Knot Ever Enough Knitting

Knitting is one of my favorite hobbies. If you know me, then you know I always have a project on the needles in my purse. Always. I love the fulfillment that comes from working with my hands, completing projects, and continually learning something new. I also have a great appreciation for the beauty and quirks and energy in all things handmade, something rarer and rarer in our plastic society. I love cooking, crafting, making jewelry, collage, gardening, blah, blah, blah… but knitting is a take-it-with-you kind of sport, so it’s a bit more versatile than a lot of my other interests.

Generally, I find knitting very relaxing and motivating. It puts me in a more grounded mental state. Like photography. I feel more like ‘myself’ if that makes sense. Other times it’s infuriating, drives my obsessions/neurosis, creates added self-induced pressure, and especially if I am not careful, it can be ridiculously expensive, as my good friend Clio has learned.

Over the past 4 years, as I have become a more experienced knitter, I haven’t been so good at documenting my work. Sometimes because my knitting tends to be gifted and knitting to the nth hour doesn’t allow time for a shoot. But if I’m honest with myself, and you, I haven’t photographed my work mostly because it’s added pressure. Some other way for my worth or skill to be judged and potentially criticized. Something else to do, that I’m not doing. Another thing on a Post-It note. And I should have stock in Post-Its.

But now a few things have shifted around inside, though nothing I can verbalize yet. And I have come to terms with a couple of things. First, I’m currently tired of knitting for other people. I have very little I’ve made myself and truly love, and I’m not always sure whether I’m giving gifts that are treasured or tolerated. I’m sort of excluding babies from this commentary because I feel pretty strongly that children should all have things that are handmade for them with love. Acknowledging them as individuals in this world. But that’s a whole other blog post. Second, (you forgot this was a list, didn’t you?) I love what I do. I love creating. Creating a scarf. Creating a photograph. And putting all my insecurities aside about my work, my talent, my drive, is very gratifying and freeing.

But I didn’t know any of that (and I still don’t fully understand it, I know there’s more going on there, and surely more hours of therapy) until I started knitting, and re-knitting, this scarf, and decided to actually photograph it in progress.

The story of this scarf is that as a brand new knitter, a few short years ago, I bought this Rowan pattern book and a whole bunch of Rowan Ribbon Twist yarn. I started this scarf like 3 times in my first month of knitting, trying to perfect that bobble (that repetitive round boil of a thing). And once I perfected the bobble, I stashed it away amongst my UFOs (unfinished objects). I have no idea why.

So fast forward to this October. This October when it was 20 degrees and snowing on the east coast before Halloween! And I went to my closet and had nothing to wear that I had knit myself and really thought was cool. (I guess all these gifts I’ve been giving out all over the place aren’t cool either. Neurosis, check.) And I freaked out. Until I found a pair of awesome leg warmers that I wore for the rest of the weekend, and so I pushed the freaking out to the backmost corner of my mind. Then I was able to more successful freak out about packing the boxes. Which led me to pull out some patterns and yarn I have been saving for myself.

Right? Packing vs Knitting. Knitting totally wins. Sooo, enter the resurfacing of the Rowan Ribbon Twist Cable Bobble Scarf! (That name’s as complicated as CawfeeGuy’s morning Starbucks order.) So here we go, I frog it (rip it all out) and start over. Crazy? Like a fox! I knit the first half 4 years ago when I was a new knitter so my gauge must be totally different. In layman’s terms, in order for the whole scarf to look the same width, I needed to do it again. But now, as I’m re-knitting this scarf for the gazillionth time, I don’t think the yarn shows off the pattern enough. Beautiful yarn. Beautiful pattern. Not so much a match though. So I go on a quest for a larger gauge, in a more sumptuous texture, and in a color that’s going to better show off the pattern. And here we are today. With 2 skeins of Cascade Magnum in a lavenderish, greyish, awesomely flecked color I can only liken to corpses or Zombies.

See, we’re back to the Zombies \again. I’m so predictable. And I think you can also predict, you’ll be seeing more knitting here. And that it won’t be for you. It’ll be for me. Or a baby. Should I stick my tongue out now?

Rowan Ribbon Twist, above, while beautiful, is not my favorite match for this Rowan scarf pattern

As of the date of this blog post the scarf’s not done. Sheez. It will get there. But a few babies bumped it’s priority ranking.