Knitting qualifies as what my friends Sasha and Grant would call “slow-dorking.” Slow-dork activities include quilting, jigsaw puzzles, whittling, model trains, stamp collecting, ship-in-a-bottle, cross-stitch, macramé, etc. Whereas fast-dorking is video games, computers—nerdy pastimes that skew younger and require reflexes, or at least typing. At this point I should probably confess that I’ve also been known to needlepoint—the folk-art-animals variety, not the aphorism-on-a-pillow thing—but still definitely slow-dork. (We came up with this taxonomy while waiting late one summer night to get into The Clock, a 24-hour exhibit using movie clips that mention or display the time, from high-speed action to midnight rendezvous, to chronicle every minute of a day.)
I am not an advanced knitter. But it’s a pleasure to sit outside or by the fire with my Vogue knitting pattern and work on a scarf with this super-soft yarn. Every year in Maine, my mother and I visit String Theory, a Blue Hill shop selling luxurious hand-dyed yarns in variegated jewel- and earth-tones. I love their vivid cashmere-blend Caper Aran yarns, which are extra-plush and washable.
Yarn for future projects:
At String Theory:
Read more about our time in Maine here.
