Miscellaneous Boring Knitting Stuff

You might be wondering why, if I have a break in my time, I am not regaling you with things I've made, specifically things I've knit.  I believe I mentioned that there have been two finished projects, which were done when I had less knitting time, but since my time has "freed up" nothing, nothing at all.

 

Or of course, you might not be wondering at all, not being a knitter, and you might be thinking "OMG she's about to go on and on about boring stuff involving long pointy sticks and string".  And you'd be right. This is your chance, quit now or suffer the consequences.

 

I actually was sitting and knitting in the evenings, working on this kind of odd vesty-thing.  It is designed by Anne Thompson and is called Creep.  I was using this incredibly luscious alpaca yarn by Asland Trends, in a yummy shade of blue, blissfully whiling away the hours, when my knitting encountered an accident in the form of a four-legged terror.  You see, I made a mistake.  I put my knitting away, in my knitting bag, which zips closed, but (and this is a really BIG BUT) I left the zipper open by maybe half an inch, maybe less, at any rate not much.  

 

And you know I've told you about how my sweet little baby cat, Moisés loves yarn, and is a very focused hunter.  When he gets an idea in his head it stays there; he may file it away in some back corner of his little cat brain while he pursues more immediate concerns like chasing lights and flies, but as soon as an opportunity presents itself, he remembers and pounces.  

 

Anyway Moises has figured out that if I leave the tiniest little opening in the zipper, he can get his claws in there and make it a little bigger, worrying that zipper along until the opening gets bigger and bigger until eventually he can get his head in the bag and survey the options before reaching in and snagging some prize.

Well of course, soft yummy alpaca is very tempting to a yarn loving cat.  When I got up the next morning, this is what I found. Not particularly pretty is it?  Of course I thought I would rip it out and start again, but the way this is knit and cast off and picked up and knit again (just writing all that gives me a headache) makes it difficult enough to unravel and the whole thing is made more complicated by the ministrations of little kitty claws.  

 

I spent one whole evening, 3 hours, and got maybe a few feet of yarn untangled.  And although some part of me doesn't want to admit to being defeated by yarn, I learned that it is only a very small bit.  I am very willing to cut my losses and get back to what is important, namely knitting.

 

Now that sounds simple doesn't it?

 

But no.  My evil little brain sometimes gets the better of me.  I had a small part of that skein of soft blue yarn left and I wanted to do something with it.  Apparently, like Moisés I store ideas up in the back of my brain where they pop out, unexpectedly, when an opportunity presents itself.

 

A friend and I had been talking about learning lever knitting, which is basically knitting, where one needle remains relatively motionless and the yarn is manipulated around the fixed needle.    I decided that it had been too long since I forced myself to learn something new and this little bit of blue yarn offered huge potential for subjecting me to some kind of prolonged torture in the name of education.

 

I spent another day attempting to learn to hold my needles and my yarn differently.  Mostly I just ripped and reknit the same little bit of yarn over and over again with increasing frustration.  In desperation I turned to the web (yes, I know I should have done that first, but well, sometimes I am a slow learner), and I found a video of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee knitting using the lever method, or Irish cottage knitting.

 

 

I was entranced.  I watched this thing over and over again.  Something really clicked when she compared the action of knitting to the action of a sewing machine, and I really wanted to do this.

 

My fingers could work like a sewing machine when there was no yarn in my hands, but doing it with actual yarn was problematic.  Either my yarn fell off my hands and I dropped stitches, or I wrapped the yarn so tightly that it cut off the circulation in my fingers and got my hands locked in place with the needle.  I spent another day in a protracted struggle with yarn and needles before it finally began to click.

 

Obviously I am not a natural knitter.

 

A week later I am reknitting Creep with new yarn.  This time I am using Cascade Venezia Worsted in a lovely teal.  I am not yet faster than I was before, but I like this technique.  My tension is tighter than it used to be and far more even.  My knitting tension remains remarkably even whatever my personal tension level happens to be.  My tension remained consistent even after I accidentally flung a 14 inch metal needle across the waiting room of the Vassar Brothers Medical Center Radiology Department yesterday  and had to listen to it clang as it bounced along the tile floor several times, even as I endured the irate glare of the lady who had just told us all to be "very very quiet" because she couldn't hear Judge Alex on the television,  even as I nervously managed to tangle my fingers in the yarn and then drop the yarn under the chairs as I tried to extricate myself, even after all of that, my tension remained fabulously even.

 

As too Creep.  I will confess that at the moment I have doubts.  I look at the pattern picture above, and the mess of loopy  knitting hanging off my needles and wonder what I was thinking when I decided to knit this project.  Oh, I will probably love it in the end.  At least I hope I will love it in the end.  Right now my brain is too fogged up with learning new things to really think clearly, but I am loving knitting, and am sneaking in a row or two whenever I get a chance, so I know it will have been worthwhile whatever the outcome. 

 

Who says old fingers can't learn new tricks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[K-Line]

Fab post - that sweater is totally nutty! I can see how your kitty wanted to play :-) And that video is FASCINATING! I cannot believe she can do that - and so quickly! It boggles the mind!

[Susan Tiner]

I am not a knitter but this was fascinating and I loved hearing about the kitty :). Moises is a great name for a kitty by the way.

[Ann R]

I'm intrigued by the video - because I've never knitted any other way! I choose not to knit quite as fast as she does, simply because I knit to relax, so prefer a more moderate pace.
I didn't know there was another way - apart from Continental knitting of course. Were you a continental knitter? (Pick rather than throw)
Love the 'garment' though!

[WendyB]

Someone was just telling me about her knitting addiction yesterday.

If only you could teach your cat to knit!

[Terri K in NC]

Mardel there is nothing boring about anything you do or take on. I love these abstract looks and I'm sure whatever you end up with will be worn in style.

[Diane Egelston]

Can't wait to see how you wear your Creep. Moises is a sketch and you are a forgiving cat mom.

[materfamilias]

I'm so behind in my comments. Saved this one to come back to because I NEED to encourage you to finish Creep. what a fascinating project. I want to see a picture of you wearing it. Wonderful!

[Rubiatonta]

Here in Spain, the traditional way to knit is basically a mirror image of KH is doing -- a very long needle is clamped under the left arm, and the yarn is thrown with the right. (And when I first lived here in the 80's, it wasn't at all uncommon to see women knitting while standing in the street and talking, with the ball of yarn in the pocket of their housedresses.)

My step-Gran, who was first-generation Swedish-American, tried many times over to teach me to knit Continental. She just couldn't stand all the wasted effort of English knitting!