Part 4: Knitaholic

When I returned the next day, the hats I carried had had minimal work done. When I'd gotten home, I just couldn't see what her problem with them was, and I wasn't interested in spending hours of my evening sewing up acceptable hats for nothing. I figured I'd give them to her as-is and accept the fifty-two dollar check. My internal scale had tipped in favor of "Get the hell out."

Eugenia, though, had another plan.

"We've been having lots of problems with the Peggys. Many of the knitters are finding them difficult to make." She paused, probably part of her new nice boss routine. "So I was thinking, what if I had you make Frankies instead?"

She held up a black skullcap with a cigarette embroidered along the side. It looked much, much easier to knit-the sort of thing I could make while watching TV. And this was the hat she'd originally intended to hire me for anyway. Although I'd come here to quit, I was suddenly interested again. I asked how much she'd give me and how long it was supposed to take.

"It's fifteen dollars. It should take three hours."

No longer surprised by the illegally low pay, I considered the job. Not for long, though: I had to take it.

So I went next door to Downtown Yarns to buy yet more needles (another $20), then set to work on the hat.

As I worked, I stopped to think about Eugenia's other employees. How could they justify working for such terrible pay? You couldn't live in New York City on the money made knitting hats, and I'd found that taking this job had seriously cut into my time on every level, especially the time I was supposed to be spending looking for a real job. Who were these other women? How could they do it?

For the same reason I kept coming back to her: I love to knit. I realized that, if I was willing to make $5 or less an hour to make hats for Eugenia Kim (before subtracting the cost of needles), I must really love making hats. I had begun regarding my work for her as charity, but that didn't stop me from quitting. In a way, I couldn't quit. Knitting was far too much fun. Perhaps that was the crux of my whole dilemma -- I was addicted to knitting.

I talked this over with some friends as they helped me ball the black wool for the Frankie. Cakepan, a knitter who had always been a little jealous of this gig, was hesitant to tell me to quit. The obvious advice would be to get a real job and relegate my knitting to its former status as a hobby, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. When Sarah, a non-knitter, brought up this possibility, Cakepan could only nod uncertainly.

"It seems you have no other choice but to quit," Sarah said. "This job is only stressing you out, and what do you get?"

"To say I'm a professional knitter!" I returned.

"Then sell your work on the side or something, but get out of this job. It's getting ridiculous."

"I think you should keep working for her, but steal her yarn," Cakepan said. That made an odd sort of sense to me. So I knit up my Frankie, sewed the stupid cigarette into the side, and went off to meet Eugenia.

As was becoming a theme at this point, when I showed Eugenia the sample I'd made, she didn't like it. Of course it was a little smaller than the sample she'd given me (I hadn't checked my gauge), but the stitch work was flawless and the hat looked cleaner and more professional than the sample. I thought so, anyway.

Eugenia didn't agree. She took the hat and sent me away with the promise that she'd call me after her head knitter had taken a look at it. When she called me back to her store -- for what felt like the tenth time -- she had a bombshell to drop.

"You've been purling wrong."

"What?"

"You twist your stitches."

She introduced me to her head knitter, who demonstrated the problem. I was amazed.

"So how are you supposed to purl?" I asked, and she spent fifteen minutes teaching me the right way and watching me work. I realized all of the projects I'd done until then had been flawed, albeit in a way most people wouldn't notice. But I remembered the awkward stitching in the Peggys I'd done and realized it was the consequence of my improper purling. Another minor discovery.

With this new knowledge, I felt more ready than ever to conquer the world with my knitting. How could I stop, now that I knew the right way to purl? Sure, the pay was abysmal, Eugenia was a headache, and the work was cutting into crucial job-search time, but this was destiny! I groveled to Eugenia, offering to demonstrate my talents by knitting a swatch, fully aware that, since she couldn't knit, she'd have no way of knowing whether I was purling correctly or not. But she was sick of me.

"We can't sell the other hats you made," she said. This annoyed me, because the twisted purls in the samples I'd shown Anya -- a longtime knitter -- had gone unnoticed. That customers might complain about the twisted stitches when she hadn't was absurd. That I'd knitted three hats before anyone had noticed proved how minor the defect was. But Eugenia would have none of it.

"I would like you to bring back all the yarn you still have tomorrow, and then I'll write you a check for what I owe you." I was being let go.

Considering the more than fifty hours I'd put in for her, I probably should have forgone the $67 check in favor of my leftover knitting supplies. A ball of cashmere goes for about $8, and I had several of those, along with some choice wool and alpaca. But Eugenia's a tough person to say no to. So I relinquished my stash in exchange for payment for my month's worth of work. It was more symbolic than anything else -- it certainly couldn't cover any real expenses, after taking into account my forty dollar needle investment. Still, I try to look on the bright side. I lived my dream of knitting for money and learned how to purl in the process. I've since made two hats in under five hours each, and have given them to friends who appreciate my work.

Not too bad, I guess.

(1, 2, 3, 4)

About Lisa Pettibone

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