Mossy Cottage Knits

I'm Feeling "Catty!"

Note: No blog entries next week. Happy Thanksgiving to my wonderful readers. Thank you all for a fun-filled eight months!

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As I mentioned in my last entry, our speaker at Wednesday night’s Guild meeting was Cat Bordhi who lives here in Washington and who wrote the extremely popular “Soaks Soar on Two Circular Needles.” (A note to anyone who may be searching for her books on the Net: Your eyes are not deceiving you…the “h” in her surname is new and correct. Old versions of “Socks Soar” appear under “Bordi;” her new book and the upcoming sixth (sixth!) printing of “Socks Soar” will appear under "Bordhi.")

The truth is I wasn’t looking particularly forward to the presentation. In fact, I went to Guild wallowing in resentment toward this complete stranger. Why the chip? Name a reason, it probably applies. First, because she has done what so many knitters have dreamed of doing, making a living, and a good one, from knitting. Secondly, because she has done what so many wannabe writers have dreamed of doing, making a living, and a good one, from writing. That, and her “Socks Soar” has been the bane of my existence. I thoroughly enjoy using dpns but sock knitters, even well-meaning sock knitters, insist that you try Cat’s method, even if you’re perfectly happy stabbing yourself in the ball of your thumb for the umpteenth time, pulling a live needle out of live stitches when you actually meant to grab the empty needle, developing blisters on your fingers from yanking the yarn up tightly to prevent ladders, and not being able to complete a sock project because you broke two of the five needles in the only set of size 1s you own. That, and I looked on “Socks Soar” as just some sad, self-published effort, a desperate attempt by someone to publish something, anything, about knitting. How wrong I was…

Although I haven’t read it, her new book, "Treasure Forest," seems to be philosophical and metaphysical and poetic and dreamlike in tone and plot. And last night’s presentation was charged with the same mystical flavor. With great intensity and yet a sense of awe and wonderment, Cat talked about the process of writing the book; how characters like the three-legged bloodhound and Daggett the villain came into being; how the book told her what needed to be written, instead of the other way around; how traumatic it was to delete parts of the book that she had come to treasure but that just didn’t fit anymore; how she had the most extraordinary adventures interviewing experts, such as the local sheriff on the small island where she lives and a search and rescue person in Tacoma, for information for the book; how, in order to get under the skin of her characters, she made a chart showing whether or not, and how often, they floss their teeth; and how as part of, again, understanding her characters, she was compelled to knit things that appear in the book such as a unique pair of golden-yellow socks and a faceless, fuzzy-haired and magical doll named Ben, both of which she brought to the presentation. By the end of the lecture, I was mesmerized by and rooting for this enchanting authoress who had brought her book and her writing journey to life for us. The jealousy had vanished completely and had been replaced by my wishing her more and greater successes in her writing career, and hoping she would come to another Guild meeting.

As for my resentment toward “Socks Soar,” now that I've been shamed into realizing it's a “real” book written by someone with the soul of an author? Well, I was amazed at how many women in the room were knitting socks on circular needles, all of whom were doing so as a direct result of having read Cat’s book. Although I suspect that a good percentage of the sock projects were “for show” and would be jettisoned back into the dark recesses of various closets immediately after the meeting, it was still an extraordinary experience to have an author, her book, and the living effect of that book all percolating together in the same room . But, lest you think I’ve gone completely over to The Dark Side, I’m sticking to my dpns! A girl can never have too many puncture wounds!