I’m not normally into post revision, but I did change a post about Black Mountain Weavers. I have received a couple of negative comments, and I realized that I was inadvertently having a more powerful impact on this store’s image than I meant to.

I was tipped off to my secret super powers when I noticed that I would occasionally get a comment on that post, and when I noticed that it was turning up as a fairly common search term on my stat analytics. Basically, Black Mountain Weavers does not really have a web presence, so whenever anyone googled the store, my blog post would come up as the second item. So my somewhat flip assessment of the store was transformed, via the power of the Google search engine, from a review read by the three people who read my blog, to The Review that anyone looking for info about this store would read.

I don’t necessarily think my assessment of the store was unfair–it did have a pretty small and rather pricey selection–but I reviewed that store fairly early on in my knitting store reviews, and I didn’t necessarily have a sense of the full range of the prices common to indie yarns. Also, I visited it before I read Clara Parkes’ The Knitter’s Book of Yarn, which had a paragraph that I found particularly persuasive: “I’m always on high alert for anything indicating small-scale, locally produced yarn. Not only is it a chance  to get something totally unique in an age of increasing conformity, but it’s a small way to validate and support what these farmers are trying to do…by supporting a sheep farm–by making even one purchase a year–you’re helping sustain an important business and a rapidly disappearing agricultural way of life. You’re also helping ensure a richer, higher-quality variety of yarns for all knitters.”

Adam calls the woo version of the food movement “sustainorganica,” and though it’s easy to make fun of, and not necessarily what I want all the time (I went through a period of addiction to McDonald’s Fillet-O-Fish, despite having grown up in the  “sustainorganica” capital, San Francisco), I think the movement does have worthy goals. So, I put my original review in strike-through and moved it to the bottom of the post, so it wouldn’t show up “above the fold” on Google searches, and tried to write a slightly more neutral review of the store so that knitters who are interested in the store will not necessarily be dissuaded from visiting it.

I don’t necessarily agree with some of the comments on that post, but I think the real lesson is not whether you should or should not support independent yarn spinners and dyers, but rather, how all businesses need to make the internet work for them, not against them. Even if you are some sort of live-off-the-land business or one that was created as a response to our overly technical world (not that that is necessarily Black Mountain Weaver’s philosophy, just a hypothetical), it is important to establish a strong web presence so that when people search for you, they will find how YOU want to be represented on a Google search, instead of a third-party’s opinion. This includes learning how to properly tag and program your posts, so that your page will show up high on the Google rankings. Whether you like it or not, the internet is the future, and any business that wants to survive needs to be aware of the power of customer-generated comments, whether on their own blogs or user-generated sites like Yelp.

I’m watching the Olympics and knitting, but not joining Ravelrympics. Since knitting is a hobby, I try not to get all deadline-ish about it, because I would probably get stressed out (and not finish anything). I’m also trying to only knit from stash, but not go on an Absolute Stash Diet, because things like that also tend to be stressful. (I went on one diet in my life, when a doctor told me to cut out all acidic things for a month and I nearly broke down…kim chee! mustard on pastrami! tea! It was tough.)

I spent all day yesterday taking down wallpaper, which is a boring and time-consuming project. I did knit a few rows on my new project though:

It’s Anne Hanson’s “That Little Scarf” (started on vacation, as you can see above).

It’s interesting because I’ve been reading Anne Hanson’s blog, Knitspot, for a while now, and I’m very inspired by the work she does. Yet at the same time, I felt that a lot of her scarf patterns were essentially a stitch pattern picked out from a dictionary, and sold as a pattern. I found an interesting discussion on Ravelry [registration required] about this–is it really a fair  to charge $5 or $6 for a pattern that’s just a stitch pattern?

I thought the discussion was quite interesting, and one that made me rethink her patterns. Seeing a finished version of some of her projects–even those in a simple stitch pattern, like her Luxor socks–has made me consider using certain stitches (like a simple knit and purl triangle) with certain patterns (like socks)  that I wouldn’t have before. But is the pattern worth the price? I know for me, I didn’t have the stitch dictionary that had this stitch, and more importantly, it was the matter of convenience. I was heading out on vacation, I had the yarn, and I just wanted to know how many stitches to cast on and instructions. For me, it was worth the $5. I also was very inspired by her use of the yarn color (I have problems picturing patterns in other colors, which is why Ravelry has been so great) and fingerling weight yarn–I’m not sure I would have pictured a finished product just by looking at the stitch dictionary. (The Walker Treasury Project is a great way to see the Barbara Walker stitches in color, if you have the books…which I don’t, but am considering buying.)

What do you think?

Two balls of Ornaghi Filati Luna Park Sock Yarn.

Two years ago, (also in March), I went to visit Seaport Yarn, one of the weirdest yarn stores in Manhattan. Recently, I had heard that the store moved, and this weekend, since I was going near City Hall anyway, I took a visit to its new location. (It’s still in the Financial District, just in a different building.)

Okay, the store is still weird, and continues to be in an odd office space:

(I looked at the photos from two years ago and I was carrying that same handbag, which is funny because I actually don’t use it that often, as it’s quite heavy.) Anyway, that’s me pointing to a paper sign that says: “Seaport Yarn, Fifth Floor.”

The new layout is much more open, and isn’t as kookily Being John Malkovitch-y as the old one. The owner continues to run her marketing business out of the same office though.

But it’s still hidden–it’s in that 181 building, surrounded by hawkers selling knock-off pashminas.

This brings me to a question I’ve been thinking about. Do you feel like you have to buy yarn at your local yarn store if you visit? What if you linger for more than a certain time? What if you’re the only person in the store? I do. If there’s a lot of people, or if I’m just in and out, then I don’t feel obligated to get anything, but if it’s just me (and Adam), and/or I browse for longer then 10-15 minutes, and especially if I’ve chatted with the store owner, I feel I have to buy something. (Hence the sock yarn in the top photo.)

It’s tricky, because I try not to have too much stash (in fact, I am aiming for zero stash), and it would be fiscally irresponsible for my own budget if I always bought something. (I’m not even going to discuss the enviromental and global pros and cons of consuming something you don’t need.) But small businesses do have a certain charm. I used to be less swayed by this argument–buy local to keep your neighborhood’s character–simply because I felt like businesses of any size needed to figure out how to compete with big box stores, instead of soliciting pity purchases from its customers. But with the growth of the internet, it’s something that’s become more and more of an issue.

We went to brunch on the Upper West Side today, and I was all grouchy thinking about the loss of Murder Ink. I never shopped there that much, but it was a GREAT bookstore, and it always sold a ton of Ellery Queens* (unlike *cough*The Strand,*cough* which is too highfalutin to ever have more than a couple of Agatha Christies on a sad little cart somewhere). It WAS something that contributed to the character of the neighborhood, and I was thinking about how if a murder mystery bookstore couldn’t survive on the Upper West Side, the heartland of cat-owning, tea-drinking, Agatha Christie-reading old ladies**, where can something like that thrive?

*If you like murder mysteries, I highly reccomend Ellery Queen. That said, one of my friends considers the detective “too smug,” so he’s not everyone’s taste.

** Totally me. I don’t own a cat or live on UWS, but I say that with respect. And as a former resident of Morningside Heights, I feel I know the UWS enough to comment on its change.

I grew up, like so many people, reading these kids books set in New York*** and watching Woody Allen movies (my dad is a big Woody fan, though I am on the fence myself), and wanting to live in that New York, a New York of the 1960s and 1970s–a New York that is now changed. I’m not so curmudgeonly that I think the change is always for the worse, and it’s easy to romanticize something that’s gone. (When I lived here in the 1970s with my parents, there was no air-conditioning in the subway, something that I think is Totally Insane.)

***E.g. The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline

I’ve always had an almost automatic dislike of the jingoism of “Buy American” or the righteous yuppieness of “Buy Local,” but as I age into a middle-aged crank, I’ve begun to understand the emotions behind these slogans more. Without local yarn stores and other small businesses, neighborhoods do lose some of their flavor. Anyway. I have more to say on this topic, including some supportive thoughts about the opposing point of view, but I’m interested to hear your thoughts about whether you shop at your LYS or online and why.

Oh, and the new Seaport Yarn info:

Address: 181 Broadway, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10007
Phone: 1-800-347-2662

Website: www.seaportyarn.com

I was reading Lucky at the hairdresser’s last week (<–which makes me sound like some kind of Southern belle, but anyway), and they had this article “The Best Websites You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of” and I read about this amusing site, Net Granny. The site offers 15 Swiss grandmothers who will knit you a pair of socks for $45. I have my own granny, who is, any moment now, going to call and threaten me about her hat that I have yet to knit for her, so I have no need for Net Granny. Net Granddaughter, maybe.

 (illustrated with random stationery found in my desk drawers)

 Have you read OlgaJazzy and KnitLit‘s latest posts? I’m talking about this and this–where they both point us to knock-off patterns of designer knits.

Olga found a zillion knitting magazines that knocked-off that Pringle sweater that I was lured by a few months ago, and I have to say, despite me mocking Lion Brand a few posts ago, the Lion Brand version is definitely the best, in terms of fidelity to the original and the styling of the finished object. BUT! It’s still nowhere as nice as the original–look at the cables, they’re so simplified compared to the original which had cables of different sizes, styles, and directions. Plus, I remember learning during my last search for that Pringle sweater that the original was knit in 4-ply cashmere, which I doubt the knock-offs are.

(I think the bottom sentence, “I look at fashion magazines with my friends and try to keep myself up to date,” is the most logical, but I find the abbreviated version more amusing, as some sort of commentary on fashion and feminism: “I look at fashion magazines and try to keep myself.” I bought this stationery in 1997 when I visited Japan, and ten years and many, many moves later, still have it.)

Anyway. I am not opposed to knock-offs, and I don’t even think the quality of designer goods is always noticeably better than the knock-offs. But in some cases, like the Pringle sweater, the quality IS definitely better and the knock-offs seem significantly shoddier.

And that quality is what brings me to Knit Lit’s post about the Vogue Knitting version of Alexander McQueen’s sweater. Knit Lit Kate writes, “funny how fit, styling and color choices can make all the difference!” Absolutely–the McQueen version on the runway is cool and avant-garde and the Vogue Knitting version seems much more pedestrian.

(I fear that my decision to knit a shawl is going to make me look like this lady. Kerkdracht in de rouw! I have no idea what that means. This is from a set of Dutch regional dress postcards–or “nederlandse streekdrachten”–that Adam bought for me when he went to Amsterdam last year.)

I know that Vogue Knitting offers designer knits, but I wish the designers would license more of their knits as kits or something. James Surowiecki alludes to this idea in the financial page of The New Yorker this week when he mentions the notion of “a registered original design,” when Jackie Kennedy and other society ladies of the fifties would buy Parisian runway designs made at Bergdorf Goodman or something through a licensing deal. They were Designer, with a captial D, but made here, probably in the garment district. It seems that the knitting community is small enough that they could offer similar kits or patterns for us knitters to recreate, without harming their business. (Well, maybe not. The kits would  be a blueprint for mass-manufacturers to knock-off these same garments, but this is already happening without the kits! And I shudder to think how expensive the kits or officially licensed patterns would be.)

Unfortunately, there seems to be a divide between knitting pattern–designers and couture and high-end pret-a-porter designers, and I wish we could have more of the latter available to us as knitters.

Okay, enough rambling for today.

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?