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Knitting for Anarchists

The What, Why and How of Knitting

Dover Publications, Inc.

KNITTING FOR ANARCHISTS

anarchism: 3. Rejection of all forms of coercive control and authority

- American Heritage Dictionary -

Most anarchists are gentle people. They see that government is the major source of violence in the world since governments get into wars, and that wars make people do monstrous things that they would otherwise never do. So they want to get rid of government. They see that the greatest source of oppression is greed and ownership of the sources of wealth, so they want the means of production owned by those who do the producing. They yearn to see the organizations of society grow from shared interests and mutual benefits—a constant coming together and moving apart so that no firm structure becomes established that could become oppressive. It's straightforward idealistic stuff.

The great desire of anarchism is for all people to live in peace, following their own stars. We may not be able to accomplish that in the world at large, reality being as it is, but we might well attain that ideal in the world of knitting. We do not need to be ruled by fashion in deciding what to make. We do not need to be cowed by professional decrees of the right and wrong way to do things. We do not need to be fearful of trying out ideas, of making mistakes and thereby learning, of creating something new and wonderful, or of just pleasing our own selves and nobody else. Anarchism is an excellent ideology for knitters, as I hope this small treatise will show. If I fail to win any to the cause, no matter. The I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World, familiarly known as "wobblies") advises: "organize on the issues, not on the ideology." It is the issues I mean to address. If we take control of our knitting and do with it what we like, we have nothing to lose but our chains and we have a world to gain.

In this book I intend to explain to knitters why they do what they do, and how to do it simply. In knitting, more than in many areas, understanding gives us power. Through understanding we become able to control our knitting and make it do what we want. Without understanding, we are doomed to do what we are told. Anarchists generally do not like to do what they are told.

Most people learn to knit by rote. That is, they are told or shown exactly what to do with their hands and yarn and needles, step by step. At first doing it is extremely awkward. Then it gets easier. Hands learn things far more slowly than minds do. You tell your fingers what to do and expect instant obedience, but it takes a while for fingers to figure out just how to obey. Once they learn, they find it difficult to change, as anyone knows who has switched from English to Continental knitting. (I know of no one who has gone the other way.) Many people, trying to get their hands to do what directions tell them, give up in frustration saying they "don't have the patience" or are "too clumsy to do that." I'm always sorry when I hear that. I know hands are endlessly capable of wonderful feats, but they need patience and encouragement.

In addition to patience and encouragement, hands need to be allowed flexibility. Your hands may just not want to wrap the yarn the way your teacher—book, person, video or whatever—is telling you to do it. They may have a better way, for them, of tensioning the yarn or getting it around the needle. I expect that many more people would knit, and knit with great enjoyment, if they could allow their hands to be partners in the process of learning instead of ordering their hands around like slaves. (What self-respecting hands would not revolt?) My theory is supported by the experience of enthusiastic knitters. When you look at what knitters' hands are actually doing, you see a great variety of styles of knitting. Elaine Rowley of Knitter's fame, once said she'd like to make a video of many hands and styles of knitting. It would show how the same thing can be accomplished in an amazing variety of ways. Once, when I asked students whether they knitted English or Continental, someone said she didn't know. I inwardly groaned, thinking I had a real beginner in what was a fairly advanced class, but she showed me how she knit. Sure enough, it was a hybrid style, carrying the yarn in her left hand and throwing in with her right. She knit beautifully.

The fact is, when people knit for a while they stop thinking about the book and the right way to do it and let their hands take over. Then they become real knitters. Once their hands know how to do whatever needs to be done, their heads begin to catch up. They begin paying attention to the fabric that is appearing under their hands. Their knitting naturally becomes their craft and they gain some understanding of it.

Some think more; some less. I have thought about my knitting for many years. Teaching workshops has caused me to think a great deal more because of the challenge of trying to explain things to people whose minds, as well as fingers, may work very differently from mine. Also, writing directions has brought into sharp focus for me many problems of both understanding and communication.

With this background, I have compiled explanations, speculations, exhortations and some highly opinionated advice. In addition, I have written a pattern designed to stimulate autonomy and creativity. (Can a pattern do something so contrary to its nature? I hope so.)

The explanations, which are the useful part, do not cover the contents of other books on how to knit. On the contrary, they focus on things that others never seem to talk about, or perhaps think about—but things that I have found extremely useful in my own knitting and have found that students in classes are happy to learn. A lot of this explaining is much better done in person with yarn and needles in hand, rather than in writing, but I've done my best with the limitations of the written word. To make understanding easier, I strongly suggest you keep some knitting nearby to test out what I'm writing about. Illustrations, it seems to me, are never quite good enough.

The speculations that you will run into are pure self-indulgence on my part. They are more things I've thought about while knitting alone. If they do not interest you, or if they irritate you, jump over them to the useful parts.

As for the exhortations, they are important to me. They focus on encouraging you to understand what you're doing so that you can follow your own path wherever it leads. I care a lot about the process of knitting and not just the product. Often people take up knitting in order to make a special thing. They may not like the process but they want the object, and they may never knit again. Okay. But too bad. It's not unlikely that the reason they knit no more is that they've made something with rolling pins for knitting needles and twelve strands of tangling, sticky threads. And they expected it to be fast and easy to do. I've found those kind of projects are never as quick as I expect or want them to be, and never as easy.

Also there are patterns that look wonderful in the photograph but are miserable to knit. I suspect these have been made on a machine in the first place. Or designed by someone who knows and cares little about knitting, then made by an expert who can manage to do practically anything—and has to for money. If a novice knitter hits one of these, he or she can be knit-shy for life.

On the other hand, if you understand your knitting and have a sense of what you like to do, you will never be misled by commercial exploitation in any form. Anarchists knit and keep on knitting because they love to, and they make what pleases them.

As for the advice sprinkled here and there throughout: a friend told me devoted knitters are all opinionated, so I saw no reason to pretend an open-mindedness I lack. I have faith that anarchist knitters are not oppressed by advice but take it or leave it as they see fit. What follows, in short, is idiosyncratic and self-indulgent, but I hope also interesting and even helpful for the average knitting enthusiast.

The patterns that follow this discourse seem to me particularly suited to anarchist knitters. They invite experimentation and individual expression. While directions are given that can be followed, the pattern can be used as a springboard for any number of variations. I've given general directions for both a jacket and a pullover, with detailed directions for both, made on a simple grid of squares. I like the simple squares and I think they give ample opportunity for individuality both in the selection of colors and in the more basic choice of whether to plan out a pattern before knitting it, or to choose your colors as you go along. The sweaters have conventional shapes, but the techniques they employ are far from conventional. They are worked in strips with each strip knitted onto the preceding one. There is shaping, unlike with most strip knitting, and there are no seams at all to sew when finished.

I should mention, in the interest of honesty, that there is nothing very original in my design. (Is there anything very original in most knitting design?) I became interested in strip knitting with garter stitch dividing lines through Horst Schultz, though my aesthetic is very different from his. I worked out the perfect buttonhole from some anonymous knitting machine directions, though there is enough difference between those for machine and mine by hand to claim credit, I imagine. The sleeve join on the cardigan is also mine, except, that it is basically nothing more than a three-needle bind-off. All of which supports my contention that knitting is truly a simple craft. All of us can do wonderful things with it and delight in it, with no need for anyone to feel superior to anyone else—and that fundamental denial of hierarchy is the foundation of anarchism.

IN THE BEGINNING

the truth shall make you free

-John 8:32-

It seems appropriate—not to say mandatory—to begin with an understanding of what we are talking about. We are talking about knitting. Knitting consists of interlocked loops created with a pair of needles. To my knowledge, knitting's invariant structure has not been rigorously and unambiguously described. I am going to attempt to do this. Then, fed by understanding, we'll enter the riotous world of freedom into which this invariant structure blossoms.

Knitting is, in essence, a method of changing a one-dimensional object, a line, into a two-dimensional object, a surface (and at times into three-dimensional volumes, such as leaves and bobbles). Less abstractly, a length of yarn (or any kind of fiber) is changed into a shape of fabric. In knitting, this is done by forming the fiber into loops and interlocking them, as illustrated in the figure LOOP STRUCTURE OF KNITTING.

Interlocking (a) gives loops a vertical pair of legs joined by a horizontal expanse, which I will call the crown, as indicated in (b) anatomy of a loop. Loops running vertically have crowns directed in the same direction and interlink adjacent rows (c). Loops in the same horizontal row are interlinked by loops with oppositely directed crowns in adjacent rows (d). Adjacent upward and downward directed crowns are displaced one-half stitch (e). The fiber is looped back and forth until the piece is long enough or the fiber is all used up. The product, a piece of knitted fabric, is shown in FRONT AND BACK SIDES.

LOOP STRUCTURE OF KNITTING

Knitting consists of interlocked loops (a). A loop consists of a crown over a pair of legs (b). Loops in adjacent rows with similarly directed crowns are vertically interlinked (c). Loops in the same row are horizontally interlinked by a loop in an adjacent row with an oppositely directed crown (d). Oppositely directed crowns are displaced one-half stitch (e). The open loops at the bottom of (a) contain two such half-stitch loops on the ends marked with [].

FRONT AND BACK SIDES

Front and back sides of a stitch are not symmetric. Since legs are predominantly vertical, the knit side with legs in front shows vertically runningVs. Since the crowns are predominantly horizontal, the purl side with crowns in front shows horizontally running crowns sometimes called "purl bumps."

Each individual stitch has a front and back corresponding to whether the crown is in front (and the legs in back) or the legs in front (and the crown in back). The interlocking loops therefore appear differently on each side of the fabric. Legs are predominantly vertical, slanting outward in the shape of a V. The side with legs in front shows vertically running Vs and is called the knit side, though it might well be called the "leg" side. Crowns are predominantly horizontal, curving in "frowns" and "smiles" as they cross the fabric. These horizontally running crowns are often referred to as "purl bumps." The side with crowns in front is commonly called the purl side—though it might well be called the "crown" side.

In the illustration FRONT AND BACK SIDES, the stitches in each row are the same and all the rows are the same. This pattern is called stockinette stitch. But other possibilities exist. If the crowns alternate in front on one row and in back on the next row, the resulting fabric is called garter stitch. If the crowns alternate in front and back each stitch across the row, two possibilities result. If the alternation occurs in the same stitches on each row, you have ribbing. If the stitches alternate in each row, you have seed stitch. These various possibilities are shown in the figure STITCHES FROM ELEMENTARY LOOP INTERLOCKS.

In the knitted piece shown in (a) of LOOP STRUCTURE OF KNITTING, there is no finished edge. Finished edges are made by one or another way of "casting on" or "casting off," which we'll take up below. However, another thing is clear from the figure, and that is that there are downward directed loops at bottom and upward directed loops at the top. You could use these loops to knit either upward or downward. But if you look closely, you will see that the bottom loops are composed of half of each of two upper loops because the upward and downward directed loops are always displaced one-half stitch. At the end are two unused halves of loops outlined in boxes. Here you can see why it is impossible to knit a two-color stranded pattern in both directions and have it match exactly. The pattern will always be half a stitch off in the other direction.

STITCHES FROM ELEMENTARY LOOP INTERLOCKS

Garter, rib, and seed stitches are formed by the elementary ways in which loops may be alternated front to back horizontally in the same row, vertically in adjacent rows, or both.

LOOPS ON A NEEDLE

Loops may be put on a needle in two ways. Legs my be either in front or in back and may be leading or trailing in the direction of the knitting. The leading leg is that closest to the needle you are about to knit with; the trailing leg is further from the needle you are about to knit with.

Knowing Your Legs: The Key to Anarchist Knitting

Of course knitting is not done by laying out many loops and pulling yarn through them. The loops are put onto a stick (a knitting needle) and the fiber is drawn through them with another stick. There are two ways you can put a stick through the loops as shown in LOOPS ON A NEEDLE. As soon as loops are on a needle, their legs can either be in front or in back of the needle.

Moreover, knitting has a direction. Stitches are worked from either left to right or right to left. The leg of a loop can either be leading with respect to the direction of knitting or trailing. The leading leg is that closest to the working end of the holding needle (as well as to the needle you are about to knit with); the trailing leg is further from the working end of the holding needle (and the needle you are about to knit with).

Each stitch, illustrated in LOOPS ON A NEEDLE, has two possibilities: leading leg in front, trailing leg in back, or trailing leg in front, leading leg in back. Understanding the role of leading and trailing legs and their position in front or back of the needle is the single most important concept anarchist knitters acquire in their quest for liberation from knitting oppression.

When you knit stitches you insert another needle into the first stitch, wrap your yarn around it and pull another loop through. To speak about how to do this requires some conventions. Authoritarian knitting uses conventions but behaves as though they were universal law. Conventions are absolutely essential for communication—but they are arbitrary. These are the arbitrary conventions I will be using throughout this book:

CLOCKWISE WRAP

The yarn is being taken around the axis of the needle clockwise as you look along the needle towards the working or pointing end.

COUNTER-CLOCKWISE WRAP

The yarn is being taken around the axis of the needle counterclockwise with respect to the pointing direction of the working end.

1. With apologies to left-handed knitters, I will assume we are knitting right-handed, that is, the working needle is in our right hand, the stitch-holding needle in our left.

2. When I speak of moving the yarn or needle in a particular direction, I am looking along the working needle from the unused end toward its working point. Clockwise and counterclockwise are defined as rotations about the axis of the needle with respect to this pointing direction, as shown in CLOCKWISE WRAP and COUNTERCLOCKWISE WRAP. (Notice that if you look along the needle in the opposite direction—from the working point toward the unused end—your definitions of clockwise and counterclockwise will be opposite to those I use.)

3. The side of the knitting facing us as we are working is called the front. The side away from us, the back.

4. The side of a garment that faces away from the body as it is worn is called the right side. The side facing the body is called the wrong side.

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Excerpted from Knitting for Anarchists by Anna Zilboorg. Copyright © 2002 Anna Zilboorg. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
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