Smothered in Ketchup

Despite this salubrious health warning (and let's face it: pretty much anything is bad for you if consumed in excess), the grim reality is that we here at The Faculty Meeting Knitter are playing ketchup catch-up in a MAJOR way these days. I personally prefer to take the Great American Condiment only in small quantities, but with several months worth of knitting projects off the needles yet still waiting to be blogged, the only way out of this mess is through it. And so we press forward, one photo gallery at a time... Efforts are now underway and gaining momentum, with retrospective posts appearing at a rapid rate and items gradually being crossed off the summer's hefty "To Do" list. So if you have not visited the site in a while, perhaps lulled into apathy by the long intervals of silence over the winter/spring, you may want to check out the menu at the side of the screen, to see what you have missed lately. Thank you for your continued patience as this mayhem runs its course.

"No socks until tenure!!"

It sounds coockoo, right? But I'm not kidding. "No socks until tenure!" has been a mantra of mine for *years*, ever since the whole sock explosion began and knitters everywhere started spending their hard-earned savings on fingering-weight wool/nylon blends and obsessively carrying their sock projects around with them. At first it was just dpn's, but soon the alternate techniques came along and the Great Debates arose: magic loop vs. 2-circs, toe-up vs. top-down, heel flaps vs. short-rows vs. afterthought heels, etc. People took sides on these questions, and you couldn't visit a yarn store or knitting website, or open a knitting magazine, without bumping into another disquisition on why such-and-such was the most revolutionary and life-changing invention/discovery since the yarn swift. And don't get me started about all the hand-painted sock-yarns that suddenly flooded the market...

For a long time, though, I was only dimly aware of these momentous developments, because I had inured myself to the entire world of sock-knitting. I had heard just enough about the allure of sock projects that I instinctively shied away from them ("Beware the sock...") and vowed that I would continue to steer clear until I was granted tenure, and with it a measure of freedom and autonomy to accommodate passionate hobbies in my life, if I chose. Until quite recently (see below), I didn't buy sock yarn, read sock books, download sock patterns, or even fave sock designs on Ravelry (although oddly enough other people's knitted projects were in a different category from the work of sock designers). Mind you, I had nothing against sock-knitting per se. Quite a few of my best friends are avid sock-knitters, and I agree on principle with this fellow blogger's recent apologia for hand-knit socks. Yet nevertheless I came to view sock-knitting as Something That Happened to Other People, for the time being at least.

The problem was that my attentions, as a junior faculty member, were already spoken for. I needed to get my career stabilized before taking on either the financial burden or the massive time commitment that I knew sock-knitting would entail, because it would never stop at the first pair, or the second, or the third. One thing was bound to lead to many more, and I simply couldn't afford outside interests. To make matters worse, my first professorial "gig" was in a dysfunctional department. All my activities were closely scrutinized, and knitting too much, especially in public, would have been frowned upon as an indicator of insufficient dedication to my research. I was hired by a state university primarily for my skills as a teacher, and given responsibility for large lecture classes with 100's of students, but then judged strictly on the basis of my scholarly productivity. Juggling all the conflicting expectations and demands became a professional nightmare. I did what I could, but under those conditions, not getting tenure did not come as a shock in the end, or even as a disappointment. Honestly, the predominant feeling that I had was *relief* at being set free from an unpleasant work environment, especially since the job search eventually brought me to a small liberal arts college where I am MUCH more at home and have been both happier and, oddly enough, more productive as well. So no hard feelings remain, just gratitude at having arrived in a better place. It is remarkably easier to get along in life when you *belong* where you *are*...

But as more and more years went by without my getting tenure, I established an identity for myself as Someone Who Does Not Knit Socks. I had been chanting the mantra for so long that it simply became a fact of life, something taken for granted, like gravity, or tax increases, or the onset of presbyopia. My husband had heard tell of "Beware the sock" too, had seen the credit card statements from my other knitting exploits, and could do the math. So every time the subject of hand-knitted socks would come up, or sock yarn, or sock patterns, etc., he would roll his eyes and thank his lucky stars that I had not yet succumbed.

Staying away from socks per se did not prevent me from knitting. Lace emerged instead as the perfect alternative for my lifestyle, since each purchase of gossamer yarn, though by no means cheap, would yield hours, weeks, months, even years of contented handiwork. It was a process knitter's dream: once or twice a year I could spend a bit of money on gossamer yarn, and then settle down again for the long haul, putting in as much time on the project, or as little, as I happened to have available from day to day and week to week. After switching jobs, I found that I could actually knit during faculty meetings, or between classes, or after dinner, or whenever I needed a break. The eventual result was the Wedding Ring (see photo at left) and Princess shawls. Not too shabby, hein?

In 2006, after a year at the new post, the decision-date for tenure was set for several more years down the road. I did not object or try to accelerate the pace, because I was happy to concentrate on enjoying my work and let the rest take care of itself. All in due time, eh? And no socks for MRPP until 201o-2011.

Which is this academic year.

>>gulp<<

Suddenly the familiar landscape is changing. It was one thing to keep saying, "No socks until tenure!" when that basically meant "for the foreseeable future." But now that I am actually *up* for tenure this year — have indeed filed all the necessary paperwork and am only waiting for the Powers That Be to reach a decision — the possibility of knitting socks has started to loom larger and larger in my imagination. In many ways, sock-knitting has become the symbol for me of what tangible difference, if any, finally getting tenure will make in my life. I certainly don't want to jinx anything by speaking too soon, but the omens for tenure this time around are truly very encouraging. It's a totally different world. I feel extremely confident that the process is going to end with a verdict in my favor. So as far as sock knitting goes, we are no longer talking about a remote possibility. It could actually happen sometime in the next few months.

Incidentally, it can be an interesting challenge to decide precisely *when* tenure happens. This is more than just a semantic question. The specific procedures and protocols differ from one place to another, but there are typically several stages to the process. On our campus it goes something like this...

First the candidate prepares and submits a dossier and colleagues write letters (that was back in August), then an elected body known as the Faculty Evaluation Committee reads through all the materials (this is going on now) and eventually drafts a letter to the Dean with a recommendation, yes or no. That will happen most likely sometime before Thanksgiving. The candidate gets to read the letter before it is sent, and can make comments or suggestions for the record that are also sent along to the Dean. Next there is a meeting with the Dean (sometime in December?), who in turn makes his/her own recommendation to the President, who eventually presents a slate of candidates for tenure to the Board of Trustees at the February meeting. Only then, with a vote from the Trustees, does the tenure decision become official and final, although in practice that vote is almost always a rubber stamp. Deans and Presidents have been known to go against the recommendations from earlier stages in the process, but generally speaking, if the system is working right, the committee's recommendation should prove to be decisive.

So when do you celebrate? If you throw a party when the letter is initially drafted, the whole deal could still go sour at a later stage, which would be a devastating blow. But if you insist on having everything signed, sealed, and delivered, you have to wait until after the February meeting of the Board of Trustees, by which point the results are old news. It's a real dilemma.

Since I intend to mark the arrival of tenure with the knitting of socks, I have decided to celebrate in stages, by taking baby steps in that direction as each successive stage of the process is auspiciously concluded. My birthday comes in August, and this year it happened to fall right after I submitted my tenure dossier, including the grueling self-evaluation, which came out to a bit more than 12 pages single-spaced (I chose to be deliberately anti-superstitious about the page-count). My mother sent me a generous birthday check, and so I spent a chunk of the money on sock-related materials to mark the completion of the dossier.

First of all, KnitPicks was having the magnificent 40%-off sale on books. At the recommendation of a friend who is a veteran sock-knitter, I ordered Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch (AMAZING tutorials and tables to calculate stitch-repeats for feet in all shapes and sizes), along with its sequel More Sensational Knitted Socks. These books are the perfect place to start in learning about basic sock construction and how patterns of color and/or texture are worked into the various parts of a sock. And then, once having taken the plunge, I lost no time in acquiring the two irresistible sock-knitting books by Janel Laidman: The Eclectic Sole and The Enchanted Sole. The latter in particular is about as eye-catching a pattern collection as I have ever encountered, so I knew it would be at the top of my list when a portal opened for me into the magical realm of sock-knitting.

I bought a few experimental skeins of KnitPicks sock yarn too, in order to have some on hand. My purchases included two colorways of Imagination (hand-painted merino/alpaca/nylon, right), two colors of Risata (solid-toned cotton/wool/elastic, lower left), and one skein of Stroll Tonal (merino/nylon, upper left).

And I arranged for a "sock yarn petting-zoo" with my friends from a knitting group that gets together at the Barnes & Noble in Louisville twice a month or so. The experienced sock-knitters in the crew (i.e. everybody except me) went stash-diving and brought in sample skeins as well as finished socks in a whole variety of different yarns and fiber combinations, and then we spread them out on the table and discussed them one by one, drawing lots of comparisons and contrasts. It was so much fun!! I loved getting to see and touch and learn all about the different yarns from people in-the-know. I took notes. It was a fabulous hands-on experience, and by the end I felt a lot more confident about shopping for myself over the internet. I have a great big wish-list of sock-yarns now, as well as a growing queue of amazing patterns that I can see are in my future.

My not-too-distant future. WOW. Tenure means *socks*. Stay tuned for more...

A Blogging Milestone (or TWO!!)

Dear Reader,

Today marks the first anniversary of "The Faculty Meeting Knitter" (launched June 6, 2009) *AND* my 100th post as well.

I am awed and humbled to have reached these two important milestones on the same day. I mean, who would not be struck by a momentous feeling to see them appear together on the horizon, as I did a few weeks ago? Knowing that they were Out There, I could quite easily have taken steps to ensure that they would in fact coincide, but in all honesty I did not. I was extremely loathe to meddle in the ways of such wizards as may be seen to govern the Blogosphere, and thought it best instead to keep plodding away at my ongoing efforts to catch up. "Let destiny take its course," I told myself, and here we are...

On this occasion, I would like to extend a special word of appreciation to all my friends from Ravelry and Facebook who have supported this endeavor, but my sincere gratitude goes out as well to everyone around the world who has ever read my material. *THANK YOU*, whether indeed you follow the blog religiously, or have only stopped by once or twice in passing, or something in between. The art of knitting has graced my life in many ways, and not least because it brings people together out of kindness toward each other and respect for the craft. So the blog is just one aspect of a lifelong journey, and I am glad that there are so many fellow travelers.

Yours most truly and sincerely,
MRPP

P.S. re Previous Post

OK, so I guess if I really wanted to knit the minutes, I would *NOT* actually have to devise a code à la Mme. Defarge, because someone has already done it. A marvelous thing is the Internet!!

Mme. Defarge Turns Stenographer

Last June, when I first launched this blog, I was really pleased with the moniker that I came up with for it. The title seemed to capture something about my persona as a professor-who-knits, and since then quite a number of people have told me that they like it too. But now, alas, I fear that it has become a bit of a misnomer, at least temporarily. For I have been asked to serve this term as "Secretary to the Faculty", which means that I will be sitting up front with a laptop during the monthly faculty meetings, taking the minutes, rather than in the back row with my yarn & needles.

I considered devising a code that would allow me to record notes IN MY KNITTING, so that I could do both things at once — very much à la Mme. Defarge — but despite its sinister appeal, that idea was rejected in the name of efficiency and professionalism. As a simple attendee in a meeting, knitting really does help me pay attention, but when it comes to keeping an official transcript of what was said, I type faster than I knit, and using the computer allows me to skip the step of transcribing written notes. Or knitted ones, for that matter. Besides, all wicked comments aside (although academics are famous for their wicked comments, especially in the back row of faculty meetings), I really *don't* need any shrouds, which is what la chère Madame claimed she was knitting. How grimly appropriate, n'est-ce pas? Given that she was sending the Enemies of the Revolution to the guillotine. But I digress...

Secretary to the Faculty or not, I have no intention of renaming the blog. For one thing, my new role applies only to the monthly meetings of the entire college faculty. I can still knit at other professorial gatherings (lectures, workshops, smaller sessions, etc.). Nor is this a permanent assignment. Someone else will take over eventually, although I can probably keep doing it for as long as I like, because there's never an over-abundance of volunteers, human nature being what it is. Right now it's my turn to take the minutes, and I will do so to the best of my ability. Yet I will also remain the Faculty Meeting Knitter, with every intention of reclaiming my seat in the back row when the time comes. Allons enfants de la Patrie...

The Faculty Meeting Knitter (a.k.a. "Allow me to introduce myself...")

Alright, so once I got past all the dithering and decided to take the plunge and create an online journal for my needlework projects, choosing a name for the blog was no trouble at all: I *LOVE* to knit during faculty meetings. Far from becoming a distraction, the knitting actually helps me stay calm and focused, even in a room full of noisy people with Ph.D's, all spouting their opinions (hah!).

The faculty meetings themselves are basically programmed into my DNA. I am one of those academics who grew up in academe and never really left. My mother is a retired high school Latin teacher now, but she got married at age 19 right after WWII and only much later went back to school to complete her education and pursue a career. When I was a toddler (being very much the baby of the family, with brothers 14 and 20 years older than myself), she started taking classes at a local women's college and graduated with a Classics degree and a teaching certificate. My beloved late father spoke at her commencement. For he was an eminent church historian, who taught at a certain well-known Ivy League institution for many years.

With those beginnings, I made my way from the public elementary school to a venerable prep-school that required Latin from all its 7th and 8th grade students, and then to the same august institution where my father worked. I completed a B.A. in Classics (Greek and Latin). By that time, after 21 years in the same place, I was ready for adventure & decided to switch coasts for graduate school (M.A. in Greek and Ph.D. in Classics). Along the way I was fortunate enough to study in both Athens and Rome, before marriage and dissertation writing led me first to Washington, D.C. and then to Toronto. I deposited my thesis (via long-distance mail) a week before my 30th birthday. Mark my words: it was vitally important to make those two events happen in that precise order!! My first real teaching assignment brought me at length to the midwest (where my family originally came from) and introduced me to the life in the Big Ten. The bustling, crowded campus certainly had its charms, but I am much happier now at a small liberal arts college, where I can count on getting to know my students as individual human beings both in and outside of class, rather than as an anonymous mass in a dark lecture hall.

One last bit of shameless professional self-promotion before moving on. Earlier this year, my dissertation (much revised) was published at last by the University of California Press. As of today it is ranked #949,018 on Amazon.com. What can I say (alas!), scholarly books in the field of Classical Studies are rarely best sellers (sheepish grin).

So that's who I am, more or less. Now let's bring needlework into the story.

I learned to crochet in the 5th grade from a book that my father bought me which was specially written for left-handed people, and then taught myself to knit from another book a year or so later. Believe it or not, my first real knitting project was an Icelandic pullover done in-the-round. Nothing by halves! I still have this garment and even wear it occasionally, although it is really a bit on the small side.

On a side note, the stitches in that sweater are all slightly twisted too, because being self-taught, I had misread the crucial diagram and was wrapping the yarn around the needle the wrong way (clockwise, I think, rather than counter-clockwise — I knit left-handed, remember, so don't even try to picture this, if you have any tendancy towards dyslexia). All my earliest productions exhibit this particular quirk. The kindly owner of our local yarn store took me under her wing as something of a child prodigy, and it was she who finally spotted the twisted stitches some years later and helped me identify the source of the problem and fix it. The whole left/right thing still confuses people sometimes, especially novice knitters who are barely comfortable holding the needles as they themselves have been taught and get disoriented from watching me. But I am used to it by now. I read charts pretty much automatically in whichever direction is required, and the only trick is with written patterns that have a directional component (such as slanted edges or cables, etc.), where by following the instructions exactly I will come out with a mirror-image of what the author intended. This only rarely makes any real difference, of course (most garments being vertically symmetrical), and if/when that situation arises, it is not hard to compensate. We southpaws are well accustomed to that sort of thing in life.

But I digress. Perhaps handedness can become the subject of further musings at a later date.

At any rate, during middle school I would sometimes knit during class — only sometimes. Certain teachers allowed it, because I was a good student and did not disrupt the other students. Classmates muttered about special treatment, though, and I remember one guy in my 8th grade English class crying out indignantly, "Why can't I do my math homework? Miriam can knit!" I abandoned the practice altogether in 9th grade, when a particularly stern English teacher saw me knitting before class and demanded in no uncertain terms that I "put the Mme. Defarge kit away, please." Gulp. After that the knitting needles only came out to play during off-hours. I made sweaters and hats and scarves and an afghan or two. I also began sewing dresses sometime during high school, following my mother's example. She was quite an accomplished seamstress in her day, although I distinctly recall her dealing with her share of adversity too, when it came to needle and thread, yard goods and pinking shears. The infamous bound button-holes on that floor-length black cape, for instance...

So I knitted my way through college (hooray for glee club tours and LONG bus rides!) and then through graduate school as well (especially while riding city buses and BART, and travelling back and forth coast-to-coast to see my family during breaks), and on it goes to this very day. Needlework helps keep me grounded. It gives my "fidget energy" something productive to do, so that I can relax and let the rest of my mind wander, or perhaps listen attentively to a lecture, concert, or audiobook.

Therefore, since I pretty much always aspired to become a college professor someday, and since I had also learned to knit at such a tender age, early on I developed a mental image of my future self contentedly knitting away during faculty meetings. Through the years that image stuck with me, and now happily it has become a reality. That's why I think I just may have found the *PERFECT* name for my new blog.