Silent Morning

Usually, when I come into the office in the mornings, I'm the only one here for over an hour. I relish that quiet time when I can get a few personal things done.

This morning I continued working on a yellow cowl neck scarf I started this weekend on a pair of wooden bamboo circular needles which are among my favorite needles to work with. I find that knitting has become more and more like a meditation for my mind. When my hands are busy making repetitive patterns, the thoughts that plague my mind, the constant internal chatter, fall by the wayside temporarily. I am rhythm and pattern. I'm doing a simple rib stitch in rounds which is easy enough to remember since it's just an alternative knit stitch pattern. Initially I wanted to do a seed stitch because I think it's slightly more urban but whenever I try that while knitting in the round it always turns into a rib stitch which I feel is a very Ivy League stitch. I haven't figured out why this keeps happening yet but I will. For now I just wanted to make something yellow. My Spring mini resolution is to wear more yellow. It's a beautiful cheery color that I love in moderation on people and adore in abundance in nature

The sun came out through the clouds a couple of time while I was knitting. The weather report called for some spotty showers, and I brought an umbrella but I'm hoping it's a false alarm. I really enjoyed sitting out in the Park yesterday for the first time this season with the sun on my face even though I know this weather is unnatural. I need the sun. I need this quality of silence. I need yellow in my life.

Knit Purl and Crotchet Madness

I finished this cowl neck scarf (to the right) just before Thanksgiving last week. It was a huge triumph for me because I completed it on circular needles vs double point needles which are both methods of knitting that produce seamless garments and pieces of garments "in the round." Whenever I have seen knitters working with double pointed needles it has intimidated the hell out of me. It's always so weird when you see someone knitting with all these crazy points sticking out all over the place. It looks a bit like a torture device but it turns out that the finishes pieced will be socks, gloves, a sleeve or something perfectly functional and harmless. LOL!!

Double pointed needles

Anyway, I ended up picking up knitting in the round on dps (double points) right away for some reason but it was circular needles that boggled me. I don't know why. I just didn't get it. I attribute this to the fact that I was trying to knit pieces with too small a circumference. So I tried a larger basic project, a cowl neck scarf and it worked out perfect. I've already started another one for my dad for Christmas which will be narrower but wider height wise so that when it's finished it will hopefully collapse into a vertical column of elegant folds around the neck. That's what I'm hoping. When I learn any new knitting method for the first time I do tend to go a little crazy with it. I have two projects on circular needles at the moment but they're only hold because I'm also learning to crotchet. HA!

Crotchet drives me crazy but I just love the way crotchet pieces look so I have to try to learn! If you don't know anything about crotchet and knitting, this will all just sound like mish mosh to you. You're like, I just wanna by a hat, scarf and some gloves, maybe a shawl. I don't care how they make it! LOL! But if you do know anything about making yarn fabric, you know that crotchet is one of the most improvisational ways to make fabric patterns and textiles. In my opinion, it's what makes it wonderful as well as infuriating. Knitting for me is way more structured. Two types of stitches, knit purl, that's it. I don't pretend to know who to read really complex knitting patterns. I don't yet, but I can do quite a few straight knit stitch patterns with no problem. Crotchet...well I finally understand the single crotchet stitch which is the first basic stitch, but let's just say, I'm starting slowly. I'm doing this because I have to. I would rather learn it fast. I want to go from beginner to intermediate in a day because there are so many pretty things I wanna make! But I can't yet. Poo! I will try to be patient with myself. What I really need to do it take a class.But it's so hard to do with all these youtube tutorials around. That will be the next step for me though: taking a class or finding a certain someone to sit with me and walk me through basic stitches.

Single Crotchet Stitch

It makes me feel really amazing when I can complete a garment and I'm addicted to that feeling. You're making something that you can use, that is purposeful, functional, attractive, that you can give as a gift to make someone else happy and that is also one of a kind and unable to be reproduced in the exact same way by anyone else. In fact, it's the flaws that make it most unique. It's something you spend time with and get to know and then it's over, and you either use it or give it away for someone else to use.

Round 1

I have a really fierce determination when it comes to learning new knitting styles. I don't consider this trait to be very characteristic of my attitude about other things in my life and I'm not sure why that is exactly. It may be that creating things is so important to me that I feel like a total loser if I can't learn how to make something new at least once a year. Learning to knit was very intimidating for me and the challenge of learning it made me really angry but it wasn't the knitting itself that pissed me off. It was me. It was my own inner blockages that angered me, my own impatience with myself. Because I knew I would get it. In fact for me, I just knew I had to.

In learning to knit in the round last night I faced the same old challenges. Every once in a while I get it in my head to do some sort of craft that I see incredibly talented people (mostly my flickr contacts) churning out on a daily basis. I get this bug! I can do that! And it becomes like a madness. I have to do it or I will become very depressed and disappointed with myself. I know that's not cool but it's how I approach it. But lately I have tried a slightly new approach so as not to be so hard on myself if things don't turn out "perfect." I tell myself that even if it's not perfect on the first try (I like to learn really quickly. It's crazy)I'm still making progress as long as I don't give up. There are steps to everything and you have to appreciate the steps as well a the outcome, because the outcome is only as good as the care you take with each step towards the progress you make. Yeah, I am now philosophizing about knitting.

So I started out with a circular knitting because I thought, "Oh knitting in a circle will make a seamless cirle! Easy!" I was wrong. But I also bought a set of five double pointed needles because I know that this is also another method I've seen used to knit in the round and I didn't want to take any chances in case I couldn't pick up the circular right away. I was right.

I found a really good youtube tutorial right away but in my lack of patience I still kept searching for others that would break this method down step by every little step. What that did was drive me nuts because there must be at least five different ways that people have to start knitting in the round. Finally I came back to this one. I knew that if I could just understand that magic moment when the two ends of yarn get joined in the circle, the rest would be relatively easy, just a repetition of the stitch round and round. This took a lot of pausing of the video and guess work based on my part using my own accumulated knowledge about the knitting in general. I had to go someplace quiet with the tutorial, in my bedroom and away from the television to focus. When I finally got it I laughed out loud or rather laughter tumbled out from inside me. The projected possibilities are what bring me so much joy.

Roundness! Sleeves! Socks! Hats! Ahhhhhh!!!! Well my first project is going to be a soft slouchy cowl scarf. I can remember looking at one a few years ago on a mannequin at Knitty City and never having imagined I could ever make one but loving the look of it so much. God! I might even take a try my hand at making a poncho one day! I LOOOVE PONCHOS! Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves! LOL! I need to learn patterns if I'm going to get into all of that that and I am not a fan of patterns. But hey, maybe I'll surprise myself again! We'll see!