Los Altos Town Crier » Perhaps enough stitches for a niche: Knitting book won’t appeal to most

By Megan Ma

$Image from article Perhaps enough stitches for a niche: Knitting book won\'t appeal to most$

If you knit maniacally, keep hidden stashes of yarn in your house and plan your vacation spots around yarn stores, then “Knitting Rules” author Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is right: You’re not like the rest of us, nor should you try to be.

P.S. Nor do the rest of us particularly care.

Let’s face it; even the easily charmed will be pulling out their mental threads over this one.

First of all, this book will not teach you how to knit. It’s meant to be a heart-to-heart message to a fellow knitting fan, replete with whimsical asides that are more tangential than stimulating.

Take the passage about why McPhee recommends people to keep a project knitting journal, to document their forays into the world of wool and beyond. She calls these “overachievers” her heroes. But then, for some reason, McPhee describes being a mother of three and meeting another knitting mother who kept a knitting journal and was, clearly, by all societal standards, superior to her.

“Her house was immaculate. (She wasn’t a knitter.) I hated her,” McPhee writes. “She made me feel like I was doing a crappy job.”

It’s a laudable jab at humor, perhaps, but simply too random for my taste. McPhee says nothing about what goes into the project journal.

One woman’s obsession, told in autobiographical, often stream of consciousness format, does not constitute good reading or even an informative one at that. For knitters, there are a few useful charts in this book: a size graph aimed at sock knitters who, for gift-giving purposes, must determine foot sizes discreetly.

To her credit, McPhee does provide a glossary of knitting terms. But these are not explanatory or precise terms, simply McPhee’s imaginary ones. Take for example, the word “tink” which means “knit spelled backwards, the act of painstakingly undoing your work one stitch at a time.”

Don’t get me wrong; I can understand that knitting has its rightful place among other obsessive hobbies like fishing and foosball. This quiet craft can be deeply personal, prompting moments of meditation, frustration and unexpected stages of creative enlightenment. If you’re interested in getting into the mind of someone who thinks, breathes and writes about knitting, you might actually enjoy this playful, tongue-in-cheek book.

But if you’re truly keen on learning swatching, ribbing and rolling, invest in a detailed instructional book with pictures. Part self-help, part instructional and mostly blog, trying to find a single purpose this 224-page book is like unraveling meaning from a David Lynch film. You try to be hip to it and understand its meandering plotlines, but in the end, it’s probably more trouble than it’s worth.

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee will visit Los Altos on Sept. 9 at Full Thread Ahead, 169 Main St. “Knitting Rules” can be purchased at Full Thread Ahead. For more information, call 948-9036 or visit www.fullthreadahead.com.