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Beginning Knitting
Plant foot. Plant other foot. Lever self upright. Wobble a while. Fall on butt. Roll over on all fours. Repeat all.
Once wobbling successfully subsides while upright, take a step. Fall on butt. Repeat all.
Well, it's not exactly like that, obviously, but there are certainly similarities between learning to knit, and learning to walk. It's a weird, unfamiliar motor skill wherein you take formerly familiar appendages and try to make them do things they don't want to do, and so you keep getting snarled up and losing your way. Instead of falling on my ass I drop stitches, or lose my tension, or knit up my tail, but it works just the same in terms of being a randomly repetetive disruption of the smooth forward motion I'm aiming for.
Yes, I have thrown myself headlong into learning a new life skill. (Ssshhh. Don't, for gods' sake, call it a hobby. Or, worse yet, a project.) What the hell. One of my co-workers is, so I gather, kind of a big deal in knitting circles. She's originally Swedish, so she knows the traditional knitting style of My People. She does schmancy, complex Nordic and Finnish knits, and she teaches classes all over the country and goes to conferences around the Baltic and like that. She'll be teaching workshops at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis in conjunction with a Bohus Stickning exhibit there. Like I say: a big deal.
She's also mad keen to get everyone knitting. She's offered multiple times to teach me to knit, most recently when I was bemoaning my lack of fingerless gloves during the Great Indoor Freeze. (I asked her if she wins a toaster oven if she converts enough people to knitdom, and she just laughed. Then she stopped laughing and explained that she's after world domination, not appliances.)
When you have a resource like that at hand, it seems downright wasteful not to take advantage of it. So I finally went down to my local yarn store (Renaissance Yarns, which is conveniently located very near my train stop) and bought myself a skein of lovely heathery green wool and a set of needles. Then at the rescheduled office holiday brunch today, we started my lessons. (Because there's nothing like picking up a new skill while six co-workers are watching and making smarty-pants running commentary. We know how to make our own fun around here, you betcha.) I got to the point where I can get a decent rhythm in the middle of a run, but things tend to go all to hell at the very ends. Gives me something to work on. Once I master knitting, I'll have to learn to purl, and then we go on to knitting in the round and then -- hah hah! -- fingerless gloves. The quest begins.
Once wobbling successfully subsides while upright, take a step. Fall on butt. Repeat all.
Well, it's not exactly like that, obviously, but there are certainly similarities between learning to knit, and learning to walk. It's a weird, unfamiliar motor skill wherein you take formerly familiar appendages and try to make them do things they don't want to do, and so you keep getting snarled up and losing your way. Instead of falling on my ass I drop stitches, or lose my tension, or knit up my tail, but it works just the same in terms of being a randomly repetetive disruption of the smooth forward motion I'm aiming for.
Yes, I have thrown myself headlong into learning a new life skill. (Ssshhh. Don't, for gods' sake, call it a hobby. Or, worse yet, a project.) What the hell. One of my co-workers is, so I gather, kind of a big deal in knitting circles. She's originally Swedish, so she knows the traditional knitting style of My People. She does schmancy, complex Nordic and Finnish knits, and she teaches classes all over the country and goes to conferences around the Baltic and like that. She'll be teaching workshops at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis in conjunction with a Bohus Stickning exhibit there. Like I say: a big deal.
She's also mad keen to get everyone knitting. She's offered multiple times to teach me to knit, most recently when I was bemoaning my lack of fingerless gloves during the Great Indoor Freeze. (I asked her if she wins a toaster oven if she converts enough people to knitdom, and she just laughed. Then she stopped laughing and explained that she's after world domination, not appliances.)
When you have a resource like that at hand, it seems downright wasteful not to take advantage of it. So I finally went down to my local yarn store (Renaissance Yarns, which is conveniently located very near my train stop) and bought myself a skein of lovely heathery green wool and a set of needles. Then at the rescheduled office holiday brunch today, we started my lessons. (Because there's nothing like picking up a new skill while six co-workers are watching and making smarty-pants running commentary. We know how to make our own fun around here, you betcha.) I got to the point where I can get a decent rhythm in the middle of a run, but things tend to go all to hell at the very ends. Gives me something to work on. Once I master knitting, I'll have to learn to purl, and then we go on to knitting in the round and then -- hah hah! -- fingerless gloves. The quest begins.
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See also the entry I'm about to post about Elder Goddaughter and her brilliance. World domination, one sucker at a time!
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I started knitting in early September and have produced five pairs of socks and a pair of mittens since then. Though I haven't picked up any knitting since dropping into Blind Pre-Christmas Panic Mode. With Christmas safely out of the way, I could reasonably start again. That meant that I didn't finish the pair of fingerless mitts that I needed to finish by Boxing Day. Which turned out to be perishing cold and I could have done with them. Oh well.
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However, I wish you much joy, and will duly admire all your projects as you finish and wear them. I admire those who can knit, including my dear
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As for fingerless gloves, the Fetching pattern on Knitty is immensely popular.
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Not that I'm a knitter, but I am partially Swedish and in Minneapolis.
Joyce
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I have no knitting advice, but I know from cardamom buns.
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