knitting lessons

Several days ago our local newspaper published an article about the trend to handmade Christmas gifts this season. I hope they didn’t pay for that conclusion. I’m way ahead of their bell curve here. I’ve always loved making gifts. However, the realization that I need to do this in a big way this year only dawned on me a month ago. It would’ve been helpful had I faced this reality in July. Adding to my panic/urgency is the unfortunate fact that nearly every friend I have also has a November or December birthday. Frantic painting and baking have begun. Even though I have entirely too much spare time, I concluded that I’ll never be able to manage a painting for each friend. Besides, they could hate what I paint. They could hate what I bake too, for that matter.

My best friend suggested that I try knitting a hat for my flight instructor’s birthday (this coming Monday). This idea popped up on Thursday, and within fifteen minutes, smitten with the idea and visions of stunning needlework dancing in my head, I found myself in the car on the way to the yarn shop, via the wine store (and OH there could be very good reason for that). Yarn shops are an artist’s paradise (colors, textures, just like paint), and finding beautiful yarn took no time at all. Mesmerized, I watched the mechanized wooden winders turned skeins of yarn into manageable balls. The machines are elegant in their simplicity.

Home, I am instructed to practice on a scrap of yarn first, before diving into the alpaca yarn. It’s been 15 or so years since I’ve knit a thing, and I was never good at it to begin with. I see why she (for this post, anyway, referred to as Master Knitter) told me this. I literally forgot how to purl! I was whizzing along yesterday, practicing while I was baking, turned the needles over for the next row, and literally screamed out loud.

MK has already taught me two things - how to knit on your cast on row (I’d never seen that technique before), and how to recognize a purl stitch from a knit stitch. I think to myself, maybe there’s hope.

Or not.

I rushed home today and started casting on with the good stuff. I knit/purl the first row after that. Something is not right. By the time I’ve called Knitter’s 911, and MK arrived to rescue me, I’ve torn out the beginning twice and there’s a wad of tangled yarn on the floor. She identified two problems – the yarn is a little light for the pattern, and I don’t have the right number of stitches cast on either, so the pattern’s not working. She doubled the yarn, and I tried again. This time it looked better. Even so, I managed to do some odd thing again…it looks like I’ve dropped or not dropped a stitch. There was much gnashing of teeth on my part and I’m positive I’d have a much better chance of flying an ILS approach down to minimums than knitting this hat. The amount of sweat generated by either task is nearly the same.

I finally start to get it right, and I’m safe to continue, unattended….for now.

All of a sudden, I look down…and there it is. I can see the beginning of the pattern, and a light bulb comes on.

But more than that….to think that someone, long ago, figured out how to take what are essentially a simple piece of colored string and two sticks to create something beautiful. It’s like any other art. Just as painters paint, and sculptors sculpt, I see why knitters knit. Creating is addictive.