I Get It! I Finally Get It!
For years, I have been living in some sort of knitting fog. Or perhaps, I was living in a form of delusional, ignorant bliss.
This bliss centered around a lack of difficulty and a lack of boredom with regards to certain knitting techniques that other knitters seemed to find either difficult or boring.
The Yarn Harlot refers to the ennui which sets in when knitting the second sock. I always found knitting the second sock to be no less dull than knitting the second mitten. In fact, it always seems like the second sock gets finished before I even realize it and looks better than the first, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the knitting of either sock. Of course, I also have a single-mindedness which leads me to knit one (or possibly two, maybe three, but surely no more than four) project at a time. So my tendency towards project monogamy serves as a powerful motivator to get the second sock finished.
A few weeks ago, I was buying sock yarn and the girl selling the yarn asked if I had ever knit socks before. When I replied that I had, she said something long the lines of, "ugh, turning the heel and everything?" I probably looked at her as if she was crazy--was she trying to dissuade me from purchasing her yarn? Isn't she supposed to be encouraging me to buy more yarn by telling me how easy projects are? I have heard how hard and irritating this heel turning thing is and I never quite understood what the big deal was exactly. People, it's knitting, not rocket science.
But now I realize that my sock indifference was merely a result of knitting top-down socks. Of the socks I had made over the years, not a one was a toe-up pattern. Until now. I have completed one lovely sock using a toe up pattern. I have turned the heel and found it to be, well, not hard, but clearly this is the horrid heel turning to which the various knitters referred. It wasn't difficult to knit short rows, but it made me very tired and very bored and it made it very difficult to watch the World Cup while knitting.
So now I have one sock completed and I have no interest in beginning another.
None.
I don't really need socks, do I?
It's summer, who wears socks in the summer?
And since I still am without a digital camera, I can't show off my work to you all, so I have even less motivation to continue.
The funny thing is, I had all these plans to knit a bunch of socks this month.
So, on to other projects.
I have all of this lovely black Henry's Attic Prime Alpaca for which I can never find a project worthy of it. I was also thinking that I should knit a lace dress. Maybe a modification of this shawl (you know, starting a few rounds out from the center, using a provisional cast on, and then designing some sort of lacy tank to knit up from the live stitches.)
Of course, when I start doing the math (if the gauge is x and the inches are y, how many do I cast on?), I start to wonder if making that second sock is such a trial after all.
And as we all know, the last thing I need is another black dress.
This bliss centered around a lack of difficulty and a lack of boredom with regards to certain knitting techniques that other knitters seemed to find either difficult or boring.
The Yarn Harlot refers to the ennui which sets in when knitting the second sock. I always found knitting the second sock to be no less dull than knitting the second mitten. In fact, it always seems like the second sock gets finished before I even realize it and looks better than the first, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the knitting of either sock. Of course, I also have a single-mindedness which leads me to knit one (or possibly two, maybe three, but surely no more than four) project at a time. So my tendency towards project monogamy serves as a powerful motivator to get the second sock finished.
A few weeks ago, I was buying sock yarn and the girl selling the yarn asked if I had ever knit socks before. When I replied that I had, she said something long the lines of, "ugh, turning the heel and everything?" I probably looked at her as if she was crazy--was she trying to dissuade me from purchasing her yarn? Isn't she supposed to be encouraging me to buy more yarn by telling me how easy projects are? I have heard how hard and irritating this heel turning thing is and I never quite understood what the big deal was exactly. People, it's knitting, not rocket science.
But now I realize that my sock indifference was merely a result of knitting top-down socks. Of the socks I had made over the years, not a one was a toe-up pattern. Until now. I have completed one lovely sock using a toe up pattern. I have turned the heel and found it to be, well, not hard, but clearly this is the horrid heel turning to which the various knitters referred. It wasn't difficult to knit short rows, but it made me very tired and very bored and it made it very difficult to watch the World Cup while knitting.
So now I have one sock completed and I have no interest in beginning another.
None.
I don't really need socks, do I?
It's summer, who wears socks in the summer?
And since I still am without a digital camera, I can't show off my work to you all, so I have even less motivation to continue.
The funny thing is, I had all these plans to knit a bunch of socks this month.
So, on to other projects.
I have all of this lovely black Henry's Attic Prime Alpaca for which I can never find a project worthy of it. I was also thinking that I should knit a lace dress. Maybe a modification of this shawl (you know, starting a few rounds out from the center, using a provisional cast on, and then designing some sort of lacy tank to knit up from the live stitches.)
Of course, when I start doing the math (if the gauge is x and the inches are y, how many do I cast on?), I start to wonder if making that second sock is such a trial after all.
And as we all know, the last thing I need is another black dress.
posted by alimum at 5:53 PM
2 Comments:
I love that shawl - I will eventually knit it (whenever I get around to knitting one of the lovely but formidable patterns from A Gathering of Lace.) But I'm not sure I see it as a tee - a circular tee? What would the selvedges look like? What would the shape of the garment be? Help me understand.
I totally appreciate the warning as I, too, have never had a second sock problem, and I too have never knit a toe-up sock. I would hate to be torn away from the World Cup, too. Go Togo!
the shawl part would be a skirt (doing a provisional cast on and then picking up the pattern...if I recall, this is a center out shawl, so I would have to determine at what point the number of stitches correspond to my hip size, since I wouldn't be attempting to put zipper on this) and the tee part would not be part of the pattern--maybe a variation of the diamonds or something. I have the idea in my head as to how it should work, but I really don't want to do the necessary math.
Post a Comment
<< Home