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I haven’t been writing about my fibre-crafts lately, but I have been taking a lot of comfort in them. There has been so much going on in my life lately — an international move is disruptive, to say the least — that the quick moments I grab here and there to do something quiet, creative, rhythmic, and calming have been absolute sanity-savers for me.
As my life has begun to fall apart, so has my control over the tendancy I have to give into my knitlust and start project after project with no rhyme or reason, and without ever managing to finish anything. In all the stress and difficulty of the past few months, I have somehow managed to start so many things that I can hardly remember them all, let alone keep track of them …and let alone make any progress.
But I desperately need to regain some order, both in my fibre-crafts and in my life in general, so I will begin here. In the next few days, I will begin documenting my projects and my progress — and weeding out those that were created less out of genuine interest and more in a wild attempt to soothe my stress at the time.
And once that’s done, and I can see clearly again what I have and what I want to work on, I hope to make some good progress, and find myself calmed again by that lovely sense of satisfaction that comes from accomplishing a long-standing project instead of the hyped-up feeling that comes from diving — lustily — into a million new ones.
The baby hasn’t given me much opportunity to knit this past week. I was doing my knitting whilst breastfeeding her but, just lately, she’s realised there’s something very exciting going on behind her head and started flailing her free arm around behind her to try to grab it. That messes up my knitting either because she gets hold of it and I drop stitches or else my tension just suddenly goes all over the place …and it darned well HURTS when she pulls away like that. So, I haven’t been doing much knitting lately.
But I have been craving it. Even when I’m too busy to pick up my needles, when I’m cooking mini-lunches and folding laundry, I find myself knitting in my mind, allowing my subconscious to relax into that nice rhythm of needles and stitches. That’s when I know I really need it.
I treated myself to some nice wooden 12mm Brittany needles from Yarnsmith for the maroon cardigan, and that alone inspired me to go back to it with as much gusto as time will allow. It’s lovely to knit on wooden needles — makes all the difference in the world. The cardigan has grown surprisingly quickly, despite how little I’ve been knit, and it’s quite exciting to see it take shape. It deserves more time than I’ve been able to give it, but I am determined to put that right as soon as possible!
Everyone knows that knitting English is inefficient: you hold the yarn in your right hand and have to grip both needles with your left while you let go with your right to throw the yarn around the working needle. The fact that it’s not nearly as quick or tidy as knitting Continental is obvious at first glance. But it’s how I was taught, so it’s what I can do. I can knit while watching telly, I can knit in the dark, and — when I’m very very tired — I can knit with my eyes shut, half asleep, only awake enough to keep that lovely rhythmic movement going. Click clack, click clack…
Every now and again, I decide I’m going switch and start knitting Continental, but I’ve never had any success. I go from flying through my knitting to feeling like a complete beginner again, taking each stitch slowly, having to really look at every move as I try to pull the yarn through, whilst my tension descends into chaos. I get incredibly frustrated, give up, and go back to throwing my yarn with speed and ease from my right hand.
I tried again today and I did nearly a whole row in Continental. I was very pleased with myself! I got through probably 100 stitches before I gave myself a break and switched back to English — a good start I felt… maybe I’d try again on the next row. I turned the work and purled back. When I hit the stitches that I’d knitted Continental, I discovered all the loops were backwards and I had to turn each one before I could work it. My progress slowed to a crawl, and I wondered why I’d even bothered.
I must be doing something wrong. Is it worth trying again? I’ve been knitting English in inefficient bliss for nearly 20 years. Maybe I should just stick with what I know…
Only a few days ago, I lamented that Vogue Knitting’s website has been down for months and months and — voila! – it’s suddenly back up again. I can only conclude that the powers that be at VK read my blog and, realising my distress, set to work immediately to rectify the situation.
A power like this could be a pretty exciting prospect! Do you think if I mentioned that I really want some lovely wooden needles for Christmas they might magically arrive at my door? A girl can hope, can’t she?
I hate working on circular needles! You’d think I’d love it, with my shoulder problems and the fact that circular needles reduce the weight of the knitting pulling on your back and shoulders, but I don’t. They drive me nuts. The needles never sit straight for me; the circular bit is always kinking; the needle bit is always too short so I have to keep my hands bunched together to make my stitches; the ball of yarn keeps migrating into the center of the circle and then out and then in. For me, kills the joy of knitting …and kills the knitlust.
I knit all the pieces (back, sleeves, and fronts) of the Classic Baby Cardigan as far up as the armpit and they are now transferred onto a circular needle to that the yoke can be knit as one piece. I really enjoyed knitting each individual piece on my lovely wooden needles with the bobbly tops. Now that the whole thing is on circulars, I find myself avoiding working on it. I will persevere — not least because with each row now the number of stitches decreases and so goes that much faster.
But it just goes to show how important good equipment is to whole knitting process. It helps me to justify my ever-growing collection of wooden needles and my mountains of unused-but-beautiful yarn. It’s about quality, people, QUALITY!
Twice now I’ve had to unravel and reknit the sleeve of the chunky cardi I’ve designed! The reasons are so stupid that I’d be ashamed to admit them publicly, if it weren’t for the fact that I can chalk it up to having a baby who keeps me up half the night.
The first time, I just plain miscounted the gauge. Hard to believe, but I did, and so every calculation was wrong. I’d only knit about 15 rows when I realised something was amiss, so it wasn’t that painful to start over.
I reworked the maths and cast on again. But this time, I just wrote the wrong number down, and so was increasing ever four rows instead of every six. A little discrepancy that ends up making a big difference after a while. Again, I spotted the mistake, ripped it all out, and we started over. I’ve just cast on again and completed row one. Third time’s the charm, eh?
But look at that lovely wool… look at that colour! You can see why I am so keen to make something lovely out of it.
And this is good for me — I need this discipline, this lesson in patience. It’s not about giving up and moving on to the next thing. I am a new knitter. It’s about perseverance, patience, commitment, commitment, commitment.
Knitting and I broke up for a while. Or maybe we just took a break, I don’t know. Partly it was practical — I had two babies, and grabby hands don’t really go well with pointy sticks and string — and partly it was just that I needed some space before Knitting and I tried again.
The thing is, too often I gave into the knitlust: I wanted to try everything, but was willing to commit to nothing. I’d get so excited about each new project and spend every spare moment with it, loving its colour, its texture, its smell. But once I’d conquered it — once I knew I’d master that particular pattern or technique — I’d get bored. I’d feel trapped, resentful of the the feeling that I had to stay with it, doing the same stitches over and over, stuck in a rut, when I could see that there were so many other exciting possibilities out there to move on to. And so I would abandon it. I’d just get up one day and leave it, without even saying goodbye. For years and years, I never settled down and stuck with a single project.
I got too intense about knitting: I wanted to run before I could walk. I started to disdain of working other people’s patterns and wanted to create my own. But I hadn’t mastered the basics of shape and construction well enough, so I ended up stuck: not humble enough to knit from someone else’s pattern, but not skilled enough to create my own. Running after one intriguing idea after another, I got nowhere.
I needed to walk away from knitting completely, so that I could come back refreshed, ready to start anew. It’s been three years and I’ve hardly knitted at all. Last week, I finally picked up my needles again. The wood felt good in my hands. The yarn was soft and sensuous. It had that delicious smell of clean wool, a smell that I knew would lift off my needles and envelope me in a heady cloud as I knit. It felt good to be back. I am ready to knit again.
I’m starting slowly, sensibly. I’ve chosen a Debbie Bliss pattern for a baby’s cardigan (Vogue Knitting, Spring 07, pattern 13). 
It’s very basic, but that’s a sensible way to start. I went out last week and paid good money for quality yarn. Commitment, commitment, commitment. I’ve finished the back and am halfway through one sleeve already. I can see myself finishing this one — that’s a new sensation, but it feels good.
I will still hold onto the lust (perhaps it’s truer to say that it still holds onto me), because lust has a valid part to play. Knitlust keeps a knitter reaching forward, always wanting more. But I will do my best to be in control of the lust this time — using it, riding it, but not being swept away by it. I will run with it, not let it run away with me.
