Knitting for the Apocalypse

My niece asked me about genealogy the other day and I had a delightful time sharing with her. I'm afraid I haven't been blogging at all. I'm afraid it hadn't even crossed my mind. Hadn't even been doing genealogy until my niece asked me about it.

But then a friend sent me a link to the NYTimes article about knitting for the apocalypse. I'll see if I can share here for you. [I cut and pasted it below, sans photographs.]

I myself have not been knitting. I have been sewing masks. And with the scraps from those masks I have been making a plague skirt. I was going to make a plague quilt.... but then I was reminded by a friend that that had already been done. Ah, yes, so it had. [The AIDS Quilt.] I knew my plague quilt would not be pretty, but it would be historical.

I am feeling fortunate that I had the stash of quilting cottons in my closet. Wish I had a lot of elastic, too.

I think my skirt may be my 2021 Mardi Gras costume.... even if there isn't a Mardi Gras. A friend here in New Orleans said even if it's not a formal thing here next year, she'll be wearing a costume to the grocery store or on a walk, need be, because she will be costuming.

Here is the article written by Alexandra Marvar, May 8, 2020:

Why settle for a tea cozy when you can make knitwear fit for a nuclear winter?

Pastimes of yore have been all the rage during this pandemic — flower pressing, jigsaw puzzles, baking bread — and on that list, knitting continues to climb. In Spain, a hipster knitting company’s sales are surging. In Britain, there’s a run on supplies as the Prince of Wales rallies influencers to boost yarn crafts. Tutorials and essays espousing the healing powers of knitting have flooded the internet. In short: We’ve hit peak crafting.

But the fact that knitting-related businesses, in particular, are seeing a boost during this time of social and economic stress fits a historical pattern. When Danielle Romanetti opened her yarn shop in Alexandria, Va., in 2009, it was the pit of the Great Recession.

Loans were nearly impossible to get, and for the most part, people were holding onto their money. Yet Ms. Romanetti’s business immediately did well, she said. “Where travel and a lot of other things weren’t happening,” she said, “people were turning to needles and yarn.”

Now some of Ms. Romanetti’s customers are reaching out about a T-shirt that her shop, Fibre Space, used to sell. It debuted during the 2016 presidential election, and features a skull-and-crossbones motif — the skull in a stockinette stitch, and the bones, a crochet hook and a knitting needle. The text reads: “Come The Apocalypse I Will Have Clothing.”

“People are digging them out of their closets, wearing them again, sending me pictures,” Ms. Romanetti, 39, said of the T-shirts, which she reissued because of demand. “I guess it feels like the right time to bring it back.”

Knitting is a renowned stress reliever, at least for those not bothered by the clacking sounds made by its more ardent practitioners. Ms. Romanetti picked it up when she was in graduate school, to soothe her anxiety disorder, and for decades it has been suggested as a cure for rheumatism, tension, addiction, nervousness, insomnia, so on. But it has long been a foil to external chaos too.

Let us pause to recall the tricoteuse, a woman who sits and knits, coolly carrying on with her handwork as the world unravels around her. Fiction’s most famous was Madame Defarge, knitting through public executions during the French Revolution.

Then there are those who take a more active hand, wielding their needles as the novelist and knitter Barbara Kingsolver sees them: “the point-nosed plow of preparedness.” These knitters confess to squirreling away skeins of yarn as if they were disaster supplies. They share memes proclaiming knitting “a post-apocalyptic life skill.” For them, knitting isn’t merely a way to keep the hands busy; it is preparation for end times.

In mid-April, the pandemic forced a major knitting industry event, the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, to go online (with less emphasis on the sheep than usual). Shannon Okey, 45, a textile maker and the owner of a small press in Cleveland, needed something special to help her make back some of the lost income from the canceled fair. She settled on reissuing a book that spoke to this very idea.

“Doomsday Knits,” first published in 2012, was a cult favorite collection of patterns for comfy knit survival gear that landed somewhere between, as one knitter put it, the attire we imagined we’d wear when the world ended (Mad Max-esque accouterments) and what many have ended up wearing (pajamas).

In recent years, copies of the out-of-print paperback started going for $60 at independent bookstores and listing for upward of $200 online. As this strange spring progressed, Ms. Okey said she received a number of inquiries as to whether it would be available again.

“We rereleased it, and in no time it goes from zero to ‘Oh my God,’” Ms. Okey said. “Did everyone get their stimulus checks or are we all whistling past the graveyard?”

The creator of the book, Alexandra Tinsley, 34, of Ypsilanti, Mich., is a former professional knitter now furloughed from an enamel pin company. Each pattern in the book had its own vivid apocalyptic scenario. The cover features a garter-stitch balaclava paired with a Chernobyl-era military-grade gas mask.

An apocalypse knitting book was bound to happen at some point, according to Franklin Habit, 47, who works full-time in the knitting industry, by writing, illustrating and teaching internationally. “You know that thing: If something exists, someone’s made porn out of it? Well, if something exists, knitters have done something with it.”

“There are fandom knitters — knitters who are into ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Star Trek’ — knitters who are into burlesque, preppy cardigan knitters, knitters who are into punk,” Mr. Habit said. “You have everything, including the extreme spectrums of left wing and right wing.”

After Ravelry, a social network with nine million users that is at the heart of the online knitting world, banned open support for Donald Trump on the site in 2019, Mr. Habit said he was placed on a conservative knitters’ blacklist for being Arab-American and openly gay. But while politics may divide them, knitters can agree on at least one thing: Come the apocalypse, they will have clothing.

“In times of peril and crisis, handwork people find ways to make the best of what’s available,” he said. Indeed, beyond tending to their own needs, knitters have been called on, war after war, to stitch lifesaving “service woolies” for soldiers. (“Remember Pearl Harbor: Purl Harder” and “Knit Your Bit,” American World War II-era posters read.)

The practice is perfectly suited to conditions of scarcity. Sure, one can spend nearly $300 on a baseball-size skein of Jacques Cartier vicuña hair yarn (from an Andean relative of the llama), but one could just as soon unravel a forgotten garment, cast on and make something new, as pilgrims and pioneers may have, knitting by firelight on the decks of ships and in covered wagons, and as Britons during the World War II were ordered to under the “Make Do and Mend” campaign.

There’s also the easy comfort of the finished products themselves.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the post-apocalyptic branch of science fiction is not where we are headed,” said Deborah Nadoolman Landis, a Hollywood costume designer and fashion scholar. “I don’t think anybody wants to look like Neo from ‘The Matrix’ right now. I think people want to take embroidered handkerchiefs and stitch them together to make a blouse — things that are pretty and soft, that help with a feeling of security in a time that’s so unknown.”

Ms. Landis, 67, created the costumes for the 1981 movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and recently curated a science fiction-themed show for the Science Museum, London (postponed because of the pandemic). She believes knitting is an extension of the innate human drive to make something out of nothing.

“It’s very much part of the human condition to go back to basics,” she said. “In the joy of making something you can wear yourself, whether it’s a mask or a sweater, there’s an enormous feeling of confidence — in that ability to be self-reliant.”

And so customers new and old continue to patronize yarn stores like Ms. Romanetti’s (or their online outposts). She or members of her staff are there six days a week, fulfilling orders and hosting virtual shopping appointments on Zoom.

But there is one caveat.

“There is something very strange about knitting when 2020 is going to be the hottest on record,” Ms. Landis said. “If we’re knitting, we have to knit linen. I’m in Los Angeles. It’s going to be 85 degrees here tomorrow. What are we all doing knitting wool?”

Retirees Knit Sweaters For Chilly Chickens In Milton

Holy Christmas, how could I pass this up? Knitting sweaters for chickens? What a hoot.

And what wonderful women, choosing to take on this project. Gotta have a sense of humor and compassion.

I heard about this first on the 14th on my local PBS station, WYES.


Retirees Knit Sweaters For Chilly Chickens In Milton: It sounds like a joke, but a plucky group of retirees in suburban Boston has hatched a plan to keep poultry warm.

The unusual project began after members of a knitting club at Fuller Village, a retirement home in Milton, Massachusetts, heard about the hardships that some chickens suffer this time of year.

Certain breeds shed their feathers and grow new plumage in the winter months. Others imported from tropical climates just aren’t suited for the wintry conditions.

Organizer Nancy Kearns said the project benefits birds kept on a neighboring estate known as the Mary M.B. Wakefield Charitable Trust.

“I don’t think in my wildest dreams I ever thought anybody made sweaters for chickens,” said Barbara Widmayer, 76, who started knitting when she was 15 years old.

A chicken with a sweater in Milton (WBZ)

Among the sweaters Widmayer crafted by hand was one for Prince Peep, a rooster native to Malaysia.

“There’s so much going on these days that’s kind of contentious in the world,” she said. “It was actually very calming to me to work on this.”

Another knitter, 76-year-old Libby Kaplan, said the experience has helped her to overcome her fear of birds.

“One person I heard say there were more important things to do in this world. ‘Make things for people that need it.’ I think animals need to be warm, too, and I’m so glad we did it,” Kaplan said.

The chickens seem to like their sweaters: Estate spokeswoman Erica Max says egg production has jumped noticeably since the birds began wearing them.

It’s got some members of the club wondering what exotic project to take on next.

Kearns said someone gave her an article about a need for blankets at an elephant refuge in India. Making something pachyderm-sized, she joked, might be a little too ambitious.

“Probably not something we’re going to do,” she said. “But you never know.”

It wasn't all bad...

Ed Moseley is proof that it is never too late to learn something new. The 86-year-old Atlanta man taught himself to knit after his assisted living facility challenged residents to create warm hats for the preemies at a nearby hospital. ­After getting a knitting kit from his daughter, Moseley spent hours making 55 colorful caps for the infants. He even held classes for other residents, and with the help of his caretakers, friends, and family, delivered more than 300 hand-­knitted caps to the neonatal unit. “Now I’ve graduated to large caps,” Moseley said. “I’m doing caps for all my ­grandkids.”

Taken from the December 2, 2016 edition of The Week Magazine.

I love it; what a wonderful story.

Klaralund & Noro Silk Garden yarn

Oh my gosh.... I think it could be as many as 8 years later and I have finished one of my sweaters. Just in time for warm/hot weather in New Orleans and then later in Washington, DC. Sigh.

Yarns have been made after this Noro came out which seems to be much better quality and look very similar. The colors of the Noro Silk Garden yarns are particularly pretty, but there is so much junk spun in to the yarn. Hard, scratchy things that are tough to pull out.

I like the result, but though I followed the pattern, the sleeves are a little long for me. I made the Large, allowing for a 41" bust.

I bought the yarn at Wool Winders in Rockville, MD. I can't tell when I bought it, but like I said, probably 6 to 8 years ago....

The Health Benefits of Knitting

My mother told me she used to knit, as many of her fellow students did, during college lectures back in the 50s.

I have been struggling feeling good about taking the time to knit... though I want to. I just feel as though I should be doing something else, something 'productive'. Now I can use this article to justify my time with the needles.

Happily, too, my mother is very excited about digital photography, so I see that she will continue to benefit from the focus required by both crafts and digital photography.

I took this from the New York Times.

About 15 years ago, I was invited to join a knitting group. My reluctant response — “When would I do that?” — was rejoined with “Monday afternoons at 4,” at a friend’s home not three minutes’ walk from my own. I agreed to give it a try.

My mother had taught me to knit at 15, and I knitted in class throughout college and for a few years thereafter. Then decades passed without my touching a knitting needle. But within two Mondays in the group, I was hooked, not only on knitting but also on crocheting, and I was on my way to becoming a highly productive crafter.

I’ve made countless afghans, baby blankets, sweaters, vests, shawls, scarves, hats, mittens, caps for newborns and two bedspreads. I take a yarn project with me everywhere, especially when I have to sit still and listen. As I’d discovered in college, when my hands are busy, my mind stays focused on the here and now.

It seems, too, that I’m part of a national resurgence of interest in needle and other handicrafts, and not just among old grannies like me. The Craft Yarn Council reports that a third of women ages 25 to 35 now knit or crochet. Even men and schoolchildren are swelling the ranks, among them my friend’s three grandsons, ages 6, 7 and 9.

Last April, the council created a “Stitch Away Stress” campaign in honor of National Stress Awareness Month. Dr. Herbert Benson, a pioneer in mind/body medicine and author of “The Relaxation Response,” says that the repetitive action of needlework can induce a relaxed state like that associated with meditation and yoga. Once you get beyond the initial learning curve, knitting and crocheting can lower heart rate and blood pressure and reduce harmful blood levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

But unlike meditation, craft activities result in tangible and often useful products that can enhance self-esteem. I keep photos of my singular accomplishments on my cellphone to boost my spirits when needed.

Since the 1990s, the council has surveyed hundreds of thousands of knitters and crocheters, who routinely list stress relief and creative fulfillment as the activities’ main benefits. Among them is the father of a prematurely born daughter who reported that during the baby’s five weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit, “learning how to knit preemie hats gave me a sense of purpose during a time that I felt very helpless. It’s a hobby that I’ve stuck with, and it continues to help me cope with stress at work, provide a sense of order in hectic days, and allows my brain time to solve problems.”

A recent email from the yarn company Red Heart titled “Health Benefits of Crocheting and Knitting” prompted me to explore what else might be known about the health value of activities like knitting. My research revealed that the rewards go well beyond replacing stress and anxiety with the satisfaction of creation.

For example, Karen Zila Hayes, a life coach in Toronto, conducts knitting therapy programs, including Knit to Quit to help smokers give up the habit, and Knit to Heal for people coping with health crises, like a cancer diagnosis or serious illness of a family member. Schools and prisons with craft programs report that they have a calming effect and enhance social skills. And having to follow instructions on complex craft projects can improve children’s math skills.

Some people find that craftwork helps them control their weight. Just as it is challenging to smoke while knitting, when hands are holding needles and hooks, there’s less snacking and mindless eating out of boredom.

I’ve found that my handiwork with yarn has helped my arthritic fingers remain more dexterous as I age. A woman encouraged to try knitting and crocheting after developing an autoimmune disease that caused a lot of hand pain reported on the Craft Yarn Council site that her hands are now less stiff and painful.

A 2009 University of British Columbia study of 38 women with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa who were taught to knit found that learning the craft led to significant improvements. Seventy-four percent of the women said the activity lessened their fears and kept them from ruminating about their problem.

Betsan Corkhill, a wellness coach in Bath, England, and author of the book “Knit for Health & Wellness,” established a website, Stitchlinks, to explore the value of what she calls therapeutic knitting. Among her respondents, 54 percent of those who were clinically depressed said that knitting made them feel happy or very happy. In a study of 60 self-selected people with chronic pain, Ms. Corkhill and colleagues reported that knitting enabled them to redirect their focus, reducing their awareness of pain. She suggested that the brain can process just so much at once, and that activities like knitting and crocheting make it harder for the brain to register pain signals. More of Stitchlinks findings are available at their website.

Perhaps most exciting is research that suggests that crafts like knitting and crocheting may help to stave off a decline in brain function with age. In a 2011 study, researchers led by Dr. Yonas E. Geda, a psychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., interviewed a random sample of 1,321 people ages 70 to 89, most of whom were cognitively normal, about the cognitive activities they engaged in late in life. The study, published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences, found that those who engaged in crafts like knitting and crocheting had a diminished chance of developing mild cognitive impairment and memory loss.

Although it is possible that only people who are cognitively healthy would pursue such activities, those who read newspapers or magazines or played music did not show similar benefits. The researchers speculate that craft activities promote the development of neural pathways in the brain that help to maintain cognitive health.

In support of that suggestion, a 2014 study by Denise C. Park of the University of Texas at Dallas and colleagues demonstrated that learning to quilt or do digital photography enhanced memory function in older adults. Those who engaged in activities that were not intellectually challenging, either in a social group or alone, did not show such improvements.

Given that sustained social contacts have been shown to support health and longevity, those wishing to maximize the health value of crafts might consider joining a group of like-minded folks. I for one try not to miss a single weekly meeting of my knitting group.

Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival

This will happen on September 26th and 27th this year. (The card below is old! I had picked it up in 2014, but was unable to attend.)
I went in 2013, but not since. It is a small festival, but growing, I am sure.
Check out their web site to get more information.



The Washington County Fairgrounds are only 30 miles from Troy, NY - where Herb grew up.

Battenkill Fibers - Carding and Spinning Mill

WOW. That's all I can say.

Processing Services
Yarn Sales
Mill Tours

There is nothing glamorous about this job - you just have to be very passionate about yarn.
They are working on huge pieces of equipment which look like they came right out of the 1880s - and Karen told me that in some cases, the equipment is exactly like what they were using back then.
They need to humidify the work area so as not to get shocks. The heat can be significant inside the work space, though the other day it was cool, they were still adding humidity.
Fiber from rutting rams can be overpowering, knocking you off your feet. (I hadn't considered that as an occupational hazard.)
They will process many types of fiber - including cats and dogs! Probably not on a regular basis.... Someone even asked them about Hemp.
For the summer they employ farm raised young people for they understand the nature of 'organics' in/on the unwashed fiber.... All sorts of things fall out on the screens as the fiber is examined - bugs, sticks, grass, feces.....
The fiber is washed a minimum of two times, air dried and then sent through a humongous carding machine imported from Montreal. The pieces of loose fiber gets all over everything, gathering all throughout the machines and in the air.
Vacuuming must be a large part of the job description.... though perhaps that wasn't in the main body of the craigslist ad.


Karen, the mill manager, was very friendly and dedicated a huge amount of time to walking me through the process and answering my questions. The structure in which they are housed is a modern aluminum building - no historic building pulling power from the Battenkill river. The employees are wearing t shirts and shorts, listening to their mp3 devices with the wires tucked in to their shirts so that they don't get caught in the machinery. Karen explained to me how in the last century the women would strip to their undergarments when it was hot, but that accidents would happen when the sleeves of their blouses would get pulled in to the machinery.

Overall, my visit was a fantastic learning experience. I admire their passion. I recognize the need for the service, especially to all the farmers out there. I value the employment, especially in this fairly depressed region.

Both employees had to stop what the process to attend to the fiber - he is spinning the fiber and she is taking three spools of what he has created and winding them together to make a three ply yarn. The lengths differ on the spools, so she must change the spools on a regular basis so that there is always three threads being twisted.

This photo is taken from the other side of the machine the young man in the orange cap is working - this is from where he pulls the roving to create the threads. Nothing glamorous abut the space....

A combination of Sewing and Knitting

I am not saying I love what they came up with, but I am intrigued by the idea of combining knitting and sewing.

I was walking along a major thoroughfare in my home town and saw this in a boutique window:

Please forgive the poor quality of the image - I do not possess the latest telephone technology.

It is clearly meant to look like a sweater vest over a t-shirt, but why? Seems a rather nerdy style, but perhaps that plays in to a hipster sensibility.... but this just doesn't seem to work. And the necklace? - the stylists are trying too hard to be au courant. Look, now I am a fashion critic. (We know I have no credibility there....)

I guess my conclusion is that I am eager to see a good execution of the confluence, but that this is not it. Too bad.

Fiber Art in High Fashion

On the cover of Glamour Magazine's July edition, spectacularly attractive Keira Knightley is sporting a bright fuchsia, woven dress. The photographer or editor cropped it at about her waist.

As a fiber artist, that caught my eye - high fashion with weaving. Oh, our lucky day. The dress designer, Altuzarra, was inspired by fiber artist Sheila Hicks.

BUT - WTF? This dress is awful. It looks in the same vein as Carol Burnett taking the curtains to make a dress à la Gone with the Wind. Did Altuzarra take a wall hanging down and wrap the runway model with it? As a top on Keira it looks splendid and enticing, here on the runway it seems a bit of a joke. How disappointing.

Though Altuzarra's execution was unfortunate in my opinion, it afforded us an opportunity to learn about Sheila Hicks, who

was born in Hastings, Nebraska and received her BFA and MFA degrees from Yale University. Upon completing her studies at Yale Hicks received a Fulbright scholarship in 1957 to paint in Chile. While in South America she developed her interest in working with fibers. After founding workshops in Mexico, Chile, and South Africa, and working in Morocco and India, she now divides her time between her Paris studio and New York.

Hicks has been widely exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions. A major retrospective Sheila Hicks: 50 Years debuted at the Addison Gallery of American Art and traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia and the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. Hicks‘ work is also included in such collections as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York City; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; The Art Institute of Chicago; Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; and the Museums of Modern Art, Tokyo and Kyoto. One-person exhibitions include those at the Seoul Art Center, Korea; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.

Here is a tiny little sample of her work, called Escape to the North, which I found the same place I pulled her biography:

Stix in Bozeman

I visited with lovely Carmen at Stix Luxury Yarns in downtown Bozeman. She has a nice small shop right on the man drag with lots of brightly colored yarns. She has a small section of local Montana yarns, and I found the Bison Wool again for $68. (Hasn't gone up in price in two years time.) With the Bison Wool she also has lots of sheep blends.

I wish I could remember some of her words, but Carmen is making up words to describe the fact that she promotes crochet as much as she does knitting. Carmen says these words without any self-consciousness, so one must look at her and question one's own vocabulary. I heard at least two while I was visiting her shop.

I would like to find some really nice crochet patterns - and she seemed to have some good ones. I am under the impression that crochet would be easier than knitting or needlepoint on an airplane.

Montana Bison Wool

A little break from Herb as I transcribe and sort more of his letters. This is a blog called Spinning a Yarn under a Family Tree, so I do need to remember to put in a little bit about the yarn....

Last year I visited Montana and was fortunate enough to find a yarn shop in downtown Bozeman - very near the café where I imbibed a cappuccino with goat milk; I don't think I will do that again. Though an enthusiastic coffee drinker, I don't seem to have a palate for a blend of goat's milk and espresso.

Back to the yarn....


I once read that bison fiber is collected from the ground - obviously one can not shear from a wild animal - but this booklet which accompanies the yarn indicates that they have been harvesting the downy fiber from the hides of meat animals. I can't quite imagine the meeting of weavers and knitters with the abattoir.... But, the booklet indicates that 'once the fiber is sheared the hide is sold to be tanned and made into leather goods.' I guess the hides would go to waste and it's easier to shear a motionless hide than to collect fiber in the middle of the plain....

I purchased two 3.5 oz skeins of the wool - and, yes, $68 per skein. In this case I am using the Bison Cloud which is a 50/50 blend of bison and alpaca. This yarn is so wonderfully soft. The spinners suggest using it for items around the face because of it's delicious texture. I would agree.

I am knitting a very simple scarf pattern I picked up in Vermont from Battenkill Fibers. And so far only 2 mistakes which I have tried to correct, but that is not yet a skill I have mastered. I said this was a blog about fiber art, I didn't say I was any good at it!

My husband has asked that I never make anything for him. His reasoning is that he never wants to feel obligated to wear it. Sounds cruel, but I understand. I wonder if my brothers feel the same, as they may be getting scarves for Christmas this year (if I finish by then).