ooh, magic bus

With special thanks to the new bossman, aka The General (so named after the Buster Keaton film of the same name), for sending this article me, and for being there for me tonight, and assisting in getting me very not sober tonight, I am reprinting without permission (fair use) the following article from The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town." I disagree with the whole "rare" Manos yarn thing, but whatever. New York readers (Gidget, aka Mindy), have you gone? Is it worth it?

HERE TO THERE DEPT.

STITCHES

by Lauren Collins

Issue of 2005-03-21
Posted 2005-03-14

To the well-worn list of the comparative advantages of suburban life—bigger houses, lower taxes, safer schools—the inhabitants of Westchester County have recently added another: better knitting. For this civic coup they can thank Kevin Lundeen and Elise Goldschlag, who live in the historic river town of Irvington and are the proprietors of Flying Fingers, a yarn store that carries hard-to-find brands like Brownsheep (“Dyed for Ewe!”) and Manos of Uruguay, along with notions and such hobby-specific publications as “Men in Knits: Sweaters to Knit That He will Wear.” Since the couple opened up shop a year and a half ago, their voluminous inventory has attracted customers from as far away as Canada, Ireland, and Alaska. But persuading New York knitters to make the forty-five-minute trip up the Hudson has been a harder sell. And so, to render the reverse commute sufficiently enticing, Lundeen, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, and Goldschlag, his wife, conceived of the Yarn Bus, offering free shuttle service between Irvington and Manhattan.

The Yarn Bus is a fifteen-passenger van topped with three enormous balls of yarn and a pair of knitting needles the size of 9-irons. To build it, Lundeen and Goldschlag enlisted Prototype Source, a California company that is one of the nation’s leading makers of promotional vehicles, having produced such industry icons as the Hershey Kissmobile, the Yoo-hoo Stinkin’ Summer Tour Garbage Truck, and the latest Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, complete with Mustard Splattered Walkway and Official Wiener Jingle Horn. To fabricate the giant yarn balls, the designers considered marine rope (too heavy) and real yarn (prone to rot) before settling on lengths of thin plastic tubing, coated with fibreglass to evoke a fittingly woolly look. The bus cost seventy-five thousand dollars. It took six people six weeks to complete, and after being driven cross-country by a pair of college students it arrived in Irvington last month. Liz Bracken, who moved to Westchester from Atlanta several years ago and works at Flying Fingers part time, signed on to drive the bus. A retired nurse, Bracken was selected on the basis of her even demeanor and her chauffeuring résumé, which, though limited to driving her daughter’s Girl Scout troop on a field trip, was still more impressive than anyone else’s.

On a recent Saturday, Bracken, who was wearing a periwinkle purled scarf, along with a turtleneck and pearl studs, picked up Brian Blaho and Bevin Bermingham at Fifth Avenue and Nineteenth Street.

“We’re thinking of making Flying Fingers our L.Y.S.”—local yarn supplier—said Blaho, who is a legal librarian and has a penchant, common among practitioners of the fibre arts, for speaking in acronyms. (AC Moore, having been taken over by territorial crocheters, was out of the running, as was the Internet. “I have one skein I bought from eBay that smells like some lady’s Asian food,” Bermingham said.)

At a stoplight, Bracken passed back a basket of yarn and two pairs of size-13 purple needles, on the house.

“Brian, I may be able to create something magical by the time we get to Flying Fingers,” Bermingham said. She started in on a grape-colored hank.

“I’m working on a rose-trellis felted bag for my sister, for her birthday. It’s from Vogue Knitting, and the pictures make it look absolutely astounding,” Blaho said. “Today, I’m looking for yarn for boot socks. You have to use something called double-pointed needles, which is like knitting with a fistful of pickup sticks, using dental floss.”

“This is sock month for us,” Bermingham said.

There was ice on the boulders lining the Saw Mill Parkway, and the terrain was starting to turn hilly.

“Just F.Y.I., you can do socks on two circular needles,” Bracken chimed in.

“I’m very anxious to learn that, but I feel like I should do it on the D.P.N.s once to figure it out,” Blaho said.

“Liz, can you turn the heat down?” Bermingham asked.

A few minutes later, Bracken stopped in front of Flying Fingers, where she would wait for an hour and fifteen minutes before setting out on a second round.

“I didn’t really think I’d be driving a Yarn Bus and working ten-hour days,” she admitted on the way back to the city. This time, her passengers upriver included three officemates from Rockefeller University, one of whom was taking some time off from needlepoint. As Bracken prepared to pull away from Bloomingdale’s, her first stop, she squinted into the rearview mirror and asked, in a cheerful voice, “Can you look and make sure my needles aren’t caught in that tree?”

For those waiting on updates from this weekend, I'll try to post something tomorrow. Let's just say there's a reason I'm not sober now.