She Found Herself in Stitches

Crazy in the Same Way

2009-10-21T12:05:00.000-07:00

It's the end of a long day and I'm riding the up escalator in the subway station. I spot someone else riding the down escalator. She's busy fiddling with something. I look a bit closer and realise that this woman is crocheting. Crocheting on the escalator! I can't stop looking. I have a hard enough time knitting when I'm sitting down, let alone standing. On stairs. That are MOVING.

I'm in awe.

I flat out stare at her, momentarily forgetting that it's actually kind of rude. In typical, suspicious Big City fashion, she glares at me. I feel suddenly ashamed and start to look away, but instead I glance at her project.

It's a great project, some kind of lace pattern, really pretty. A smile spreads across my face. And that's when she GETS IT. Our eyes lock and she grins back at me. I was suddenly reminded of how motorcyclists often wave as they pass, even if they don't know one another.

Before that smile? She thought I was a random crazy person. After the smile? Random crazy yarn enthusiast!

'Hey! Look at that! We're crazy in the SAME WAY!'

Welcome to the Sisterhood of Hooks and Needles.

Me vs. The Sock

2009-10-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

Sock Knitting: First Round (The "Random Gush-fest Phase”)

“OMG, these tiny No.1 doublepointed needles are so cute! And the little tiny yarn is so adorable! Sock knitting is just CUTE!”

Gazing in wonder upon my No.1 dp's, I feel a bit as if I'd snuck into a village of Lilliputians and stole their knitting.

In Round 1, much time is spent admiring the demure little needles and looking at the wool and being impressed with 'tiny' and doing absolutely NOTHING about it.

Sock Knitting: Second Round (The "My-Stash-is-in-My-Toolbox Phase”)

“There are so many ways to start! I want to try everything!! Eastern cast-on? That sounds neat! This is exciting!”

Um, until I try it. Suddenly, I have six hands and there's wool loops everywhere and these little tiny stitches do. not. want. to. co-operate.

Hm...Let's try this again:

“Provisional cast on? Sign me up! Oops. Except I don't have any spare fingerling weight wool to use as my provisional piece.”

STASH FAIL! (Apparently, there *is* some advantage to having a large stash of wool at your disposal)

I root through the tool box and find some white twine. (“Hm, this might work if I unwound a strand.”) Except, it doesn't work. Knitting with twine is like...wait for it...knitting with twine.

I guess this is why people don't buy their wool at Canadian Tire. I finally use some crappy old acrylic I dug out of a corner of the closet.

In Round 2, I'm wondering if maybe, while I was robbing those Lilliputians of their knitting, I should have grabbed a Lilliputian or two to take with me - so they could teach me how to use these damned tiny needles.

Sock Knitting - Third Round(The ”Hand Me the Toilet Paper Phase”)

“The hell with it.”

I toss the tiny Lilliputian needles aside and joyfully pick up my GIANT No.8 double pointed needles. Oh, for the joy of wool that I can actually SEE!

After my foray into Lilliputian land, knitting with worsted weight on No.8 needles feels like knitting with toilet paper. Or playing with Fisher Price toys. But I start to get the hang of it.

I practice the provisional cast-on. I practice doing an increase (Every time I see the instruction “Make 1” in a pattern, I want to retort: “Oh yeah? Who's gonna make me?!”)

In Round 3, I feel like I'm rehearsing for a very, very tiny performance.

Sock Knitting - Fourth Round (The "Maybe I don't need the Lilliputians after all Phase”)

“Okay, maybe I'll just cast-on. That's all. Nothing more than that. Just some practice.”

(Oooooo! Fuzzy!)

“Hm, not bad. Maybe I should knit a row or two.”

Round 4 finds me finally knitting a sock. To be continued...

Blue Toque!

2009-10-02T20:39:00.000-07:00

Here's my lovely model sporting the perwinkle blue toque, which I completed tonight.

It went pretty smoothly, though I dropped a stitch near the very end. I was able to kind of cover up my error as I pulled the whole thing together with the tapestry needle. Hooray for improvisation!

This toque was supposed to be a birthday gift for my girlfriend, but it's a bit too big. That's okay, though. It fits *me* perfectly and I have enough yarn left (in my STASH, of course) to knit up another, slightly smaller version for her.

In other news, the book I requested from the library finally arrived: Laura Chau's Sock Knitting: Teach Yourself Visually.

I'll be honest: So far, my head is swimming. I don't know how I'm going manage this sock thing. It's freaking me out.

I have a stash...

2009-09-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

I always sort of rolled my eyes when friends talked about their yarn 'stashes'. I mean, seriously, how does a person just accumulate yarn?

Well, case in point: I just started knitting again two weeks ago and already, I have three yarns in my stash. How did this happen?

Well, the first toque I knit used only half the wool I bought for the project. It's now in my stash. I bought a different colour for the second toque and I'll stash the rest of that as well. I have plans to knit second toques out of those stashes, but in the meantime, it's sitting there, mocking me.

Today, I added to my stash, because apparently this whole yarn thing is a lot like an addiction or maybe bunnies. It multiplies and you can't stop it.

I want to knit socks, so I bought a fingerling weight wool at the yarn store today along with a set of absolutely adorable little size 1 double-pointed needles (SQUEE!). A book on sock knitting is on hold request at the library.

So guess where my new yarn is going until the book arrives? That's right! My STASH.

First Toque!

2009-09-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

It took me a week and it made me crazy.

I cast on three times. Then I had to rip out several rows twice in the same morning, only to mess the whole thing up again by afternoon and then discover I was doing it wrong again in the evening. Rip, rip, rip. At least I gained some practice at backtracking. It was all 'one step forward, two steps back' for days.

But by this evening, I was well into the decrease rows (Decrease rows! Did you hear that? I'm *decreasing*!) and by the time I walked into my second 'Basic Hat Knitting' class, I was ready to take on double-pointed needles and finish the deed (new discovery: I *heart* double-pointed needles).

I walked out with a lovely purple toque!

Here it is, on my co-operative and enthusiastic model:

Lovely!

I'm already casting on for my second toque, this time in blue.

A brief history

2009-09-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

It's fall. This time of year always reminds me of knitting.

Every fall, my mother would tuck back into her knitting projects. She was fond of blankets and scarves. I still have two blankets she knit for me, one of them I still use regularly and I wear the scarves every winter. She liked knitting blankets the best because the project kept her warm as she worked.

In the fall of 1997, I decided to try knitting. I was unemployed at the time and unbearably bored. I bought size 10 needles and a skein of really nasty seafoam green acrylic yarn and tried to knit with directions I found on the Internet. It alleviated at least some of my angst, until I found a job, then I put it aside.

In the fall of 2002 that I picked up needles again. This time, I was at my newly-deceased grandmother's house, feeling ill at ease and sad and very, very bored. To break up the days before the funeral, my mother and I drove around, exploring her childhood town. We ended up at a knitting store and I picked up a book, needles and enough wool to knit a scarf. Mom helped me get started. I knitted my first scarf.

I knitted my way through the rest of that winter. I was miserable at my job, so I knitted on my breaks. My boss was a fat, nasty little man who had it in for me. I knitted as an alternative to punching him in the face. I knitted my way out of that job and into a new career that I loved. Then I got busy. Very busy. And sick of scarves.

Fall, 2009: I missed knitting. My angst, such as it was, was beginning to accumulate. 'Knit a hat' had been an item on my 'life list' for months. I spontaneously checked the class schedule at a local knit shop one evening and discovered that the class on 'Basic Hat Knitting' was starting in an hour. I hopped on my bicycle and went.

And that's how I simultaneously knit my first hat and developed a yen for stupidly expensive wool.

I'm still knitting hats.

Socks are next.

Stay tuned...