shoshcrafts (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} shoshcrafts) wrote,@ 2008-06-08 19:54:00 |
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Of beginners and such things
I've been meaning to write this post for awhile now, which invariably means that something will happen and I won't get a chance to post it tonight, but whatever, at least LJ saves drafts now.
I relearned how to knit about 4 years ago. It was about the yarn then. There was some really chunky (We're talking super bulky here people) yarn at the creative festival, that was going to knit up on size 10 000 needles (Seriously, we used dowling) and one hank which was like $10 was going to be enough to make a hat and a scarf said the ball band. And so even though I'd learned how to knit at the age of 7, learned enough to be working on my first sock at the age of 7, got stuck on the purl stitch and needing to know that for the heel flap, and put it down for the next 8 or 9 years of my life.
Now when I picked it up again, I had to relearn everything. To my grandmother's dismay, my preference for continental (that's the one where you throw the yarn right?) was still largely evident, and I still can't figure out what she does with the picking thing. Her family is from Europe and well, I just don't know. It still eludes me but I'm okay with that.
For a long while the purl stitch still was beyond me, I just couldn't figure out what everyone meant when they said it was the opposite of the knit stitch. Yes when you look at it it looks opposite to the knit stitch, but when you are doing it.... you don't do the opposite of what you are doing. At least not how it makes sense to me anyway. Then I finally got it, and this whole world of knitting opened up to me. The first scarf that I made that had both knit and purl in it was like an incredible evolution (understand, this is at this point I would say maybe a year and a half ago). And then I made a lot of scarves. By which I mean... more scarves than I will ever wear. More scarves than my family will wear. So many, I have a bag in my closet of scarves that I will never wear to give away. It is that bad.
Then I wanted a scarf. It was going to be the most bad-ass scarf on the planet. It was going to have a skull and cross bones and be black and white and so punk that it was going to be amazing. I will have to take pictures of this scarf. It is hard to describe otherwise. So first I tried to do stranded knitting. And, that didn't work out so good. I didn't like that there was a front and a back to my scarf, and the floats on the back were too tight and it just didn't hold its shape well. Plus I had done it in stockinette and didn't understand that a knit border would help it hold its shape better so it curled horribly. Horribly. So I did what any responsible knitter would do. I swore a lot, and I frogged it. And I thought... what can I do to make this better. And then double-knitting caught my eye. Up until this point the most complicated thing I had knit was probably a knit 2-purl 2 ribbed scarf. I saw double-knitting and went... oooh I can do that. No floats and it is reversable! SCORE! And I think that is the moment when I discovered fearless knitting.
It was pretty much a project or 2 or maybe 3 after that that I finally got sick of scarves, and ventured into gloves, and then from then on there was pretty much no stopping me, I became a knitting fanatic. But all of this is to give a history really and isn't really the point of this post.
The post is about giving up your status as a newbie knitter and trying on a slightly more experienced hat. I can't consider myself a newbie knitter anymore. I just finished a pair of stockinette socks and went.... *ugh* If I have to knit another pair of those anytime soon..... Now, that may have something to do with the fact that I fought with the Noro the entire time, and had I been knitting with another yarn I wouldn't have felt quite so underwhelmed and bored by the socks, but nonetheless. But lately I've noticed that I can't consider myself a new knitter or even a novice anymore.
I knit socks.
If you knit socks you understand that socks have a grand total of two tricky bits. The heel, and the toe. Neither one are particularly tricky. You need to be able to knit, purl, knit two together, and increase. If you can do all that (or can handle a thumb gusset) you can knit socks. Easily. But every time I hear someone who knits say "Socks scare me" it reminds me that as much as I know they aren't scary, and seek to reassure the anguished knitter, that means that I have an experience that many knitters don't have.
New techniques don't scare me. Manna would probably laugh at me and say that colourwork scares me, but that isn't true. I need more practice with it, but I'm not scared of it. I understand the technique, I just don't have that many hands. And besides, I did those slip-stitch socks, and they were insane colourwork socks.
But It is strange, I see myself teaching people how to knit, and I wonder how it got to that point. I can spend ridiculous amounts of money on yarn (no really.... that list... I could easily double or triple it if it was everything that I wanted not just things that I wanted for specific purposes) and I can convince others that they need to do the same thing.
Recently I was having a bad day at work. It wasn't horrible, just stressful with lots to do and I couldn't concentrate anymore. I work for the government, but since it is a customer service location it is in a mall. So I took a break, left the office, and walked across the mall to the Zellers. Zellers for those of you in the states is a lot like Target, for those of you not in the states or Canada, think low end department store. They have a yarn section. It's all acrylic or cotton, if it isn't Bernat or most of the time red heart or Phentex forget it, and what they do have is ridiculously expensive. But, I walked there just to look and be around the yarn because... well a) it was out of the office, and b)I like yarn. And just those 15 minutes out of the office helped. But, I went to go look at yarn I had no intention of buying, just because I was stressed, which sort of tells me that now that I have begun knitting, and collecting yarn, and amassing a queue that would take me 3 years to knit through (and I don't knit too terribly slowly) as a way of being and identifying more than just a hobby. I show off my hand-knits to anyone who cares, and more people who don't care. I have offered to teach my co-workers to knit, and have done pretty much everything short of forcing them to buy sticks and string to take up the art. (Though I have repeatedly suggested and reminded that the Zellers does indeed carry everything that they'd need....)
But I think the point is that I can magic-loop, I can dpn, I know the difference. I know how soft alpaca is relative to acrylic, what superwash means, why I shouldn't put my hand knit socks in the dryer. Why the Seasilk that is begging to be knit up is amazing. That quivut won't be bought until I have a real income and am not just a student. And somewhere in learning how to knit I became a knitter. And I think I'm okay with that.
I've been meaning to write this post for awhile now, which invariably means that something will happen and I won't get a chance to post it tonight, but whatever, at least LJ saves drafts now.
I relearned how to knit about 4 years ago. It was about the yarn then. There was some really chunky (We're talking super bulky here people) yarn at the creative festival, that was going to knit up on size 10 000 needles (Seriously, we used dowling) and one hank which was like $10 was going to be enough to make a hat and a scarf said the ball band. And so even though I'd learned how to knit at the age of 7, learned enough to be working on my first sock at the age of 7, got stuck on the purl stitch and needing to know that for the heel flap, and put it down for the next 8 or 9 years of my life.
Now when I picked it up again, I had to relearn everything. To my grandmother's dismay, my preference for continental (that's the one where you throw the yarn right?) was still largely evident, and I still can't figure out what she does with the picking thing. Her family is from Europe and well, I just don't know. It still eludes me but I'm okay with that.
For a long while the purl stitch still was beyond me, I just couldn't figure out what everyone meant when they said it was the opposite of the knit stitch. Yes when you look at it it looks opposite to the knit stitch, but when you are doing it.... you don't do the opposite of what you are doing. At least not how it makes sense to me anyway. Then I finally got it, and this whole world of knitting opened up to me. The first scarf that I made that had both knit and purl in it was like an incredible evolution (understand, this is at this point I would say maybe a year and a half ago). And then I made a lot of scarves. By which I mean... more scarves than I will ever wear. More scarves than my family will wear. So many, I have a bag in my closet of scarves that I will never wear to give away. It is that bad.
Then I wanted a scarf. It was going to be the most bad-ass scarf on the planet. It was going to have a skull and cross bones and be black and white and so punk that it was going to be amazing. I will have to take pictures of this scarf. It is hard to describe otherwise. So first I tried to do stranded knitting. And, that didn't work out so good. I didn't like that there was a front and a back to my scarf, and the floats on the back were too tight and it just didn't hold its shape well. Plus I had done it in stockinette and didn't understand that a knit border would help it hold its shape better so it curled horribly. Horribly. So I did what any responsible knitter would do. I swore a lot, and I frogged it. And I thought... what can I do to make this better. And then double-knitting caught my eye. Up until this point the most complicated thing I had knit was probably a knit 2-purl 2 ribbed scarf. I saw double-knitting and went... oooh I can do that. No floats and it is reversable! SCORE! And I think that is the moment when I discovered fearless knitting.
It was pretty much a project or 2 or maybe 3 after that that I finally got sick of scarves, and ventured into gloves, and then from then on there was pretty much no stopping me, I became a knitting fanatic. But all of this is to give a history really and isn't really the point of this post.
The post is about giving up your status as a newbie knitter and trying on a slightly more experienced hat. I can't consider myself a newbie knitter anymore. I just finished a pair of stockinette socks and went.... *ugh* If I have to knit another pair of those anytime soon..... Now, that may have something to do with the fact that I fought with the Noro the entire time, and had I been knitting with another yarn I wouldn't have felt quite so underwhelmed and bored by the socks, but nonetheless. But lately I've noticed that I can't consider myself a new knitter or even a novice anymore.
I knit socks.
If you knit socks you understand that socks have a grand total of two tricky bits. The heel, and the toe. Neither one are particularly tricky. You need to be able to knit, purl, knit two together, and increase. If you can do all that (or can handle a thumb gusset) you can knit socks. Easily. But every time I hear someone who knits say "Socks scare me" it reminds me that as much as I know they aren't scary, and seek to reassure the anguished knitter, that means that I have an experience that many knitters don't have.
New techniques don't scare me. Manna would probably laugh at me and say that colourwork scares me, but that isn't true. I need more practice with it, but I'm not scared of it. I understand the technique, I just don't have that many hands. And besides, I did those slip-stitch socks, and they were insane colourwork socks.
But It is strange, I see myself teaching people how to knit, and I wonder how it got to that point. I can spend ridiculous amounts of money on yarn (no really.... that list... I could easily double or triple it if it was everything that I wanted not just things that I wanted for specific purposes) and I can convince others that they need to do the same thing.
Recently I was having a bad day at work. It wasn't horrible, just stressful with lots to do and I couldn't concentrate anymore. I work for the government, but since it is a customer service location it is in a mall. So I took a break, left the office, and walked across the mall to the Zellers. Zellers for those of you in the states is a lot like Target, for those of you not in the states or Canada, think low end department store. They have a yarn section. It's all acrylic or cotton, if it isn't Bernat or most of the time red heart or Phentex forget it, and what they do have is ridiculously expensive. But, I walked there just to look and be around the yarn because... well a) it was out of the office, and b)I like yarn. And just those 15 minutes out of the office helped. But, I went to go look at yarn I had no intention of buying, just because I was stressed, which sort of tells me that now that I have begun knitting, and collecting yarn, and amassing a queue that would take me 3 years to knit through (and I don't knit too terribly slowly) as a way of being and identifying more than just a hobby. I show off my hand-knits to anyone who cares, and more people who don't care. I have offered to teach my co-workers to knit, and have done pretty much everything short of forcing them to buy sticks and string to take up the art. (Though I have repeatedly suggested and reminded that the Zellers does indeed carry everything that they'd need....)
But I think the point is that I can magic-loop, I can dpn, I know the difference. I know how soft alpaca is relative to acrylic, what superwash means, why I shouldn't put my hand knit socks in the dryer. Why the Seasilk that is begging to be knit up is amazing. That quivut won't be bought until I have a real income and am not just a student. And somewhere in learning how to knit I became a knitter. And I think I'm okay with that.
