New York Minknit

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’ve tried to stick to only knitting on my blog here, but with this new post-a-day resolution, I may have to introduce other non-knitting topics, due to dearth of knitting info. Anyway, today, I saw the best hat–I cursed myself for not bringing my camera.  It was a pointy knit hat, in red, but the entire thing was covered in a loopy stitch–so fun and cute. It was worn by this awesome little old lady chatting with her friends–it was like woolen version of those funky bathing caps you see at the pool.

I belong to a posh gym*–though I am giving up my membership in favor of a cheaper option when my current membership runs out–and I manage to only take the uncool, frumpy classes. The best is this AWESOME aqua-aerobics class, where the teacher has this great mix–it builds up slowly, and then the most strenuous (and I’m not kidding, aqua-aerobics gives you a workout, despite its lame reputation) exercises are set to Journey (“Don’t Stop Believing,” natch) and then the cool-down exercises are set to that Feist counting song. It sounds lame, but you can tell he put some thought into putting together the mix, unlike the other aqua aerobics teachers who teach the whole class to this generic club music the whole time, and there’s no arc. Yes, I am arguing that the best gym classes have an arc. (Knitting related link: I have long thought that I should adopt the blog Exercise Before Knitting‘s name as a life philosophy.) I went to the gym today, and it was pretty empty, which is another nice benefit of a flexible work schedule.

* Doogie Howser has been spotted working out at my gym. Though I am not sure that that is so impressive.

I haven’t been working on my socks because I’ve been churning out this sweater, Garter Yoke Cardigan, from the latest Knit.1 issue instead. I’m normally an accessory knitter, but I’ve been feeling the call of the sweaters this year. It’s going well, and I’m using some Debbie Bliss tweed that I bought on close-out from The Yarn Connection. It’s good subway knitting actually, because it’s pretty straightforward, and also good for knitting on while yelling at my computer, which is the slowest computer known to man. I think I knit an entire inch today before it allowed me to pay a bill online. Sigh. Technology. Sometimes, it sucks.

Two pairs of my hand-knit socks get ready for a spin at the laundromat.

Well, it’s February, but it’s also Chinese New Year, which means for those of us (*cough* me *cough*) who are a little slow with New Year’s resolutions on the Western calendar, it’s a chance to start over. My birthday (which I am not going to disclose, because I fear sharing such information on the internet) is somewhere in these winter months as well, so that gives me another “new year” to look forward to.

I have lots of new things planned for this year, partially spurred on by some seemingly bad news: I was laid off. But actually, I’m rather happy about it because I think it gives me some time to think about the future and to develop my own projects. I’ve worked in publishing* since I was in college, briefly in books, and then in magazines, working for a decade now, and the landscape has changed. The pressure to generate profit in a dying industry is awful–I joke that we’re like monks illuminating manuscripts after the invention of printing press, insisting to our customers that our gold-ornamented capitals have a value that no Gutenberg-come-lately can match.

With my newly freed up schedule (I’ve held on to some freelance clients, including a small column at my old job, but these commitments are relatively few) I have lots of plans: (1.) Some just general life experiences (I’m lured by becoming a television extra–someone must want to hire me to walk around in the back of an episode of Law and Order, no?); (2.)  a desire to return to truly “old” media (I was a history major, and I have lots of random things I want to research, study, and write about); (3.) knitting and blogging (I’m going to try and blog every day–we’ll see how that goes, maybe every weekday will be more likely); (4.) learning more about “new” media (I’m sick of trying to deal with the internet from a user’s perspective–I’m going to try and sign up for some computer programming classes); and (5.)  yes, improving this website and my own professional site (I know that if you’ve been signing up with your own website to comment here on newyorkminknit.com, the links aren’t working, which is because this theme is not compatible with the latest version of Word Press–see number 4 for why this drives me crazy).

* All copy-editing errors on this blog are mine. I know, I know, sometimes I am not the best speller or grammarian, though in my defense, I was never a copy editor, I only date one. Every time I think about lie vs. lay I end up humming “Lay lady lay” and wondering why Bob Dylan starred in a Victoria’s Secret commercial. I get stuck thinking about this despite the fearsome warning from my high school English teacher that a person who didn’t know when to use lie and when to use lay would never get a job. (A curse that might be true for me, if not for Bob Dylan.)

I’ve been sick at home all day, knitting and listening to the 5 cds that I own. Seriously, I only own like 5 CDs. I know, it’s shameful and weird, whatever. I’m big into WCBS, weather on the 8s. I’ve already listened to Morrissey, Serge Gainsbourgh, and now, Amy Winehouse. Apparently, I only own CDs of drunk Europeans. Next up: Johnny Cash. (Moving on to drunk Americans.) I also do not own an iPod, and have been thinking of breaking out my tape recorder Walkman on the subway, just to mess with people’s minds.

Anyway, yesterday I went to the Yarn Connection, which is near my office, and which, sadly is closing. I never got around to writing a review of this store, because I am lazy, but now that it is closing, I am writing what might as well be a eulogy. The Yarn Connection was this sort of odd, mothball’d (literally, the foyer smelled like mothballs, though the store didn’t) relic of an old New York. Not Edith Wharton-old, but Annie Hall-old New York. One of the women working there mentioned that the store had been there twenty years, which means it must have opened in 1988, but it felt like it had opened in the 1970s. (I just looked it up on IMDB, and Hannah and Her Sisters was made in the late ’80s, and there’s also a distinct Hannah and Her Sisters vibe about this store.)

I think there are two cities that loom large in many people’s imaginations, New York and Paris. And for me, like many other people, my concept was shaped by random children’s books and movies, and this store was straight out of those books and movies. I know I’ve mentioned this Lois Lowry kids’ book before, The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline, but that book and Louise Fitzhugh’s Sport (which was a sequel to Harriet the Spy), kind of formed this notion of 1960s and 1970s New York for me, and along with random stuff like Tootsie, it formed this vision of what New York was like.

Anyway, this store was definitely a throwback to that kind of past. The owner and her employee were both, I think, native New Yorkers, with the accents to prove it (one of them definitely has an accent, I think the other does too), and they were always nice and  harrumphing around the store with their yarn and needles. I stopped by occasionally to pick up some accessories at lunch, and their customers were always middle-aged native New Yorker ladies, and they were always chatting and kvetching. It actually had a good, solid selection of yarn, but it was the opposite of the very styled SoHo-chic of Purl. It had a very only-in-New York feeling about it, not because of the selection, but it was such a neighborhood store, and there was always this sense that it was run for and by native New Yorkers. There’s a certain kind of middle-aged native New Yorker lady who would not hesitate to chew out a mugger who had the audacity to try and rob her and then continue on her errands, and this was the kind of lady who shopped at the Yarn Conenction. It also was a store for people who liked to browse–there’s a scene in Hannah and Her Sisters where Woody Allen goes record browsing, and that New York is gone. Kim’s Video, Tower Records, tons of bookstores, etc., all those stores where dubious men lurk for their obsessive collections have disappeared, and in a more feminine way, The Yarn Connection was a part of that genre. Adam described his friend the other day as “someone who was already nostalgic for things when he was young” and I think I’m like that too. If you’ve seen Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, it had that same kind of nostalgia. Though that movie was ostensibly set in 2008, that movie was one big nostalgic Valentine to that kind of New York.

They’re open until January 17th, with everything at least 20% off, so stop by if you want to say goodbye.

The Yarn Connection

218 Madison Ave.
New York, NY 10016
(212) 684-5099

I recently came back from a week in San Francisco, which from a knitting point of view, was a series of very small, minor, semi-unfortunate events.

When I was a kid, my parents snapped a series of photos immortalized in the family photo albums. I am sitting in a rowboat, and at first I am proudly showing off my Snow White sunglasses. Then, you see me dangling them in the water, and making a face because one of my parents was telling me not to dangle the glasses in the water. Then, off-camera, I have dropped the sunglasses into the pond, never to see them again, and there are a few photos of me bravely trying not to cry, because I persisted in dangling them in the water even though they told me not to. Though these photos do not have the same chronological story-telling element, basically, the same thing happened with my awesome watchcap. Below, you can see me wearing it while knitting in the park and waiting for the streetcar.

Then, sadly, it was gone. One day, when I took a whole bunch of public transportation, from Caltrain to the Muni Metro to the BART, I arrived to meet my friends for dinner in the Mission, suddenly realizing I had put my hat down somewhere along the line, and it was gone forever. I was totally sad, and complained the whole walk from the BART station to the restaurant, and the first thing I said upon seeing my friend was “Oh my god! I lost my hat! I am so upset!” We have been friends since the first day of high school, so she was used to my melodramatic ways, but her boyfriend was a little taken aback, and he was like “Um, hi.” I realized I was being kind of rude, especially because I like her boyfriend a lot, and was leaving him and Adam to make conversation among themselves without  being properly introduced. Fortunately, they share a love of burgers and pizza, so they chatted about that, while I continued to complain. My friend tried to make me feel better by pointing out she loses things all the time, and her boyfriend, once I stopped complaining constantly, pointed out that I should try to practice “non-attachment.” I think he was joking, and I said, “Is this a San Francisco thing?” and my friend said, “No, it’s a Buddhist thing,” which I did think was kind of funny.

Anyway, I almost finished one of Adam’s Christmas present socks on the plane ride out there, when I suddenly realized that I had left the ball of yarn for his other sock in New York. I pulled out my other sock to knit on (above), and I realized that I only had enough yarn for one sock of that pair as well. Grrrr.

Of course, this necessitated new yarn, no? When we got to the airport to fly back, I was like “How can I have so much knitting crap?” I made Adam take a photo of how much stuff I was lugging around:

From the bottom up, I have the new Mason-Dixon knitting book, Knit It! Felt It!, (both gifts from Adam), the new Yarn Harlot book (a gift from Adam’s parents who also gave me a kit of one skein and the book One Skein Wonder, which I left behind in New York–I don’t actually think Adam gave them any hints, so I was particularly impressed that they bought me the Yarn Harlot book), two bags of sock knitting, one bag of new knitting (the final 2008 FO, to be debuted with free pattern in 2009), and my traveling tool bag.

Here are all my FOs for 2008, all pictured above, except for the additional mystery FO to be debuted in 2009. I knit three lace items (top row, L to R, The Ella Shawl, Burgundy Bat Shawl, That Little Scarf);  one cowl (Ithacowl, free pattern if you click through); one hat and first Fair Isle project (the sadly lost Patterned Watch Cap); three pairs of socks, (bottom row, L to R, Spiral Socks, Rainbow Jaywalkers, Berkeley Socks); and three pairs of mittens (Hot Pink Mittens, Waffle House Mittens, and the mystery FO, which hint, hint, is a mitten-esque thing).

I’m big into accessory knitting, but I’m hoping to conquer sweater knitting in 2009! (My dad, who is in town, suggested knitting pants–I think he meant like leggings–today, but did add that he thought they would time-consuming. I agree, though the thought has crossed my mind before.)

Adam gave me an Organized Knitter case a few months ago, and I never showed it off on the blog, so here you go. It’s really great, and I use it every day. Here’s a shot of it open:

It’s good for hauling around all the little things that you forget to bring. Ooh, I just went to the website to link and I am now extra happy that Adam surprised me with the case, because it looks like they’re not going to be made for a while.

This is the back side of the scarf showing.

Pattern: That Little Scarf, by Anne Hanson, from Knitspot.

Yarn: One skein of superwash merino sock yarn from Maple Creek Farm Fine Wools. I seem to have lost the tag, but I think it was 450 yards and $20/skein. This was the only thing I bought from Rhinebeck 2007, and it took me until now to knit it!

Needles: Size 4 Addi Lace, from Purl.

Project started/ended: Started July 28, finished November 23.

This is the front side of the scarf.

Modifications: Well, 3/4 of the way through the scarf I realized that I was doing the p2tog tbl and p3tog tbl wrong–I would slip the stitches knit-wise, and then replace the stitches on the left needle and knit them together. I did this on one of my other shawls, and it seemed okay, but I suddenly realized on this one that you really do need to knit them together by inserting your needle from left to right, tbl, not right to left, tbl. Anyway, it was too late, and I decided to embrace this mistake variation, and continued to do it for the rest of the scarf. But it means that the top of the diamond is different than originally written.

I cannot pose with my arms not on my hips. Obviously.

Also, I knit 30 repeats instead of 20. I had quite a bit (maybe 80 yards?) left over, so I could have kept on going, but I got bored, so I stopped. It blocks out quite a bit longer–before blocking, it was 44″ and it blocked out to 60″+. It does have a cool pre-blocking texture, but I decided to block out to get the length.

All in all, it was a fun knit, though not a great subway knit, because I had to look at the pattern for every line. The yarn color is pretty too, no? Also, unlike a triangle shawl, each row is pretty short, instead of an ever-increasing triangle of madness. It took me about a 45 mins. to do each 12-row repeat.

I am freezing in these photos. But you wouldn’t have been able to see my “accent scarf” with my big puffy coat on. Sigh. What I do for the blog.

I think pompom making isn’t too tricky, but here are some step-by-step instructions in case you are confused. This is the Susan Bates set from Purl.

1. Fit two of the circle halves together, bump side touching the flat side of the other. Wrap the halves together until they’re full with yarn–more than you think is necessary.

2. Repeat with another two halves.

3. Slide the legs of the two parts together so they lock.

4. Cut through the groove between the rings.

5. Tie the pompom together by bringing a new piece of yarn through the grooves. Knot and pull tight.

6. Gently pull apart each frame piece.

7. Use the ties to sew pompom on!

Pattern: Patterned watch cap, with the Double Irish Chain pattern, from Robin Hansen’s Favorite Mittens.

Yarn: Two skeins of Colinette Cadenza, in Slate, $10/skein; 1 skein of white Zara Merino extrafine, $10; both from Downtown Yarns. If you make the brim shorter, like 1.5″ and no pompom, you could probably get away with one skein of Cadenza.

Needles: Size 4 Hiya Hiya bamboo 16″ for brim, size 8 Balene plastic 16″ for stranded colorwork, size 5 Clover bamboo 16″ for the stockinette top, and size 6 Boye DPNs for decreases. (The DPNs and stockinette top should have been on the same size needle, but I didn’t have a size 6 16″ or size 5 DPNs, hence the change.)

Project started/ended: November 10 to November 16–5 days from cast on to cast off, with 1 more day for the pompom!

This is my first stranded project–whee! I think I did a pretty good job. I’ll have to take a photo of the insides so you can see the floats. The Colinette Cadenza yarn color is beautiful–I felt sad to have to interrupt it with the pattern, but nothing was going to stop me from fair-isle-ing!

I enjoyed learning how to do stranded knitting, but I was shocked because I am normally a loose knitter, and have to go down two sizes from the recommended gauge, but on the stranded knitting, I had to go up two sizes to make the gauge. Robin Hansen’s book is very clear and helpful about how to do the actual knitting, and all in all, it went pretty well. (There were two periods of knitting rage: once, when I couldn’t get gauge and the second time when I couldn’t figure out how to decrease within the pattern–hence the solid top.)

My last two projects were with rougher yarns, so I was shocked how soft the merino felt. It was like butter! Here’s a blocking shot:

The hat is blocking over a tupperware bowl (one of a set, the smaller size is to the left) balanced precariously on a drinking glass placed over a Ms. Bento container. (P.S. That sink’s rusty corner once cut Adam’s finger so deep we had to go to the emergency room. This was early on in my knitting career, so I was actually kind of excited because I got to knit during the 4+ hours we waited, before they finally gave him stitches.) It was cool this weekend, so to speed up the drying, I started blow-drying it. You know you’ve reached a stage of insanity in your life when you’re standing in a bathroom, blow-drying a hat pulled over a bowl, balanced on a glass, on top of a thermos.

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.