Knit Sisters

Yesterday was the “sixty-days-left-to-the-Big-Event!” milestone, a fact I was reminded of by one of our on-line registries—which seems to have taken it upon itself to tell me every time I log on how many days are “left.”

It’s basically the marital version of the Doomsday Clock.

I very clearly remember when there were 272 days left and now there are only sixty. Huh.

There has been very little knitting done around here, except for a little work on the pink socks, which endear themselves more greatly to me every day. They remind me of a favorite pair of pink socks I had when I was sixteen, a pair which passed on to their sock-y reward lo these many years ago, along with the rest of my Madonna Wanna-Be garments of the same era.

The day was observed with a visit to the Bridal Barn for my first gown fitting. In this awesome undertaking I was accompanied by my friend Nasser, who kindly gave me what my friends in New York used to refer to as “the gift of arrival.” In most areas of the country “the gift of arrival” is probably a puzzling concept, but in NYC, where only a tiny minority of our circle of friends owned cars, a person who drove you somewhere was bestowing a very great gift indeed.

Even now, Alex and I are “car-free” (note positive spin on yet another graduate school, poverty-induced inconvenience!) so Nasser and his Ford Taurus have on occasion helped us out when public transportation has proved to have its limits. Such was the case yesterday.

Besides, even if there had been a bus to the Bridal Barn, I couldn’t have availed myself of its service, burdened as I was by a seventy-pound wedding gown in an unwieldy garment bag, and two large shopping bags filled with shoes, undergarments, and various species of headdress.

It was frankly bordering on the absurd.

So is the fact that by my count, the bustle on my dress is going to have EIGHT attachment points. EIGHT! The Bridal Barn staff in fact recommended that I bring the person who would help dress me on my wedding day to the next fitting so that she might memorize the pattern of the bustle attachments. Since that person is my dear sister, and since she lives in the Midwest, that simply won’t be possible.

We’ll have to rely on our wits!

Dear Lord, is it possible that two women with some knowledge of garment-making and four degrees between them will not be able to figure out a bustle? Say it ain’t so!

Repeat after me: I will not to be outwitted by a flippin’ dress. I will not be outwitted by a flippin’ dress. I will not be outwitted by a flippin’ dress.

I am strong. I am invicible. I am WOMAN!

I will not be outwitted by my own wedding dress.

The Lost Patio of Atlantis is another matter entirely. Note that twenty more stones have been removed from their place in nature. Twenty-nine remain. And yes, for those of you keeping score at home, I low-balled the total the first time. It was a necessary delusion.

I helped. It simply could not have been achieved without my assistance.

So…eight bustle attachment points plus hemming the gown: it took over an hour for the lovely alterations woman at the Bridal Barn just to pin all that up. Bless her heart. Whatever she’s paid, it isn’t enough.

Especially considering that she told me that I didn’t look a day over twenty-seven.

Nasser, however, had a rougher experience. While I was slowly transforming into a walking pin-cushion, Nasser was waiting outside. Which meant he was on the front lines of the Junior-Senior Prom Crowd. I didn’t witness any of this, but Nasser expressed his extreme dismay at the directness, even brutality, with which the mothers commented on the relative physical gifts or lack thereof of their daughters. Who were trying on the prom dresses, of course.

Now. I just need to say—although I know none of our readers are actually the perpetrators here—that we have got to stop this. As women, we have got to stop this. We have got to stop making other women, especially young women, feel like their worth depends on the size of their boobs and their behinds. It’s damaging, it’s retrograde, it’s insidious. It cuts against everything we’ve worked for and it’s not a minor problem.

Are ya through preachin’, Ma? Cause we’re all kinda tired.

Enough said. We all get the point.

Me? I’m pleased to report that, in spite of the pressures of the bridal industry, I have not dropped a dress size. Nope. The wedding gown still fits as beautifully as it did when I bought it last June.

Except that now there’s an eight-attachment bustle to contend with…but Sarah and I are up to the challenge.

We’re not going to look at Minnie’s shoulder seams anymore. And we aren’t going to discuss them anymore either. Just let it be known that I am not impressed with this kind of so-called design work.

We are not amused.

If I were queen this woman would no longer be allowed to publish her designs and fob them off on unsuspecting victims knitters who would then sweat and toil and hand-bead the bodice with “special beads” until their fingers bled…only to find that the motifs do not match up at the shoulder seam.

I am beyond consolation. But I did start one of Minnie’s sleeves:

I am knitting from the top down using a short-row technique to form the sleeve cap. All in a sustained effort to do an end run around setting in a sleeve. Which to me is about as much fun as working in a zinc mine.

I’ve finished the neckline and the button bands:

The search for the right button has come up short, I’m afraid. We didn’t have the right button at Woolcott, which means I’m going to have to go outside the “family.” I don’t feel good about it, but a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

This sweater is going to look fine when it is blocked. As long as you don’t look at the shoulder seams.

Meanwhile, wedding preparations have taken a dark turn. As you may know, we are doing something slightly unconventional in that the “wedding” is not a single event, but rather three:

Event Numero Uno: We will be married in an extremely small ceremony at an “undisclosed location.” This event, the wedding itself, will involve only our immediate families, an arrangement that we may ultimately live to regret, given how little our immediate families have in common with one another and given our foolhardy decision to have everyone repair to a “festive” dinner together after the ceremony.

I have been threatening to hire actors to take the roles of the various family members, including me and Alex. They will be given a script, the right things will get said, conversation will be witty and well-paced, the topic of religion will not come up, and the whole thing can be videotaped for our viewing enjoyment.

I will be played by Nicole Kidman.

She always looks great in photographs, and since the bridal industry has left me with the impression that the most important thing is how one looks and particularly how one looks in photographs…well, I think this will be absolutely ideal!

But seriously, just think! If the wedding and wedding dinner are miserable, horrific disasters, I will certainly get a funny story out of it and you can read all about it here. Stay tuned! This could be a lot of fun for everyone!

Event the Second: Two days after the strained, awkward meeting of our two families at a highly-charged emotional event, a situation that any fool can see is a proverbial recipe for disaster heart-warming joining of two people in the sacred bonds of holy matrimony, we will have a reception in California for all of our friends and family who live more or less out that way.

I have no major concerns about this. It might even be fun as long as we’re not dogged by an aggressive photographer, required to smash cake in one another’s faces, or forced mete out cheesy wedding favors like the “Love Beyond Measure” measuring spoon set.

Not that any of those appalling possibilities have ever actually come to pass at an American wedding, events known throughout the world for their restraint and unerring good taste.

Event No. 3: The Final Stop on the Bales-Wellerstein “Love Fest” Tour. Two weeks after the reception in CA, we will have a celebratory party out here for all of our East Coast friends and relatives. I’m very excited about this. Very excited! It’s just wonderful to think that my extended family and many of my oldest and dearest friends are going to be at this shindig.

There’s only one source of anxiety: we’re having this party at our house. I thought this was a really great idea when we dreamed it up a few months ago, and I still basically think it is a good idea. People can come when they want, stay as long as they want, bring their kids… It’ll be warm, informal, truly celebratory. Shelley can be there, and you know how I love that dog.

There’s just one problem: I was feeling expansive when I made the invite list and I believe that I’ve invited, um, well, something like 180 people. I’ve kind of lost count. Hey, I’m thirty-nine years old. I’ve lived awhile and I have a lot of friends. What can I say?

One thing I can say, and this for sure: this house is not all that big.

“But you have the back yard!” I hear you cry. Yes, and what a back yard it is! Having been “let go” for approximately twenty years, the back yard is a splendid example of unfettered natural beauty, including pernicious vines, rotting railroad ties laid down in tamer times, strange concrete paving stones that have shifted into mysterious formations, and buried Miller Lite cans that surface periodically after a drenching rain like so many archeological treasures. Home to wasps, garter snakes, and the occasional groundhog, the back yard is an ideal place to gain a closer understanding of your relationship to nature and your own place in the natural order of the world.

It is not, however, a great place to have a wedding reception.

I decided last Sunday that I needed to rake and clean up one small sector of the yarn only, to at least take a stab at beginning to get it under control. I worked for two backbreaking hours. I filled two garbage cans and two large bags with detritus:

First can of yard crap.

And its little chum.

And all my toil, all my efforts resulted in this:

Suburban back yard or abandoned lot?

Toward the end of my yard session, I had taken to belting out, “You gotta have heart!/Miles and miles and miles of heart!/When the odds are sayin’ you’ll never win/That’s when the grin should start!”

Thereby squandering all my accrued social capital with the neighbors.

The fact is, I’m no gardener. So here is my question to you: what do you know about gardening? About getting an unruly back yard under your thumb? I’m not after the Gardens of Versailles here, but just something passable.

Spill. Please. Come summer, there are 180 people who will thank you.

I would like to note that at this hour exactly three months from today, our wedding will be over. Can I hear y’all say, “Hallelujah!”?

Because I gotta tell you, this whole wedding planning thing is really getting to me. As my friend and colleague Chitra noted, “There is absolutely no natural relationship between deciding to spend the rest of your life with someone and being an event planner.”

We did get these lovely rings, however. Just in case you are wondering, at the last minute we decided against having “Really love your peaches” engraved on the inside. I still think of it as a missed opportunity.

Chitra is right. Our wedding is all about the “less-is-more” concept, so much so that it cuts against nearly every received idea the wedding industry has tried to sell Americans, and yet somehow there still seem to be a fifty gazillion nagging, irritating, and emotionally-charged details to deal with every single day.

And ultimately, no matter how much noble breath is wasted on the idea of gender equity, when it comes to a wedding, every single one of those details is referred for adjudication to…the bride!

But here’s some bad news, folks: the bride barely knows a tea rose from a dandelion. The bride is not an etiquette expert. The bride does not have strong opinions about cake fillings. The bride is not interested in matchy-matchy bridal swag or “The Future Mrs. Wellerstein” t-shirts.

The bride is frankly just not that, well…bridal. And that is why the bride is considering erasing her identity, running away to the Greek Islands, and living out the remainder of her days under an assumed name. The bride can develop a discerning taste for retsina and Greek men, trust me.

But since that whole erase-your-identity thing is kind of a radical move, and since I was kind of having a mini wedding meltdown today, I decided instead to relieve some of the pressure by starting a new project.

You have to admit that more knitting is a better stress-relief strategy than drinking three-quarters of a bottle of Jack Daniels and heading out in the woods with a shotgun. Heavens, the last thing I’d want to do is drink three-quarters of a bottle of Jack and go out into the woods with a shotgun!

But it is on the list.

Not that Minnie has been abandoned. Far from it! She is developing into a lovely girl:

I’m quite pleased with my progress on the fronts.

I just decided to start these socks:

From this delightful new book from Interweave Press:

Cascade Fixation in pink (pink!) on size 5 needles.

These babies will be done before you can say, “Something borrowed and something blue, my *ss.”

Just when you think that you’ve seen the worst the bridal industry has to offer, they surprise you with some new “innovation.”

What fresh hell is this? Well, cats and kittens, here’s the latest bridal merchandise, marketed under the banner of, “Show Everyone You’re Getting Married!”:

Dearly beloved, there’s nothing like a “got husband!” t-shirt to make you yearn for the bygone days of the 70s, with their humorless “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” apparel, bra burnings, consciousness raising groups, ubiquitous subscriptions to Ms. magazine, and orange shag carpets.

I’d even be willing to suffer through a new wave of Bee Gees hits if we could get back at least some of that spirit. Stayin’ alive, indeed.

I’m not even going to explore further this t-shirt’s icky connection to the “got milk?” campaign, and the subtextual undercurrents that invoke and link up—at least by thematic association—marriage, the resort to manipulative tactics by an oppressed group, female passivity and objectification, fecundity, and dependence on the male.

Oh, crap. I said I wasn’t going to do it, and then I did. Never trust a graduate student who says she’s going to resist long-winded analysis. It’s always a lie.

Now, in “honor” of this new t-shirt offering and the ongoing, full-court press by the bridal industry to get all brides to “drop a dress size” before the “big day” (discussed in greater depth on this blog here) AND Alex’s recent resolution to start pumping iron in an attempt to look more like Daniel Craig, I have made the following deals with my beloved:

Deal 1: I will wear the “got husband!” t-shirt if, and only if, Alex will wear either a t-shirt that says, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” or “got wife with Ph.D. and power tools who don’t take no crap!” I think it’s nice to offer a choice, don’t you?

Deal 2: I will “drop a dress size” before our wedding if, and only if, Alex will commit to a frenetic bridal-style self-improvement program that will include (among other things, naturellement!—like teeth whitening procedures and regular manicures…) a minimum of five, hour-long workouts a week so that he can package himself for me on our wedding day as an object that perfectly reflects to “The Masculine Ideal.” Something close to, say, oh, Daniel Craig.

Or you could think of the deal this way: I’ll drop a dress size if Alex commits to gaining a dress size! Or, um, something like that.

All joking aside, however, I’ve been thinking about all these threads—the present day bridal industry, the early days of feminism, the issues still facing women in American society today—and I’ve come up with more questions than answers. Here’s one thing I’ll say, though: upon reflection, I think that when all is said and done, a good man is an awful lot more valuable to a woman than a bicycle is to a fish.

But a woman needs a “got husband!” t-shirt like, well, a sturgeon needs a Schwinn.

I don’t know about you, but even though the 70s are long gone, I still got on my feminist boogie shoes.

Knitting? Still making progress on those gloves:

Back on Monday with some exciting stash enhancement news…

Once a month now, David’s Bridal Barn sends me an e-mail reminding me that only “X” number of months remain until my wedding.

Eight months to be exact.

For those of us who have been confirmed bachelorettes and might be plagued by just the tiniest bit of commitment-phobia, these periodic e-mails—which I believe are intended to make me desire even more bridal stuff, since the deepest and most spiritual of life events in America are, after all, an exciting opportunity for shameless commerce and gross materialism—give me the momentary sensation that I’m suffocating.

I get over that pretty quickly when I think about how great Alex is and how enthusiastic and confident I feel about the marriage.

A little knitting never fails to calm me down, either:

But here I am, at the age of thirty-eight, confronting the American bridal industry, a disturbing mega-business that seems based on a whole series of dubious and even dangerous assumptions about what weddings should be, how much they should cost, and how they are supposed to fit into the context of one’s life.

I think the most distressing assumption—which as far as I can tell goes unquestioned in all the bridal magazines—is that every bride should try to “drop a dress size” before her wedding.

Can we talk?

I’m all for eating properly and exercising and feeling healthy, but why must I be smaller by next June? Alex loves me as I am now and the only other people who will be at our wedding and related celebrations are people who already love me and see me as beautiful.

Nobody is going to say, “Gee, that would have been such a lovely wedding if only the bride hadn’t been so fat. What a shame she couldn’t drop a dress size before the event!”

No one is going to say that. I guarantee it.

But here’s my question: why as women are we still being asked—literally and metaphorically—to take up less space? Be smaller? Quieter? More compliant? More pleasing to others?

Size 00?

I’m not the first, and I’m sure I won’t be the last, to note the disturbing philosophical implications of Size 0 and Size 00 clothing.

We’re really being asked, in rather clear terms, to become an…absence.

This is hardly an exhaustive treatment of this very complex subject. But, dear readers, here is my pledge: I will eat well and enjoy my food. I will keep my energy up. I will be strong.

I will laugh loudly if I want. I will argue. I will refuse to hide my intelligence. I will offer opinions. I will invest in myself as a person and not an object.

A few years ago, an well-meaning old friend said he wasn’t very optimistic about my ever finding a mate. I was probably thirty-two at the time. “Ellen,” he said, “you’re going to be a tough match to make. You’re complicated and you have a big personality.”

It’s true. I take up space. Many, many men do not like that quality in a woman.

Some happy day perhaps those men will evolve.

But even if they never do and even if they are made profoundly uncomfortable by the existence of women like me, I will continue to be who I am. And I am not a zero—neither literally nor metaphorically.

Since you brought it up, Sarah, yes, plans are in the works for the lovely handspun sock yarn you gave me. I am considering Lorinda’s interesting suggestion about a Fibonacci sequence and also taking inspiration from Sensational Knitted Socks, a book my sister and I both heartily endorse. Stayed tuned…

Wedding plans consumed part of our weekend, which is not unusual these days. As I’m sure anyone who has had a wedding knows, these are events which, though joyous, are both time consuming and expensive.

Wedding gown with chapel train: $950
Elbow length veil purchased in a fit of enthusiasm and cheerful hypocrisy: $149.99
Initial deposit on wedding site: $400
Deposit on reception site: $1000
Finding the right man:

Priceless

Never having to date again: Also priceless

Because now that I’ve kind of settled into the reality of being engaged, I’ve realized in a deep and full and gleeful way that I never have to go on any more dates. I don’t have to do Match.com ever again. I don’t have to suffer the various insults and disappointments that—ladies, let’s be frank—men will deal out if you spend any time dating.

Except for a very wrong “starter” marriage that lasted barely three years, I was single and dating until I was 35 years old. There were times when I was involved with someone for six months, or a year, or a year and a half, but there were also many, many moons during which I was dating. Hard core, soul-sucking dating.

Let me be clear: there were many wonderful things about being a single woman living, for most of those years, in NYC. I loved having my own space, time to read and think, time to train my dog, the companionship of wonderful friends, the whole big, energetic, uncompromising city to explore on my own terms. But I did not love dating.

The experience of being single well into your adulthood is one for which our culture does not prepare you well. As the years wear on without finding your mate, you find yourself sometimes hopeful, sometimes in despair, sometimes indifferent, but always walking a tightrope. On one side is your big, rich, terrific life with friends, and work, and knitting, and a beloved dog, and a marvelous sister and parents. On the other (if you are a person who would prefer ideally to be part of a couple) is a big yawning gap where your mate is supposed to be. Sometimes you barely notice the gap. Sometimes you put a significant amount of energy into filling that gap. Maybe finally you decide that the gap will always be there so you may as well jump down off the rope and into your big, rich life and just forget all about what life might be like if you weren’t on your own.

But the rope is still there. The longing for a soulmate does not disappear even when you turn your head away from it.

No one likes to talk about this because we’re told that we have to be happy in ourselves before we can be with someone else, that we need to be self-sufficient, and these things are to a great degree true. But the reality is that very few people are prepared to go through life alone and do it completely happily. And I am here to tell you that even the single person who has, like I did, a terrific, busy life and is mostly cheerful and upbeat and optimistic has moments of complete despair during which she thinks she is going to be alone forever. It isn’t pretty, but it is real.

It’s a little crazy-making, this living in the full, present reality of your life alone, but also keeping your ear to the ground and a finger in the wind for signs of your mate. Even if you do yoga, that’s a tough pose to hold. It takes a lot of energy.

And sometimes the men you meet really don’t help.

One thing my years of dating gave me was a treasure-trove of stories. How about the guy from Match.com who, thirty minutes into our first and only phone conversation, said, “So…you look really cute and athletic in your photos on your profile. Exactly how much do your weigh?”

In retrospect, the correct response would have been, “You seemed reasonably intelligent in your profile. Exactly what is your IQ?”

Or the guy who, after three dates, announced at the end of dinner that he didn’t think that we wanted “the same things in life.” I said, “Oh, yes, well, since you barely know me, what would those be?”

He responded, “Well, when I’m involved with a woman I want her to be mostly focused on me, on my interests, and on what I want to do. I don’t think you are that kind of woman.”

Fair enough. He saved me a lot of time right there. Now, interestingly, he had spent a goodly amount of time during our second date telling me about “the nightmare” he had just lived through with his previous “crazy” girlfriend, with whom he had shared an apartment. He said she was so clingy that in order to break up with her, he had to sneak out of their apartment with only those personal effects that he could fit into a suitcase while she was at work and move into the YMCA until she lost his trail.

You gets what you pays for, Mr. Center-of-the-Universe.

And the stories go on and on. While you are going through all this—all this enervating meeting and spending time with men who do not treasure you, do not value who you are, and do not find you attractive—people offer advice and commentary in an attempt to be helpful: “You have to look for a husband like it is a second job.” “You are too picky.” “You’ll never find anyone because you are too romantic. You have to be more realistic.” “Have you tried online dating?”

The frustrating thing is, there isn’t any formula for how I got from 35 and alone with no likely prospects for a husband to 38 and happily engaged to a man so perfect for me that I could hardly have done better if I had invented him myself. None. I could tell you how it happened, but all I would be telling you is how I lived my life and how my luck finally turned. Not exactly generalizable. I can tell you this, though: in spite of all that well-meant advice, I didn’t find him by lowering my standards, becoming less romantic, or by looking for him “like a second job.”

For some of us, finding the right person requires a longer journey than for others. We just have to take all we can from the travelling and trust our instincts.

No matter where we are in our lives though, knitting, books, friends, family, and dogs make everything just a little bit better, a little bit more vivid. Here’s Rogue with her growing hood, cosying up to Sensational Knitted Socks:

From the side:

And her close-up:

On Wednesday, expect a little discussion of Rogue’s sleeves…and the challenge they pose.

Before I tell you about Miss A. and our knitting lesson, I would like to take a moment to enlist your aid in persuading my sister to GIVE ME THAT YARN she is spinning. You know, just a word or two in the comments about how you think I could give the yarn a good home and raise it properly to be the best yarn it can be… That would be great.

Because that is really some beautiful handspun.

Meanwhile, my friend Emily and I have had success in finding my wedding gown! I shall be ever grateful to her for helping me sort through the bewildering options. Although I don’t want to destroy the surprise element by showing you the whole dress, here’s a little peek at what the fabric looks like near the hem of the gown:

Emily and the lovely saleswoman, who had an unexpected gravitas and exuded life-wisdom, both endorsed this dress, which has a sweet, vintage quality. The second choice, upon reflection, was just a bit too much in the “hootchie-mama” category: plunging neckline, body-hugging silhouette, va-va-voom trumpet skirt.

The lovely saleswoman said sagely, “It will be your wedding. You will be standing with your husband, greeting people, seeing his family and your family.” Then noting my unimpressive stature, she added quite gravely, “They will be standing over you. You do not want them to see your bosoms.”

An apt point, I thought.

So once the dress was chosen, we could turn back to other things. Like knitting. Emily’s elder daughter, A., had extracted a promise from me when she was three that I would teach her to knit when she was six. To my surprise, she had never forgotten this, which is remarkable given that she’s had to keep it in mind for literally half her life. But such is the power and the allure of knitting!

A. is a very intelligent child, and she has a sensitive and loving soul. She has a poet’s depth of feeling. And she does karate. But she is also a bit of a perfectionist. Her mother was a tiny bit worried that A. might become frustrated in the process of learning to knit and have a slight meltdown. Since people much older and much more experienced than A. have had slight meltdowns over knitting (I mean, just once or twice…nothing major, of course…not the kind of thing that involves screaming and crying and swearing and throwing the knitting in the general direction of the bookshelf where it lands on your copy of the Clinton biography…not that kind of thing), I assured Emily that it would be no problem even if it did happen.

But instead, A. was focused, professional, and completely cool (her full initials are A.C.; just coincidence?). Here we are encountering a slight problem:

Recovering:

And continuing on our merry way:

What was fascinating and wonderful was how much A. improved her knitting skills overnight. Literally. When we came back to it the next day, she had integrated a lot of the hand movements that were awkward for her at first and had gone ahead by proverbial leaps and bounds. It was a delightful thing to witness. I predict a full and productive career for A. as a knitter.

Her younger sister, while still too young to knit, is a dab hand at imitating an airplane:

And a good time was had by all.

First the good news. The very good news. I’m getting married next summer to my perfect match, the one I knew was The One the minute I met him. And I don’t even believe in those kinds of instant, instinctual kinds of things.

But yes, it’s true. And in spite of Newsweek’s notorious, backlash warnings 20 years ago (when I was an impressionable 18-year-old) about educated women nearing forty, terrorists, and marriage (I know you know what I’m talking about), I am getting married just a few months after my 39th birthday. Of course, lately Newsweek has said, “Gee, you know, huh, huh, we were wrong about those statistics that said that you had a less than 5% chance of getting married,” but talk about a retraction that comes way too late to do any good! The information has been out there for 20 years, warping women’s lives. Thanks to them, I actually started grad school thinking, “Well this should make me completely unmarriageable, but I accept my fate.”

All I have to say now is, “Go to hell, Newsweek.”

I am happy. I am a statistical anomaly.

My friend Emily has been kind enough to volunteer to go bridal gown shopping with me. Bless her. I find the choices overwhelming and yet, after a while, they all look strangely *alike*. Okay, not entirely fair. There are five types of bridal gown that I have identifed thusfar:

1) Streamlined and sophisticated
2) Giant meringue
3) Could be your Crazy Aunt Erma’s sofa covering
4) Could be Louis XIV’s sofa covering
5) Hootchie-mama

For example, the dress chosen by the latest Mrs. Trump, that $100,000 horror, was an remarkable example of the worst excesses of Bridal Gown Category 3 & 4. It looked like she was a sofa. And here she was, a beautiful woman with all the resources in the world at her command! A terrible pity, really.

Another example: the late Mrs. JFK, Jr. picked a gown squarely in Bridal Gown Category 1. Good work, Caroline, may you rest in peace.

For the bride, like me, who is, as the Russian novelists would delicately put it, “not in her first youth,” (people, I just have to say–I love that phrase) there is really nothing for it but a gown from Category 1. Were I 23, I would seriously consider the Giant Meringue, but a woman not in her first youth in a Giant Meringue is not beautiful, but merely pitiable.

How does this affect my knitting life, though? That is the real question. Well, since our wedding is no longer completely hypothetical, I thought I should start working on my wedding shawl, which you may recognize as River.

If anyone out there doubted the magic of blocking, doubt no more. Like all lace, this piece (unblocked and still on the needles, of course) looks like a pile of noodles. Not exactly inspiring.

The truth is, I hate working with mohair and I am agnostic on knitting lace. But the problem is, I always forget this when I see a nice pattern for a shawl in lace-weight mohair. It seems like such a *good* idea at the time. In reality, I’d always rather knit something like Rogue, preferably in an oily, water-repellent aran weight yarn that enables you to stand by the Irish Sea for hours on end, looking brooding and mysterious. And possibly deeply wronged and dangerous. Not that I am brooding, mysterious, deeply wronged, or dangerous, heaven knows, but I like the idea of a version of myself who is like that.

Knit not for who you are, but for who you want to be!

P.S. As a limited, non-spinner, what are English five-pitch combs? I’ll have to ask my sister.