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A toe-curling talent:
Bordi's book hooks socks fans
posted 06/27/01
"I feel like the Stephen King of socks," says Cat Bordi, sitting in the
courtyard of Island Wools and smiling at a stack of best-selling books with
her name on them, "except I'm not scary."
At this time last year, Bordi, a humanities teacher at Friday Harbor Middle
School, had just discovered a new and faster way to knit socks, using two
circular needles rather than the sets of double-pointed needles that have
been traditionally used for centuries. "It took me several months to figure
out the method," she recalls. "Once I did, and began to explore all the
possibilities it opened up, I realized that if I didn't write a book about
it, someone else would."
The sales of the book she wrote and self-published, "Socks Soar on Two
Circular Needles: a Manual of Elegant Knitting Techniques and Patterns,"
have astonished her.
After two months on the market, the first printing of
2,000 copies is nearly sold out, and she has ordered a second printing of
5000. The lively cover, photographed and designed by Anne Sheridan of Friday Harbor,
features sepia hands surrounded by colorful socks.
This is not her first bull's-eye entrepreneurial venture. In the '80's, she
designed and made more than 5,500 life-like teddy bears which were sold to
collectors all over the world. Using a primitive Zenith computer her father
had built from a kit, she developed a following among collectors by writing
newsletters to shop owners who carried her bears. Her vivid descriptions of
her island life, and easy confidence that her bears would kindle their
owner's self-healing powers, helped sell every bear she made.
After performing the same movements repeatedly, Bordi developed what she
calls "bear neck," a muscle contraction that became so painful she had to
give up her business. She went back to school to obtain her teaching
certificate, and began teaching at Friday Harbor Elementary in 1992. She moved to the middle school two years ago.
Lucky for Bordi, knitting is enjoying a resurgence of interest, sock
knitting in particular. "My book is one of four new sock books due out this
year," she explains, "but my book is the only one to offer a brand new
method which transforms the whole process. In fact, my book renews the
value of every other sock book ever published, because I explain in my book
how to translate any traditional pattern to the two-circular method."
The contrast between the two methods seems nearly as great as that between
the ancient Zenith kit computer she used to market her bears and the new
iMac she used to write her sock book. She has collected 65 pages of e-mails
from her readers, thanking her for her "astounding efforts to give us a
better mouse trap" and describing how they are now "blitzing away" on
their socks instead of plodding along.
"I knew the book would sell to all the addicted sock-knitters out there,"
says Bordi, "and I figured that Skacel, the company that makes the circular
needles that work best for this method, would benefit too, and help me
deliver it to knitters." She used Skacel's yarns and their Addi Turbo
needles to make the socks in the book, and gave Skacel initial
distributorship. In order to sell the book through regular and on-line
bookstores, as well as yarn stores, she is expanding her distributorship
for the next printing to include Unicorn, the major textile craft book
distributor in the country.
It's not only addicted sock knitters who are benefiting from Bordi's love
of knitting. During the recently completed school year, she and community
volunteers taught more than 75 middle school students, both boys and girls, to
knit. "It started out as part of our activity day, a day when students
could choose to take a class outside of the regular curriculum," she
explains. "After the first day, students in my humanities classes and
creative writing classes began begging me to teach them to knit too. I
couldn't say no."
At first Bordi tried to hide the knitting activity in her regular classes
from administrators. Although she only allowed the kids to knit during
class discussions or read-alouds, she noticed immediately that her students exhibited a higher quality of attention than usual. "While knitting, squirrely students
as well as normally attentive students would give me rapt attention as I lectured about -- say -- ancient Indus River Valley architecture!"
After a while Bordi realized she had never had such a positive community of
learners in her room. "Knitting democratized my classroom. Kids who
normally weren't friends suddenly became knitting companions, often with
the student who was academically lower teaching the one who normally seemed
smarter. The room became a peaceful refuge from the stresses of school, yet
a place where everyone was absorbing knowledge, reflecting upon it, and
listening to other people's ideas. When it was time to put down the
needles and write, or read, the kids could easily make the transition."
One day all but two of her students were either knitting,
winding up skeins of yarn, or standing in front of the yarn cupboard
selecting something new. Nevertheless, everyone was involved in a class
discussion about a play they had just acted out as a reader's theater. An
administrator walked in, Bordi held her breath, and hoped she wasn't in
trouble. By the end of the day she had an e-mail from her visitor praising
the quality of her class. "Whew!" she laughs now, "I was glad he didn't
assume we were all just knitting, but instead noted the quality of learning
going on."
Recently Bordi had a chance to check and validate her belief that knitting
increases learning by asking Pat Wolfe, an internationally-known brain
researcher who taught the San Juan Island School District staff during a professional development
day, what she thought. Dr. Wolfe responded, "Of course it works. Sensory
stimulation increases brain function."
Kim Norton, Bordi's colleague and friend at Spring Street School, became one of Bordi's first knitting students and then began to teach her students to knit. She also found that the degree of trust and vitality and quality of thinking and learning in her classes increased with
the peaceful infusion of knitting. Both her students and one of Bordi's
students could often be seen knitting on their way home to Lopez on the
ferry.
At Friday Harbor High School a substitute teacher, Margaret Thorson, began
a knitting club for high-schoolers. About a dozen boys and girls completed
scarves and hats. Knitters in the community donated numerous balls of yarn
and needles to the three schools, along with materials sent by Skacel.
This year's San Juan County Fair will reflect fledgling islanders' growing interest in knitting. Special prizes will be awarded to young knitters, and the Wool Shed should be full of samples of their work.
Bordi hopes to continue teaching middle-schoolers to knit. "Actually," she
reveals, " I am developing the idea of a class called 'Knitting Across the
Curriculum,' where knitting would be used as a vehicle to invest students
in the curricular areas they struggle with. There is wonderful math in
knitting. Kids can learn technical writing and and analytical reading by
writing and reading patterns and descriptions of designs, use graphics and
word processing programs to chart and publish original patterns -- the
possibilities are rich."
In Bordi's book she remembers the young knitters. In her dedication, she
writes: "And last but not least, I cherish and admire my many middle school
knitting students for their inventiveness and vital interest in an age-old
art."
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