Knitting Rules! Read Online Free

than tangled yarn.
    Knitting, no matter how fast you do it, doesn’t qualify as a cardio workout.
    Ten Tips for Identifying Your Own Kind

    Not all knitters knit in public. I don’t know why, but I think it might have something to do with the way people look at us. Considering how many kinds of knitters there are, it may be difficult to find each other in a crowd. These techniques can help .
    Yell the word
mohair.
A knitter will look up from her activity.
    In a loud voice, say, “Was that a moth?” A knitter will at the very least flinch, or, depending on the development of her stash, will leap up and run or faint.
    Wear hand-knit stuff. It attracts knitters like bees to honey.
    Look for a woman with small round holes in her purse. These knitting needle puncture marks are a dead giveaway.
    Knit in public. After 10 minutes, see who’s watching you or inching her way closer.
    In a large public space, loudly say, “I really don’t know why anyone would buy cashmere yarn.” See whose mouth opens.
    At a party, lock yourself in a bathroom that has the kind of lock with the small round hole in the center. You’ll be freed by the only person carrying a long thin stick. A knitter.
    Leave out wool for bait. (Watch the trap. You don’t want to lose the wool to a fast knitter.)
    Randomly ask people on the street, “Straight or circular?” When you get something other than a date or a perplexed look, you’ve found a knitter.
    Go to a department store and position yourself beside a display of standard-issue machine-knit sweaters. Put a sign on them that says
75 percent off.
Watch for people who walk on by with nary a look.

two
Yarn and How Not to Feel Guilty About It
    O NCE UPON A TIME , before I came to understand about yarn and the way things are, I felt sort of bad about my stash. Let’s talk about when I first started dating my husband. The first few times I had him over I sort of “tidied up the yarn” a little. (You do know, don’t you, that by “tidied up the yarn” I mean I stuffed it into bags and then into closets and cupboards and boxes and anywhere else I could to hide it?)
    I didn’t hide it all, though, partly because it’s impossible and partly because I didn’t want to hide the knitting thing entirely (it’s like trying to keep secret that you occasionally sit under the back tree by the river singing long songs in a falsetto chicken voice). When you knit this much, it’s such a big part of your personality that anyone who spends time with you is going to notice sooner or later. I just wanted an opportunity to charm him enough that when he found out about all the wool, he wouldn’t back away from me slowly and then run screaming into the night. I wanted to let him in on the wonder that was me (and the stash) and, I hoped, by the time that he really understood how much yarn there was — and how little closet space he’d be getting — we’d be properly together and he’d have a legal obligation to stay … at least until I could whack a pair of hand-knit socks on him and make him mine forever.
MANAGING YOUR STASH
    The whole time I was dating my husband, I kept quiet the extent of the yarn stash. I started to reveal it in stages, doses equal to the things that he revealed about himself. I discovered that he collected guitars, so I left the hall closet open one day. He showed me his set of antiqueamplifiers (
Hint
: amps are big), and I showed him my set of vintage merino. He has a darkroom for his photography habit? What a coincidence. I have under-bed storage for my sock yarns. He has every issue of
Popular Electronics
from the 1950s? I mention that the funny manure smell he noted the other day might be the fleece in the basement.
    If you have to share space with a non-knitter, it’s important to fully discover his or her hobbies. You’re going to need ammunition when he or she finds out about the