Apocalypse Yarn Store

I wonder if you know this about me: I really enjoy stories about civilization on Earth after the end of the world. Not the Big Science kind of civilization, but a Jalopy World of reusable parts and clever tinkering.

Before this last election, I used to spend a lot of lunch hours talking with a man who worked down the hall from me about what kind of work we would do once Sarah Palin was president and the apocalypse came for real. He had run an organic farm in the 70's, and he was stockpiling seeds in his Manhattan apartment for the day he had to turn Central Park into a giant cooperative farm. I, of course, was packing in a heady yarn stash worthy of the end of the world. I imagined loading it all up into our Dodge Vegomatic and heading to Maine, where I would barter clothing made from stash and scraps while John tinkered with dozens of ancient PCs to keep The Google alive.

So I was pretty thrilled to watch City of Ember last night. Not only did it have an entire civilization tinkering as fast as they could on the brink of disaster but it featured a yarn store. And you could really tell it was the end of the world, looking in that yarn store: stash unraveled everywhere and yarn hanging from the rafters. The scenes in the yarn store are brief, but harrowing, including a closet stuffed with UFOs ("unfinished objects" for you golfers) and a baby stuffing what looks like half a skein of acrylic yarn into her mouth.

On the other hand, everyone in the place is wearing handknits with great steampunk styling. There are several beautiful scrap yarn quilts like the one I finished up for Emily this year:



I'd add this to the list of good knitting movies, even though nobody actually knits during it. It is suitable for excitement loving seven year olds and even teenagers almost comatose with ennui. And knitters.