Patchwork

Image from Lion Brand Website

Sometimes, I think, patchwork can sound shabby, the idea of cobbling together something, often utilitarian, from leftover scraps.  But patchwork is much more than that.  For example, a patchwork quilt, even though humble in origin and purpose, is so much more than the sum of its parts.  Because, you see, those aren’t leftovers; they’re souvenirs, treasures, stories, memories.  Each of them having so much power in its own right is then carefully lined up with the others, a craft of both eye-pleasing design and technical ability, fine stitches must hold the design together and the design must stand alone and yet be part of every one of its individual components.

I love patchwork, it appeals to me that those squares can unite and become an integral piece, no longer just a blue square or a red square, but part of much bigger design.  I love colour too.  I love history and heritage.  But I can’t sew.

I’ve long wanted a patchwork quilt on my bed, for all of the reasons above and probably many more.  But patchwork quilts don’t make themselves, they need a big investment and commitment of all kinds of resources and as we on the whole are no longer thrifty and making our own clothes, I doubt many of us even have a scrap bag anymore.  This forces you to turn to specifically designed and branded fabrics, which are available, particularly on the internet as fabric shops are now far and few between these days, but at great cost.  Or at least at what I perceive to be great cost.  The colours are dependent on some fashionable palette which has little to do with what colours I actually would want.  I don’t really do psychedelic flower power or twee pastels.  I’d rather there was a middle ground.

If I could get my hands on fabric then what?  Well, as I said, I don’t sew.  I’m also terrified of sewing machines.  (And most other electric equipment).  I can mend things with mismatched thread; in fact I’ve become quite a dab hand at darning socks.  However, this is more motivated by thrifty economy than any particular aptitude or talent.  Patchwork would require both.  In large quantities.

You see, this is what I do.  I dream something up then decide who is the best person to do it.  I rarely count myself.  I can see other people’s strengths and abilities, focussing on those.  I know that someone else could do a brilliant job of it.  I’d just mess it up.  There’s a sort of humbleness in asking for help, in knowing and accepting that someone can do a better job than myself.  I rely on others and I count on their talents.

It’s not likely that I could ever succeed in making a patchwork quilt and frankly, I don’t think that there are too many people around me who could do it either.  Husband sews beautifully but he really isn’t keen on taking on such an ambitious project.  Especially as it is my project.  He feels, for some reason, that if you want something done, you should do it yourself.  He doesn’t appreciate how I evaluate skillsets and find the right or best person for the job.  After all, it normally involves him.

It’s not really laziness.  Just a profound fear of a failure.  Why risk doing something that you know you’re going to fail?  Why risk messing up or making a mistake?  I don’t trust myself.  And failure is unpardonable.

Recently, however, I’ve been thinking and working through a lot of thoughts and fears like this.  I’m starting to realise that there are things that I can do myself and that I might not necessarily be bad at everything I do.  This is quite a revolution which has rather changed the world around me.  A little new, a little different, a little scary but possibly positive, however much I don’t like change.

So I return to the line ‘I cannot sew’.  It’s true.  It’s not just a question of negative perception.  I won’t be able to sew my own patchwork quilt.  My abilities aren’t there for that and possibly never will be, although I really do think that someone my age should get over their fear of sewing machines at some point.

So what can I do if I have really set my heart on having a patchwork quilt?  (Which I have).

Well, there is something.

I can knit.

I could knit a quilt, the quilt.

That in itself sounds quite challenging.  I can’t count, I have a poor attention span and I’m not overly confident about my knitting abilities.

But there, you see, is the wonder of patchwork.

Patchwork is elements, simple elements, brought together as one cohesive design; it only becomes big right at the very end.  A patchwork quilt, however big, is just the size of each ‘patch’ or ‘square’.

I can knit something that small.  I can concentrate on something that small.  I can succeed in making something that small.

I will knit my quilt.

Now, I just need to start saving up for the yarn.  I have some in my sights, in just the perfect colours.

And what could have been unachievable suddenly has become achievable.  I’ve matched the project to my skill levels and I know now that I can approach it just like life, one square at a time.

That brings me to more patchwork thoughts.  Knitting, for me and in these posts, has often been a metaphor for exploring and enabling progress.  Knitting has slowly built my confidence and given me a tangible way of developing my creativity and measuring success.  They laugh about knitting ‘for therapy’ but it has been, I couldn’t have got this far without the metaphoric qualities of knitting and the peace that I get from working one stitch at a time.

It might sound strange but I’ve never been able to ‘see’ the future.  The future is an absolutely fear-inspiring monstrosity that I try to avoid facing at all times.  It’s difficult for me to understand and perceive the future, never mind a future.  Perhaps it comes back to that fear of failing again, the future can be a huge responsibility and it’s definitely something that I believe that I can and will fail at.  I am often overwhelmed too, both physically and psychologically, so living in the present is normally all I can manage.  The future is almost like an unbelievable dream, a mirage. You can pin so much hope in it but it might never materialise.  I don’t like wasting my energy chasing the impossibly ephemeral.  I don’t like trusting and relying on things that perhaps will never exist, that only bring bitter disappointment and loss.  I don’t want to feel either of those things.  I hate them.  I can’t find a future, never mind the future.  It’s too big, too intangible, too much responsibility and too much disappointment.

So I began to think about goals, goals are often tangible, quantifiable.  If you achieve what you set out to achieve then that is success.  You can tick it off and prove to others that you’ve done it, that you have achieved.  Maybe working on goals, something that I also avoid for fear of failure would enable me to slowly get used to working towards that distant, threatening future.   Perhaps rather than jumping into the future, I had to take my more familiar small steps towards it.

Then it clicked.

The future is patchwork.

(That isn’t a trend prediction).

The future is patchwork.

I don’t have to present a complete quilt; I don’t have to make a complete quilt.  Patchwork doesn’t work that way.

Patchwork is the small steps.

I just have to choose a square to work on.

Then work on it.

It’s only when a life is finished that you can hold it up to the light to see the finished design.

I don’t have to have the finished design ready before I start.

I don’t have to commit to all of it.  It can grow from one corner, one piece, one square.  The future can be manageable, broken down into individual portions.  Portions which are small enough to work on, to concentrate on and to put your best effort into.

You can choose the broad themes, of course, before you even start.  Colours, eventual design features, techniques.  Maybe even stitches, if you’re a knitter.  And those themes will repeat in other squares, in other squares of your life.

The future is patchwork.

I can choose one small square and work on that.

I could even work on more than one.

If needs be, I can put it aside and work on another.

Just like I would do, just like I will do, when I knit myself that physical patchwork quilt.

I’ve found the future.

The future is patchwork.

More Words

The technology that we use for communication may have radically changed and advanced during my lifetime but we still facing the perpetual problem of what to say.  How to you know what to say when?  Is it easy to come up with something to talk about or to make conversation for you?

I don’t find it easy.  I’m virtually a social phobic but my stubborn streak prevents me letting it take over my life, I have a certain pride in keeping appearances and putting a brave face on things.  I hate to talk, I never know what to say, I agonise over saying the wrong thing, I get so easily embarrassed.  But I try not to ever let it show.   My so-called coping strategies mean that I can often even come across as being a good conversationalist.  I’ve learnt to draw people out because I hate talking about myself, I’ve learnt how to put people at ease because I know how I’m feeling myself, there are so many ways that my challenges actually put me to an advantage.

But I still struggle.

I still worry about making an idiot of myself.

That holds me back.

Especially when I’m writing, I fear making mistakes.  The kind of mistakes that everyone else will see immediately but you can never see yourself, no matter how many times you proof your words.  I’m paranoid.  I try to hide too that I struggle with the written word.  I even taught myself script handwriting from the back of a literacy manual so that my handwriting doesn’t give me away.  I don’t use biro either for the same reason.

Words give you away.

Words are much more than just words.  They say a lot about the speaker or writer too.

Sometimes that’s too much for me.

I’m scared of giving too much away.

I hide behind masks.

But still get claustrophobic.

Writing, loving to write made me weird.  It wasn’t cool, it wasn’t even normal.

I also had to accept that I wasn’t really any good at it.

So I gave up.

The words, the writing got suppressed within me.

I’m used to having my head whirling with ideas.  This new improved dosage has given me back a lot more creativity too; I dream stories rather than fight nightmares in Escher-like landscapes.

Writing was something that was meant to come easily to a writer, or so I thought.  Not only did it have to come easily but also had to come ‘good’.  The quality had to be there from the start.  No one ever thought to tell me that most writers spend years honing their craft or that, apart from in the novels, writers rarely produce a perfect first manuscript that makes their name as a published author.

No, writing is apparently like any other skill.  It can come naturally to you but you still have to develop it.  You have to grow in ability, honing that skill, perfecting it (even if perfection isn’t actually achievable).  Writing needs training, exercise, practice, experience.

You’re not meant to get it right first time.

No one told me that.

So I humbly gave up.

But the words, the writing still comes.

I don’t if I have what it takes, I struggle to express myself and, I have to admit, I struggle with language and words.  I can only get so far; I had the reading ability of a twelve-year-old when I was six.  That was great.  But the problem is that I still do.  I peaked early, misleading people into thinking that I was gifted.  And my literacy was good enough to hide my (significantly worse) numeracy problems.

There are words that I can still not remember how to say properly.  I now go for a deliberate course of mispronunciation of a variety of words and place names so I can hide when I do actually make a mistake, opting for idiosyncrasy rather than admitting my problems.  I always read place-boh, super-flu-us, amby-vale-ent.  I’m likely to say them like that too.  It embarrasses me.  I can’t say words like py-jamas either.  Well, I’m getting better at that one, I have to think very carefully about it first then say it slowly and deliberately.  It tends to come out as juh-mahmas.  Not cool.  Not grown up.  Not right.

I hate making mistakes.

Making mistakes is failure, right?

Perhaps.

Should I be ashamed of myself?

Just because I struggle, does that mean I should give up writing?

And when it comes to writing, how do you know when you’ve got it right?

Only when you get published?

I don’t know.  The world has changed a lot.  There’s blogging now, you probably know about that.

So I think I’m going to try to keep writing, my confidence is in a very new and surprising place at the moment and I don’t quite trust that, but I love words and the words keep coming.  Maybe I can keeping work on my weaknesses, maybe the mistakes don’t really matter after all.  I’m doing what I love, what I have always loved even before I knew the alphabet, so that has to count for something.

Just promise me that you’ll tell me when I make a mistake, yes?

FO: Was Going to Be, Now Is …

As you know, my knitting repertoire for many years has consisted of baby bootees.  Just bootees and not much else.  Whilst bootees do at least hold the interest slightly better than garter stitch scarves, there are limitations to them.

They limit me.  I don’t want to spend the rest of my life only being a knitter of bootees (however many cuff variations I can invent) and I was starting to get a little worried that might be the case.  Fortunately, this year has seen an exponential increase of both confidence and skill (if I modestly say so myself) so the horizons are starting to get bigger.  When you look into it, there are an awful lot of things that are knit-able.  It’s not just jumpers and it’s definitely not just baby bootees.

Bootees have other limitations too; you can only really gift them on one occasion.  For weddings, well that just seems a little bit premature; for anniversaries, well that just seems a little tactless; for leaving school, well that’s just wrong.  Especially if you ask the parents of said sixteen-year-old.  So that really only leaves newborn babies and it was starting to get a little predictable as to what you’d be getting from me.

Friends of ours were expecting (it has since hatched, the knitting slowed down with my health unfortunately) and as all their nieces and nephews have received standard-issue bootees over the last few years, I’m sure that they probably could guess what they were getting!  No, I want to make them something special.  Special meaning not bootees.

I found the perfect pattern.  I don’t quite know whether they’ll appreciate it in the same way but I thought it was brilliant.

Next up, I had to find some yarn.  Although I have a reputation for budget acrylics (well, they have their uses), I want to do something special for this baby.  I have used bamboo in the past successfully for bootees and as they live in warmer climes, I decided to use a different brand’s take on bamboo.  I found it in one of those discount shops bizarrely (this one actually has a very good craft section) and having seen it in an arts shop for twice the price (ouch), my mind was made up.

So having both the pattern and the yarn, I just had to cast on my needles and set to work.  That took a little while; the go-slow and the birds have really interrupted my knitting bug but the week before I finally got started.

The pattern threw a few challenges, there was a basic chart to follow for the motif and it asked me to cast on extra stitches part way through.  I’ve never successfully worked out how to go about this before.  I got a little worried.  But as I was already several rows in and determined, I didn’t give up.

I looked it up in my knitting book and found that actually it wasn’t as complicated or as terrifying as I thought it was.

I find that sometimes.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the yarn; it’s not very ‘forgiving’.  Wool and acrylic do a certain amount of adjusting as you knit along so any slightly odd stitches usually disappear.   My stocking stitch has got a little bit more even recently but my purl can be a bit slack and it shows in this yarn.

I continued on, hoping that a little manipulation and the blocking would excuse the worst of it.

Then I had to work the rib edge.

This yarn does not do rib.  Not at all.

Flaccid comes to mind.   Which isn’t really what you want from a ribbed waistband.

I sighed.  It wasn’t going to be.

Then I got a new knitting magazine (it’s my one vice, that Knit Now magazine does wonders for my confidence (I lie, I do have other vices like cheese and eating glacé cherries from the cupboard but I’m sure you won’t tell)).

There was a baby cardigan.  In turquoise.

My yarn is turquoise.

The pattern had no rib.  Just garter stitch.

I frogged the soaker!

I see this as a successful, confident manoeuvre rather than a failure.

I could analyse both the technique and the yarn and decide where it was best suited.  I could not have known in advance (unless I knitted a swatch of course) that the yarn does not believe in rib.  I could apply my newfound knowledge appropriately and knit something that would work.

I think that I’ve mentioned before that I am on a ban from garments.

I decided that a wee baby cardigan did not count.

I was going to knit a cardigan!

On circular needles (although not in the round), from the top down!

(It’s not exactly about right or wrong but in knitting there is at least a ‘normal’ approach to where a pattern starts.  Jumpers start at the bottom, socks start at the top.  Anything else is crazy, trust me).

The pattern was well written but it did require a few leaps of faith.  Like when I wavered about whether I was meant to cut the yarn and start a new section or whether I really was meant to knit straight across the armpits and trust that they wouldn’t disappear.

People, you might not believe it, but I have knit a cardigan!

Husband says it looks like something you’d buy.  Which in husband-speak is the hugest compliment that you can pay my knitting.  He’s never said that before.

I found some funky little buttons to complete it too.

And if I say so myself, I’m quite pleased with the results.

I hope they are too.

And that it still fits by the time I send it to them!

PS.  Those soakers are still in the pipeline.  I have a plan B.

Related Articles

• WOE:  Going for Gold
• FO:  A Shawl
• Seeing Spots

 

 

 

WOE: Polishing a Tool

Red Writing Hood challenged us to hone our skills in an area where we feel weakest.  Mine is dialogue.  It comes out wooden and clunky every time, that’s why, you may have noticed, there’s rarely any direct speech in my prompt responses. 

You may also have noticed that I worry.  A lot.  I worry about my characters being ‘normal’ enough, whether they fit into their respective worlds.  They’re facing peer pressure before they’re even birthed!  And of course, dialogue, it seems to me at least, is where that shows most.  It’s them revealing their innermost thoughts and responding to other characters and the world around them.  I don’t feel that I’ve got to grips with that myself so I fret that it shows in my characters.

This is over the word limit, I admit and apologise, but I ‘borrowed’ it from something on my simmer pile.  I wanted to use this opportunity to see how my dialogue works in a ‘real’ situation.  That and I’m very tired and overwhelmed this week too!

~

Emily stirred in the strange bed, stiff and sore all over.  The covers were heavy and tight across her, the air smelt strange and something beeped nearby, regular and monotonous.  She wriggled and winced at the sharp pain in her side.

“Where am I?”  she asked softly.

Someone reached out and took her hand.

“Hey, it’s Carlie, remember?”

She finally focused and saw Carlie, her mom’s personal assistant, trim in her office suit and classy heels.  She smiled in recognition, although still slightly bemused.  Her head ached but it was the pain in her chest and side that really kicked in whenever she tried to move.  She took in her surroundings, clinical and harsh.  Hospital.

“What happened?”

Carlie hesitated.

“When is it?”

Emily pushed a hand under the pillow to reach for her cell phone but it wasn’t there.  She tried to remember what had happened, what had brought her into hospital.  She couldn’t remember.  She was frightened.

“Carlie?”

“It’s OK honey, you’re in the hospital.”

“I know that!  Why, Carlie, what happened?”

Surely if she was in hospital, Mom would be here too.  Where was her cell phone?  Maybe she wasn’t allowed it in the hospital.

“Where’s Mom?”

Again Carlie hesitated, her eyes shadowing over.  Emily sensed the change in her face and got worried, she had a growing feeling deep inside her that something wasn’t right, nausea creeping through her stomach.

“Carlie, where’s Mom?  Is Mom hurt too?”

“There was an accident, do you remember?”

An accident.  There was a vague sense of recognition; Emily frowned as she tried to focus on the fragments that were floating in the mental fog.  She could remember being in a car, was that when it happened?  If she thought really hard she could see her parents and her having a meal out, but distant and fuzzy, almost like a dream rather than a memory.

“You were coming home Friday night from the restaurant, your Dad was driving …”

Emily shook her head.  It could have been any one of many evenings, they loved eating out, but she still couldn’t recall that particular evening, worryingly.

“I don’t remember.  Is it Saturday then?”

“Um, Tuesday.  It’s Tuesday now.  Your grandmother is coming out soon.”

A nurse bustled in, adjusting the IV and sending eye messages to Carlie.

“Can I sit up?”

They helped her up and propped her against the pillows.  She ached.

“What’s wrong with me?  Where’s Mom and Dad?”

The nurse coughed slightly and left the room.

“You’ve cracked your ribs, damaged your spleen.  They were worried that you’d done something to your head but that all seems OK.  Your spine wasn’t damaged.  You’ve got a laceration on your forehead.”

Carlie recited the list awkwardly, nervously;  Emily picked up on her jitters immediately.

“You were in the back.  A car was on the wrong side …” she had to breathe deeply, subconsciously squeezing Emily’s hand a little harder.  “Head on collision.”  Her voice broke a little.  “Ally and James didn’t make it.”

Emily didn’t know how to react.  Was she meant to cry or scream or what?  She froze, tense, willing it not to be true.

“I wish your grandmother had got here already.”  Carlie murmured, turning away sharply.

The nausea welled up hard inside her.  It couldn’t be true.  This wasn’t happening.  The room spun.

“Gonna be sick…”

Carlie wheeled round and grabbed a cardboard tray from the locker.  Emily retched but there wasn’t much her empty insides could give.  It hurt so badly though, tearing through her.  She collapsed, pale and shaky onto the pillows.

The nurse came back in, more eye messages.  The mess was cleared and Emily rolled onto her other side, away from Carlie, her head was spinning.  She curled up as tight as she could, tethered to an IV pole and slowly wept.

Can You Guess What it is Yet?

(If the rest of the international community of bloggers don’t recognise the expression, it’s a popular catchphrase).

I’ve got a new project on my needles.  Yes, those very expensive, luxury needles I talked about before.  And yes, it’s in acrylic.  An expensive acrylic too.  My sweet husband chose it because research on Ravelry shows that although this pattern indicates a plain yarn, a variegated yarn really looks best.  Thank you to all those wonderful knitters who share their creations with the rest of the world.

The first problem that I encountered is that all my stitch/row counters are in use.  I have two fun clicky ones.  (Yes I do have too many projects on the go.  Ask my husband).  So I had to use a twisty one, you know the type?  They require you to put your knitting down at the end of each row and give it your undivided attention.  You also have to remember to increase the tens after every nine.  I forget.  Then I get confused when I’m ten rows behind where I thought I was.  Or worse, twenty.  I read the numbers backwards too, which means I can get very confused sometimes.  The very first row becomes number 6.  Huh?!  Oh.  I twisted the wrong one.  That’s a nine.  Sigh.

I thought I was doing quite well with it, might even have it done by the end of the week.  Ah, unbridled and foolhardy optimism.  If I don’t put it down and forget it about of course, which is why it’s very brave of me to declare that I have a project on the go here. I had of course read the pattern through before casting on, you know, as you do, the kind of read through which means casually skimming over it to make sure that there’s nothing too alien or scarily complicated happening.  Does anyone read the pattern through religiously before they start?  Am I meant to?  Hmm.  Oh well.

I did notice, whilst knitting not skimming, that after row 80 it stopped counting.  Now 80 rows is quite a lot when your counting skills and attention span are as limited as mine.  Not a problem.  I mean most patterns don’t count all the rows and you just have to knit until a mysterious ‘work measures X cm’.  That scares me, I’m never quite sure if I’m stretching it too much or too little.  I’d rather have rows actually at least then I know that I’m in the right place, roughly.  So even if after doing 80 rows of increasing you have to do the same amount of decreasing, that’s what?  Not too bad probably, not too different to working until a certain measurement, you’re just counting the rows instead.  Different sort of counting.

I was coping.  Making good progress, keeping optimistic.  Keeping an eye on the devious behaviour of my counter.  Then I saw a little instruction.  You know, just after that all important row 80.  Optimism flew away faster than you can say ‘bullet’.  Wheezy breathing commenced.  Just a minor detail.  Between the increases and the decreases, there’s a ‘Rep rows 79 and 80 30 more times’.  Yes, THIRTY more times.  This thing is going to be a lot bigger than I was planning.  It looks kinda small and cute in the photos.  Now it’s a monster.

Oh wait.  I’ve just done some more maths.  Hang on, just need to try to breathe.  If it says that about TWO rows, then I need to do them BOTH THIRTY more times, which involves multiplication.  That’s SIXTY rows.  OK, definitely not breathing.  Definitely not going to have it finished by the end of the week.  Sigh.

If and when I finish this project I’ll let you know but here’s what it looks like at the moment at row 63 (or 39 when I look quickly):

Can you guess what it is yet?!

Slowly Learning

Well, since my last post on knitting I have acquired several new skills.  Small, simple things that have pleased and delighted me as small, simple things tend to do.  Especially small, simple things that either threaten to be complicated and prove not to be or, best of all, look stunningly complicated and impressive when finished but were actually really nice and simple to do.

(I’m not quite sure what this reveals about my personality, a lazy streak?  Or maybe that I’m not the brightest spark on the planet; I’d definitely concur with that one.)

And there is something so pleasing when you have the finished article in your hands that is just beautifully executed and impressive, isn’t it?  You get a real kick out of it, you’ve spent the time and energy and whatever other resources that were required in learning the skill and carefully putting it into practice, and there it is finished and looking good.   You’re like, I made that, I did that!  You’re quite chuffed at your success.  Maybe it’s a knitted project, a homebaked cake or some other craft.  It’s even better when someone else notices your success and compliments it.  Yes, I made that, I did that!

(In a modest, un-big headed way of course.)

I have recently put my hard learnt skills into several projects that I have actually completed and made up.  (And blocked them properly along the way too, I’ll have you know!  Well, sometimes.)  And they look good.  Even the things I’ve knitted for my knitted-presents-phobic husband have met with success.  If you can win his approval, then things are definitely looking up.

Along the way to creating these new projects I’ve had to learn several new skills.

I’ve learnt a new cast on method which is so ridiculously simple and fun to do that it never ceases to entertain me.  It’s called the thumb method, I think it’s the basic cast on that most folks seem to start with.  I started with something that may or may not be the two needle method.  The thumb method is kind of the reverse procedure to my standard cast on.  It took a little while to get my thumbs and brain used to the new system, all yarn and thumbs rather than all fingers and thumbs!  The only thing that you need to be careful with is the amount of yarn you allocate for it.  If you leave too short a tail (for example, when you only want to cast on a few stitches) then you can run out of yarn to wrap around your slightly chunky thumb.  But if you take the recommendation I found in printed instructions and allow one inch per stitch then you can get a rather too long a tail, 34 inches for 34 stitches?!  (I hate waste too so I wasn’t impressed.)  You definitely do not need this much.  This new cast on is perfect for rib stitches, nice and stretchy.

Then I embarked on something absolutely TERRIFYINGLY COMPLICATED.  No, honestly, I did.  I wanted to find out if this particular knitting skill was as TERRIFYINGLY COMPLICATED as it threatened.  If it wasn’t then possibly I would be able to add a particularly grown up knitting skill to my repertoire.  More as a boost to my self confidence rather than as a boast to all and sundry.

I decided to investigate CABLES.  Nothing to do with wires, cables are those twisty things you find in fancy knitwear, long runs of stitches with a twist at various intervals.  With my growing confidence and skills base I had a funny feeling that it might not be quite as bad as everyone would like to make out.  In fact, it’s DEAD EASY!

You just end up with an extra needle and have to work reverse stocking stitch in the area that you want a cable.  Whether my cables twist to the front or the back, I’m not sure.  My sample looked like either version depending on which way I looked at it.  So you do, say, three stitches of reverse stocking stitch followed by four of normal stocking followed by a further three stitches of reverse stocking stitch.  Just like rib, really.  Then after say four rows, you put the first two stitches of the four in the middle on a separate needle (preferably one of those kinked cable ones otherwise you’ll spend a lot of time dropping stitches, trust us) and ignore them for a mo.  You go on to the last two stitches and knit/purl as them as usual.  Then you bring back the other two stitches and knit/purl them as you did the other two.  Yes, it does sound rather complicated and you’ll have needles all over the place but it’s actually really simple once you get the hang of it.  Get a really good knitting book with decent pictures and it’ll all make sense.

I’ve revised bobble/pompom making (it was seen as a viable way of passing a rainy afternoon when we were children, simple times!) and learned how to make tassels.  We have also learnt to make twisted cord.  I do mean ‘we’ because this is a two man job and is so simple and entertaining that my husband can be persuaded to help me make these whenever I so require.  (As opposed to counting stitches which he hates doing.)  I have also made an I-cord (akin to the French knitting that I’ve done intermittently from childhood).

Learning new skills is always great.  It can be fun, especially when you get pass the pulling your hair out stage.  It’s definitely rewarding.  It allows you to do more.

There’s another new knitted skill that I’ve learnt which I love so much that I’m going to dedicate an entire post to it another time …

I am a Knitter

You may have guessed from several references dotted about this blog that I knit.  I’ve been knitting for a few years now.  (In fact on reflection I think it will be a whole THREE years this summer!)  Lately though I’ve been doing some thinking about my knitting, this talent that I’m supposed to have, because, funny enough, I’ve always felt like I’m not good enough and that I’ve been very slow to learn.

I can knit.  I can purl.  I have (very) recently learned to rib and do moss/seed stitch.  I can only do even rib stitch (1×1, 2×2, 4×2 etc) otherwise my befuddled at the best of times head gets seriously confused.  Now these are fairly elementary skills in the world of knitting so why has it taken me so long to get here?

Part of the trouble I think is that I learned as an adult.  I learned to knit as an adult from other adults who have knitted all their lives.  They think nothing of it.  They just knit.  Masterpieces come off their needles just like that.  As a learner knitter amongst advanced peers you do feel a little bit inferior.  They make it look so easy and infuriatingly they seem to think that I should find it easy too.  If you start as a child then making basic scarves and doll’s clothes is an attractive proposition but as an adult your sights are set higher, far too high sometimes.

The second problem that I encountered pretty soon on my debut garter stitch scarf is that I can’t count.  No, I am really being serious.  Numbers and me have never been the closest of acquaintances and most of the time we’re rarely on speaking terms.  Knitting involves being able to count.  Knitting requires you not to get confused when faced with random series of numbers.

When I went on to my second project, which with hindsight was probably a little bit too advanced for the likes of me, the number battle got worse.  There is an awful lot of stitches to lose count of in a man size jumper, even when worked in simple stocking stitch.  There is also only a finite number of times that you can ask your husband to count your stitches for you too.

The third battle is that I have absolutely no coordination, my brain and limbs struggle to communicate when I am completely au fait with the task in front of me.  If it’s something totally unfamiliar then everything goes pearshaped rather too fast and embarassingly well for comfort.  (This is why I can’t dance.)  It takes a very long time for me to learn movements and you need this motion memory to do so many useful everyday things, like driving a car or being able to knit.

So altogether, after some serious reflection, usually during the dark slumberless hours of the night, I consider that it’s actually quite a major achievement that I’ve come so far with my knitting after all.  Yes my husband did ban me from major projects and reluctantly I have to concede he’s right.  (But just once, in this rare instance, OK?!)

After being banned from all the creative masterpieces that I had initially dreamt of fashioning on my needles I sulked for a while, of course, and then started again.

As a result I can now knit bootees adeptly (any friends and relations expecting can be sure of what they’ll receive from us!) and these small and sometimes rather insignificant projects have helped.  Through them I have sensibly built up my confidence and skills slowly but rather more surely than before.  And you know what, it shows.  I’m even finishing most of the projects that I start on!

I now only consider patterns that I know are within my capabilities and attention span.  (Knitting in circles is never going to be an option, I get very confused there too.)  I have a big stash of those patterns now ready for me to embark on and I’m branching out into ever m0re varied projects.  Though I’ve not given up bootees just yet.

So, yes, I am a knitter.  Just like the rest of you clever people.  But in my own unique way.