Saturday, December 12, 2009

Knitting, Among Other Things

After starting over 5 (or so, I lost count) times, I am finally about halfway through my first knitting project- which is.... wait for it... a SCARF! I know. A beginner knitter knitting a scarf, how totally ordinary and predictable!

Actually everyone around here is arguing over Teh Scarf, so I think I'll be making a few more. Which will be nice, since I'm still working through some problems. Have you heard of people dropping stitches while knitting? Well, well, well. I have the opposite problem. I ADD stitches. So my scarf gets wider and wider. Uneven is the new black, yo.

I am loving watching and learning the "magic of the yarn" unfold before my very eyes. On Tuesday, when I, uh, stitched or whatever my first, ah, erm stitches (note to self: learn some knitting vocab for the LOVE), it was all just YARN to me. Like a foreign language, it made no sense. It was tangled and utterly meaningless. Now, only a few days later, I can already see the stitches and the errors and the where I added those blasted extras. (If only I knew HOW or WHY I did it, I'd be golden.) The more I knit, the more I understand.

A single string makes up a scarf or sweater or whatever. I guess I always knew that, but know I KNOW it. Ya know?

I also feel so connected to women of my personal history that have spent hours upon hours with needles and yarn, creating something for their own loved ones. In fact, my very beloved Grandma was the one to teach me, which is something I will always cherish.

(I say this like she's a delicate flower, but I assure you, she's very much still vibrant and living her life to the fullest. It's just that I *know* that during my natural lifetime, I will not always have her guiding the way.)

While Grandma was here on her short-but-jam-packed-full-of-quality visit, we also made lefsa together, which is something I've been wanting to do for YEARS. And get this- while we listened to Christmas music, admired my tree (lots of tree admiring... love having a tree up!), made lefsa, and held knitting lessons, it was a full-on winter blizzard outside. Really, pretty much a perfect day.

Lefsa, knitting, planning, knitting, shopping, scheming, knitting... it's almost Christmas! (To self: simple/special. simple/special. simple/special.... deep breaths.) (Also: SQUEEEEEEE. CHRISTMAS!)

6 comments:

Sunny said...

Oh for the love of.....I know- I crotchet and the hardest part for me is counting the darn stitches so it stays even......maybe thats why so many of my afghans have FRINGE all round them instead of JUST on the ENDS!

Swistle said...

I kept adding stitches at first, and I figured out what I was doing, but even if you're doing the same thing I'm not sure I can EXPLAIN it. (We BOTH need knitting terminology.)

What I was doing was, at the beginning of each row, my...loose string...was BEHIND instead of IN FRONT, which makes the first loop on the needle into two loops. If I pulled the string over the needle to the front instead, it was one loop. Oh forget it, this is not working! I could SHOW in two seconds, but WRITE? No. Also, this may not be what you're doing anyway.

Anonymous said...

I started knitting years ago, but when I got pg it made me nauseous (along with other things such as breathing). Last month when my mom was here, I made her sit down and we took an hour to remember how to cast on. I've got the knitting part down, but casting on was beyond me. FYI: scarves ROCK! They are easy, fast and fall into the instant gratification category. A total score. I made one sweater, which sounds lovely, but for the love of all that is holy - never again! Too time consuming, way too costly, and too damn hard. It wasn't relaxing anymore, it was work and pressure. I don't need that. I should post pics of the stuff I knitted. I really got into felting for awhile. Damn kid interrupting my life.

GreenStyleMom said...

You crack me up! Can't wait to see the finished product.

Lurking seester said...

That scarf is soooo MINE!!!

KD_Bren said...

I'm a fairly new knitter too--just learned in October! And I had the same problem with mysterious stitch increases. Turns out I was making accidental yarn overs, which was adding stitches. I recommend the KnitWitch on You Tube for some really excellent video demonstrations--that's how I figured out what I was doing. Enjoy knitting!