I was thinking about his ordeal. Any other person, I thought, would have expressed some sort of hostility or loud frustration by then, but Joe’s a good-natured rock. If it had been me, trapped like that, trashing a truck in the dead of night, obstructing traffic, and listening to the transmission try to vomit itself out of the hood, you would have found me crazed in the thing, thrashing around screaming in a way that would have shamed the snot out of my mother—and she can compete at the Olympic level in obscenity, should the occasion demand it. I thought about that, and the bruises both the pickup and I would bear from my fists smashing against the interior in rage had that happened to me, and I looked at Joe. “You okay?” I asked him, trying to broach the idea that if he had a little anger to share I would listen, and he looked at me. He pulled off his boots. He smiled a bit, and he said:
“Honey. That was a little demoralizing.”
I love that man.
DEATH NOTICE
abled Grey (nee Skein)—A mostly finished sweater and long-time yarn resident of Stephanie’s Stash in Toronto.
Cabled Grey died suddenly at home following a lengthy illness, surrounded by other knitting projects and a few knitters, on the 14th of November 2009. Cabled Grey was an ill-fitting sweater with raglan sleeves and largish cables, who began life as nine skeins of a pretty decent three-ply merino purchased at 20 percent off, and had marinated in the stash for about eight years. In his very early days, Cabled displayed a great deal of potential when executed as a beautiful gauge swatch, holding his shape and stitch definition, even when he was washed. Cabled will be remembered always for the promise he demonstrated when first wound into a ball of yarn, moments before his unfortunate infection with the terminal sweater pattern which was his eventual undoing. The yarns with whom he shared the work-in-progress basket fondly recall the cheerful way he endured re-knits due to errors in his chart, which of course became errors on his front, and for the way that he mostly managed to be a garment despite the way his raglan shapings were hopelessly miswritten in the pattern. They respected the way that Cabled held his ribbings high, despite the inescapable truth that there was absolutely no way that his designer had possibly written down the right number of stitches to pick up for his buttonband, leaving him eternally crooked round the front and neck.
In most obituaries, this is the part where one would say that the dearly departed fought valiantly or bravely, but such was not the case with Cabled Grey, who gave up on being a sweater faster than a sixteen-year-old can spend $50 at the mall. From the very moment that Cabled’s back was cast on, he was tragically doomed, for even though his gauge swatch had twenty-eight stitches to four inches, it turned out that Cabled actually harbored a secret desire to have twenty-two stitches to four inches, which is a destiny that he manifested about midway through the second front, creating a sweater that had cardigan fronts of two dramatically different sizes, which would have been fine were the breasts of the recipient likewise as different as a tangerine and a watermelon, which they were not.
Cabled was ripped back several times in his life, but it never seemed to bother him at all, and, in fact, his knitter rather suspected that he was trying to prolong the knitting process by embracing the errors and re-knits. He was the sort of project that was really able to cut loose and let things happen. Even as his knitter was begging him to please get his gauge together and honor the commitment that is making a sweater, Cabled was able to stay true to his inner nature, which was that of a mercurial, flighty yarn with no real goals. (Suggestions that Cabled Grey may have had some hemp in his fiber content are untrue, but we see why knitters might have gotten the idea.) In fact it was the way that Cabled was happy just to
“Honey. That was a little demoralizing.”
I love that man.
DEATH NOTICE
abled Grey (nee Skein)—A mostly finished sweater and long-time yarn resident of Stephanie’s Stash in Toronto.
Cabled Grey died suddenly at home following a lengthy illness, surrounded by other knitting projects and a few knitters, on the 14th of November 2009. Cabled Grey was an ill-fitting sweater with raglan sleeves and largish cables, who began life as nine skeins of a pretty decent three-ply merino purchased at 20 percent off, and had marinated in the stash for about eight years. In his very early days, Cabled displayed a great deal of potential when executed as a beautiful gauge swatch, holding his shape and stitch definition, even when he was washed. Cabled will be remembered always for the promise he demonstrated when first wound into a ball of yarn, moments before his unfortunate infection with the terminal sweater pattern which was his eventual undoing. The yarns with whom he shared the work-in-progress basket fondly recall the cheerful way he endured re-knits due to errors in his chart, which of course became errors on his front, and for the way that he mostly managed to be a garment despite the way his raglan shapings were hopelessly miswritten in the pattern. They respected the way that Cabled held his ribbings high, despite the inescapable truth that there was absolutely no way that his designer had possibly written down the right number of stitches to pick up for his buttonband, leaving him eternally crooked round the front and neck.
In most obituaries, this is the part where one would say that the dearly departed fought valiantly or bravely, but such was not the case with Cabled Grey, who gave up on being a sweater faster than a sixteen-year-old can spend $50 at the mall. From the very moment that Cabled’s back was cast on, he was tragically doomed, for even though his gauge swatch had twenty-eight stitches to four inches, it turned out that Cabled actually harbored a secret desire to have twenty-two stitches to four inches, which is a destiny that he manifested about midway through the second front, creating a sweater that had cardigan fronts of two dramatically different sizes, which would have been fine were the breasts of the recipient likewise as different as a tangerine and a watermelon, which they were not.
Cabled was ripped back several times in his life, but it never seemed to bother him at all, and, in fact, his knitter rather suspected that he was trying to prolong the knitting process by embracing the errors and re-knits. He was the sort of project that was really able to cut loose and let things happen. Even as his knitter was begging him to please get his gauge together and honor the commitment that is making a sweater, Cabled was able to stay true to his inner nature, which was that of a mercurial, flighty yarn with no real goals. (Suggestions that Cabled Grey may have had some hemp in his fiber content are untrue, but we see why knitters might have gotten the idea.) In fact it was the way that Cabled was happy just to
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