This is a detail photo of my sister’s wedding dress, circa 1987.
Friday night Pam hostessed a book signing for Susan Strawn’s new book, Knitting America. In addition to an opportunity to meet the author, get your book signed and sit and knit a little, Pam put together a compendium of her own history of knitting.
Unknown to me, I was the inspiration for Pam to learn to knit back in 1967! The story is that when Mom was pregnant for me, Pam asked to be taught to knit with a set of big green needles and some green and white yarn our brother gave her for Christmas, 1966. She wanted to knit her new baby sister something. She thought that knitting stitch after stitch would magically turn itself into a pair of booties or a bonnet. (Don’t we all wish that were the case?) When the “rectangle” she was diligently working on turned into something vaguely resembling Idaho, the magic spell was broken, but her determination to become a world class knitter was just further fueled.
She no longer has that misshapen green and white ode to the Potato State, but miraculously she does have quite a few of her early projects (and the original patterns!) AND the original circa 1966 green plastic “speed stix” that were a gift from Big Bro Scott!
If that weren’t enough, she modeled a dress she knit at age 17 for the evening. This was one of the first projects she knit completely from her own original design. It was a 4H project and eventually went on to the Michigan State Fair and one a Blue Ribbon there too.
It goes without saying that Pam has been an inspiration and mentor for me my entire life. Just looking at all the projects she completed over the years is very impressive in itself. But to realize that many of these projects were done without patterns is beyond impressive. Then look at the variety of techniques and materials.
Pam was knitting beaded lace before it became an internet rage.
She ripped up cotton fabric and knit with that back in the early 80s.
She even knit her own “disco/Flashdance” inspired sweater, complete with sequins knit into the lace pattern.
Add in the cables, colorwork and fitting details and you have a master class in original knitting.
She also credits the fact that when Mom “taught” her to knit that Mom admitted that she really didn’t know how to knit, she could only get her started and show her how to make a knit stitch. Anything beyond that was up to Pam to figure out. Because she never really had a teacher to “fix” her mistakes or to tell her she wasn’t doing something the “right” way, she just had to learn by trial and error. Combine that with Pam’s inherent perfectionist tendencies and you have a recipe for ultimate knitting success. She (we) eventually did have an incredible knitting mentor in one, Nella Taylor. She was our long-time 4H knitting leader. She had up to a dozen or more girls from ages 8 to 18 gather in her small living room every week after school (on Tuesdays?) to knit and learn. She also believed in the “learn from your mistakes” school of knitting and she would tell us what our error was and how to fix it but rarely would take the knitting from our hands and do it for us.
Of course Pam’s magnum opus was her beaded lace wedding dress. Twenty years later, it is still a classic design. Again it was knit totally from her original design.
(For the record, she wore a strapless silk sheath under the dress!)
I do intend to do a full review of Susan’s incredible book. I may even get my act together enough to do it via podcast. In the mean time, save yourself time and grief and put it on your holiday Wish List right now.
