Hooray and whew, I just past yet another test. What kind of test is it, I wonder. Fortitude, caring? I compare my challenge to that of climbing
How did I get here, and why is it so important for me to add this item to my list of accomplishments? Because I want to be a Knitter, not a knitter. I mean, I AM a Knitter, who just happens to have a lot of years of knitting to make up for. My eyes, fingers and heart are Knitters. They can’t stay away from yarn, from touching it, reading about it, and of course, knitting it. My stash is growing exponentially, a skein at a time pushing my fabric stash further into the corners of my bins, baskets, shelves, closets, and drawers. And needles, fine ebonies and rosewoods, metal circulars, bamboo, cheery plastics, five packs in sizes that could be toothpicks or flagpoles. The ultimate concession is the more frequent renaming of my sewing room to my knitting room.
Mom tried to teach me when I was a child. Long gone are all the memories except my reversing everything she showed me to a left-handed version, thanks to my stubbornness at making all things left handed, from my golf clubs to my scissors. For thirty-some years I suffered her hints and comments that I really should pick up knitting. Who was she kidding? I was a traveling professional, for heavens sake. I was single, I was active, I was busy. No time for knitting. (Believe me; I hear those comments all the time. I smile to myself at those excuses.) Sure, I’m a very talented sewist whose fingers linger over fabrics, and yes, I’ve dabbled with all forms of needle crafts. But knitting, well, it just seemed too slow and boring.
My next attempt to knit came just a few years ago when my
husband, toddler daughter Anna and I visited my mother-in-law in
We set to work, she teaching me to knit. This time I swallowed my pride and settled for learning to knit right-handed. My fingers’ memories took over, but that proved troublesome since I was now knitting right-handed continental style, when I’d learned left-handed other style a lifetime ago. After knitting a small patch, she agreed that I could choose my first project. Knowing myself, I wanted a fast knit that would look great – big needles, big yarn, few pieces to make a sleeveless turtleneck top in a delectable plum color. I also picked some bright pink yarn and a sweater pattern for Anna. I hid that bag! When I brought Nina my parcel of yarn, needles and pattern, she chastised me for choosing such a difficult first project. Shaping, acrylic yarn that split, and a knit two, purl two ribbed pattern that multiplied with each row, I was over my head. But she patiently undid the mistakes I hadn’t even noticed, sprinkling in spices such as
“How on earth did you do that?” and “What’s going on here?” After a few more days of work, and with my arm muscles cramped with stress, we returned home. I knit in the car until I was car sick, and that was the end of that project. The back piece was almost complete, and the parcel stays in my Sewing Room closet even now. I thought I’d knit again, but again it was lost to a life full of motherhood and everything else.
I believe things happen for a reason, but when Anna began vomiting almost nonstop six months later, I was too busy to know that here finally, was my time to become one with knitting. She couldn’t leave my arms, and I became bored. Once again, my mother suggested knitting, this time by offering me a “Stitch and Bitch” book she’d picked up for me along her cross-country travels. The book captivated me. Here were interesting patterns, beautiful yarns, and the knitters weren’t grandmothers. I quickly read the whole book, skipping the details of the patterns. I asked Mom for some yarn. I’ve been with yarn and needles ever since, knitting to make up for all those years gone by. I deserve the “I told you so” that my mother has never spoken. She’s too busy thanking me for the knitted gifts I offer her.
Back to my Everest shawl. We need each other. This beautiful Koigu yarn has spoken to me for several years. I’ve collected it at a rate faster than I’ve knit it into socks. But a Knitter needs to actually Knit things, not just dabble with socks, mittens, hats, scarves, doll sweaters and dresses, and of course, build a stash monument. I need lace, intarsia, fair isle, projects like sweaters. Hard stuff, challenges, items that require lots of skeins.
This particular pattern has five different colors of Koigu, and a simple (they tell me) pattern of eight rows, with four stitches added every odd row, thereby creating the triangular shape. I’ve probably knit enough of this scarf to have completed it, had it not been for the tests. The tests vary from not having the right number of stitches on the needle, finally reaching the fifth color only to discover I’d knit double the number of rows in each preceding color, noticing a missed yarn over several rows later and not knowing how else to repair it but by tinking every stitch, and so on, over and over again. Each test sends me whirling through the grief cycle – disbelief (No, I don’t believe I missed another yarn over), anger (How many times do I need to learn that I’m prone to miss those along the center? Why can’t I focus harder?), bargaining (Okay, I drove over to my yarn shop seeking permission to leave those extra rows of color, seeking concurrence that I wouldn’t notice the strange color pattern), sadness (All those beautiful colorful and lace patterned rows are for naught), to acceptance (Yes, truly, I screwed up. I have to be responsible for my actions. I must decide what’s right now). Only then have I been able to test what kind of Knitter I am, what kind of person I am. Will I settle for a less than perfect shawl by leaving those wrong colors, sneaking in extra stitches to make up for missed yarn overs? How will I feel about myself for settling? Will I yank it all out or tink it and ultimately lose interest? Will I hate this shawl? Will I prove to myself and my knitting mentors and friends that I succeeded in a personal challenge? Of course there’s only one answer, but my stitches ask me those questions repeatedly.
Like the atmosphere thinning as mountain climbers approach their destination, my rows are getting longer and therefore harder. Longer periods of focus are required , tinking will take longer. But I know now that I won’t quit. Not only am I determined to reach my goal, I remember I’m being watched by my daughter. As I watch Anna struggle to learn to read and write, I’ve been teaching her that “quitters never win and winners never quit”. If I quit, what will I teach her? She’s watching me tink and yank and fail and try again. She’s also learning what yarn overs and ssk’s and k2tog’s and psso’s are. Although I only learned to read the pattern graph last week myself, she can read it now and she’s six years old. It may be forty years before she becomes a Knitter, or maybe sooner or never.
At first I was hoping beyond hope I wouldn’t make any mistakes because I wouldn’t know how to fix those lace stitches. I returned to reality as I encountered the inevitable errors. Fear set in, and I waited for the tests to become insurmountable, leading me to resign my efforts and stow the shawl with that first plum project. But I return to the lessons I teach Anna. The list is endless – if at first you don’t succeed, try try again; quitters never win and winners never quit; life is 10% what happens and 90% attitude. Wait! I was expecting to fail! The same attitude I’ve sadly observed in Anna! Whoa, how did that little person acquire that from me? Yikes, this shawl has taken on new importance. I’m not just knitting a shawl, nor am I advancing my knitting status to Knitter, I’m teaching my daughter to succeed in spite of little failures along the way. Vince Lombardi once said that Success is not in never failing, but in picking yourself up and continuing. I’m not knitting for me, I’m knitting for us, her and me. I’m teaching a lesson to both of us.
This shawl was meant to be. Its destiny was to be formed in my heart and mind and knit with my fingers. Goodness knows, I don’t wear shawls. I’m not a shawl-wearer, but I will wear this one, maybe. And so what if I don’t? This is a process project more than a results project. The shawl will evolve, and I will too. For every stitch I see, there were at least two before it, tinked or yanked out. To be so lucky, this shawl of mine, to be redone until I’m satisfied with it. Notice I didn’t say “redone until perfected”, because it will have secrets that perhaps only I will know that will belie its handmade-ness.
My mood depends on how my knitting’s going. I’m in my “wa”, feeling centered and content, after I knit several or more rows of its lace pattern. The luscious tightly spun fine wool yarn feels so steady, so dependable, so soft as it slips through my fingers, and the colors offer a never-ending kaleidoscope, changing frequently within each of the five skeins of hand-dyed Koigu yarn. Brilliant shades of reds, oranges, violets and turquoises are answered by warm and subtle browns, lavenders and again by richly soaked navy, purple, tawny brown and teal. Even winding the yarn was a treat for my daughter and me as we watched it spinning evenly and brilliantly on the winder. Anna had begged for the privilege to be the Winder, and the yarn proved easy to wind even for her six year old dexterity. No yarns flailing wildly off the rapidly expanding ball like many less cooperative yarns. See? The yarn knows its destiny.
When I’m in my wa my mind and fingers find their lace rhythm. This shawl pattern was designed by my friends who own and run my local yarn shop; they have their own secrets knit into their shawls. The shawl is triangular, and you start at one point with seven stitches cast on, adding four more stitches on each front side row until it’s finished. The lace pattern is an eight row pattern, and all the back side rows are purled. So that means there are only four rows to learn.
As I said, there’s a rhythm to knitting lace, but for me it’s not as steady as straight knitting, or purling or even ribbing. I don’t have the even trotting or cantering of a well-trained horse; my rhythm is more stop and go. I can whiz along the little sections of knit stitches, but when I get to the psso’s or ssk’s my fingers falter slightly as I twist the needle around to shift the yarn. My rhythm is more like a dance with 2/4 and 3/4 time signatures combined. Knit knit cha cha cha.
Lace work hasn’t become second nature to me yet. Maybe it never will, but that’s one significant reason for this shawl. You see, I’ve been knitting for real for about three or four years, but I was born to knit almost fifty years ago. I mean, Knit. I’m supposed to Knit lace, fair isle, big sweaters, intarsia. Yarn beckons me. It knows my name, and sometimes it softly whispers “Karen see me, come touch me” and other times it demands “KAREN HERE I AM, TAKE ME HOME”. Chocolate also knows my name, but that’s another story.
My knitting had been progressing almost as fast as my stash was growing. That is until a minor glitch when we adopted a four week old kitten named Sara Midnight (Sara in case she was a girl, Midnight the alternate selection). I thought kittens and cats were supposed to curl up beside the knitter and gently purr, wisely and knowingly sharing that special knitting contentment. I knit, she purrs. Sadly, I learned otherwise when I returned to what had been a happily growing sock for Anna on a pair of brand new Addi-turbo circular needles. (Think $$$.) The mission in THAT project had been to teach myself how to knit socks on circular needles instead of double pointeds. What I most unexpectedly discovered when I resumed knitting my sock was first, the yarn snagged on the needle’s cable and wouldn’t slide. Careful inspection revealed tiny kitten-tooth sized scratches. The other needle? Same. Oh, and the yarn ended two feet away from the last completed stitch, with little frazzled plys sticking out like a miniature electrical wire gone bad. What kind of kitten had I adopted? This wasn’t a cute adorable kitten, it was a ferocious, revered-needle destroying beast. My daughter’s love for this kitten was face to face with my need to knit. The result was my knitting became stealthy, away from Sara Midnight Needle and Yarn Destroyer. I couldn’t let her see me pull out a long strand of yarn, I had to mask the movement and sounds of my needles as they softly clinked, and above all, I must never NEVER leave out an Addi-Turbo needle without being double-wrapped far from Sara’s sharp eyes, teeth and claws. And I did learn to love knitting circular needle socks, albeit more warily than I had anticipated.
For sure I’ve found my rhythm now. I’ve got the pattern, and I barely need to look at it, but I keep it nearby as my security blanket. My level of comfort has increased to where I’m not afraid of making a mistake anymore, just irritated at discovering one. My level of annoyance is directly proportional to the number of stitches I’ll have to tink, for that is still my best method of removing the malignant malformation.
Now that I’ve relaxed about understanding the stitch and color patterns, I’m probably even more dangerous than when I started. Right now, for instance, I’m writing, uploading images to my web site, checking my email, watching Sara, thinking about an endless array of shoulds, needs, wants, and wonders such as rearranging the furniture in this room, and knitting. Think I’ll make a mistake?
I try to be rigorous on my purl return trip back row by checking the previous row’s stitches. I also make periodic examinations on the pattern row as I’m knitting it. Experience has taught me that just because I end with the right number of stitches, all is not well if I left out a yarn over. Missing one won’t change the number of stitches used, since you’re adding it, and not using a stitch that’s from the previous row. And I’ll be darned if I give in and count all the stitches each time. I calculated that by shawl’s end there’ll be more than 300 stitches per row. I’d have to count all the stitches in every row to be sure I wasn’t missing a mistake, and sorry, but that’s not what knitting’s about for me. Another way I now check my work is to see if the yarn overs are making the little heart patterns. I’ve got all these cute little hearts, although they look pretty shriveled up right now unless I stretch them to check on them and imagine what they’ll look like some day.
Alas, all these checks don’t make my rows flawless, but I think this is where I should be right now. I’m pretty sure I notice a mistake within a row or two, and I’m getting a tiny bit better about coming up with options for repair. I can sneak in a yarn over on the next row, for example. The exercise is now about my concentration. The fact that I do all these other things and let my mind wander offers some consolation that truly I’m getting into my rhythm, and it’s a nice one. I like knitting this shawl.
I knitted last night for the first time in almost a week. All week I looked forward to reuniting with my needles each evening, but with the busy teaching schedule and Duncan being away, I found it easier, and more restful, to go to sleep with Anna each night at 9:00ish. I existed in the bedroom, the kitchen and school. Last night I was able to knit for three or four rows, and now I just knit one. But I have a confession. I’m in the doldrums of the shawl. The anxiety of mistakes and learning had kept me motivated and alert, but now I know the pattern as well as I ever will. I’ve knit into the 9th of 10 stripes, so the rows are very long now. But even so, the pattern does make each row mildly interesting. Knock on wood; I haven’t had to rip out any rows for a long time. How dare I utter those words; the knitting goddess will be very angry for my saying so; I’m sure she’s scheming how she’ll extract her revenge. Meekly, humbly must I remain her lowly knitting servant or I will be exposed to her full wrath.
Between knitting sessions, my mind wanders to different
projects. I’ve promised myself I’d work
on the
Anyway, there’s THAT project, then a few more simple washcloths that I’d like to jazz up a bit, and as I look at my kitty who’s now buried her face happily in my shawl as it rests abandoned next to me, I wonder how I could possibly deny knitting her the kitty pillow in “Stitch and Bitch”. Oh, and my mind is contemplating the next felted scrap evening bag. There’s so much knitting to do.