| My week in yarn abstinence (or “Extenuating circumstances make yarn abstinence impossible”) |
[18 Nov 2007|09:36pm] |
“Hobbies are for the passionless; I have obsessions.”
Where is that quote from?
Either way, it’s true. Full of passion as I am, I never really have hobbies. If I’m ever happy (and sometimes, when I’m exceedingly unhappy), it’s because I have one great big obsession.
Knitting started off innocently enough for me. I learned at a time when I was bored and depressed, and had no idea what to do with myself. I mostly wanted to make legwarmers. But as I discovered the Stitch ‘n’ Bitch books and the wealth of free knitting patterns online, I began to realize that there’s a whoooole lot you can do with knitting that non-knitters wouldn’t even dream of.
I began to learn about knitted garment construction bit by bit, from project to project. It turned out that knitting was something infinitely interesting and productive that I was good at and loved to do.
I always wanted to make clothes, but was never able to get into sewing. I just had no intense love for cutting fabric down to size and assembling it. But building my fabric slowly stitch by stitch, with string and sticks and my own two hands, having to pay attention to every little detail… it was perfect for me.
I was hooked. And that was before I’d even set foot into a local yarn store.
Oh yes, the yarn… It’s funny to think that when I was a new knitter, I couldn’t quite understand why some people were so obsessed with yarn. Yarn is just yarn, I thought. But I wasn’t quite right, because yarn is definitely not “just yarn.”
The more I worked with different natural fibers, the more I understood the difference between the craft store acrylics that I’d started off with and the quality yarns that I ended up getting from yarn stores. Through a lot of trial and error, I learned how important it is to choose the right yarn for each project. And oh, there’s a lot to choose from.
Moving back to Toronto from Ottawa was the kicker. I’d spent 10 of the 16 months I’ve been knitting in Ottawa, and the LYS’s there just didn’t compare. Coming back to Toronto was like a yarn epiphany for me. Suddenly, there was yarn everywhere I turned. Alpaca and mohair and merino wool, angora and cashmere and tussah silk, cotton and soy and bamboo, and hemp and corn, and you mean they can make yarn out of that too?! Kettle dyed and handpainted, solids and variegated and self-striping, heathers and tweeds. Slubby roving and loosely twisted 2-ply and tightly spun 12-ply, and oh my god.
I have a yarn problem.
The problem is that there is too much to choose from, and I want all of it.
In the past few months, I’ve bought more yarn than I could possibly knit in the next few months. Actually, putting it that way is a bit of an understatement.
So I’ve been trying to engage in a bit of yarn-abstinence. But circumstance just isn’t on my side! I mean, when the bank offers me a credit card, how could I not take it, in the face of all the online yarn-purchasing opportunities? And when a new yarn store opens up in my city, how could I not go to their launch party and take advantage of their 15% off sale? …Right?
So on that note, I give you exhibit A:
( Box of Knit Picks awesomeness )
My other moment of yarn-weakness this week was at the launch of The Purple Purl, Toronto’s new yarn store/café. They have a lovely space in the lower east end, and they threw a fabulous bash to celebrate their opening on Thursday.
I like that there are so many LYS’s in the city, because each one offers different things. What the Purple Purl offers above all others, imo, is a comfy, spacious atmosphere to go have a coffee and hang out and knit. No other Toronto yarn stores or knit cafes compare in this respect. The owners are two lovely, friendly ladies who’ve put a lot of love and hard work into opening this store, and I really wish them all the best.
Oh, there was some yarn there too. Y'know, just a bit. And yes, I brought a bit of it home. ^^;
( Y. porn )
Geez, this entry was long… This is what happens when you give me my own space on the internet and free reign to talk about yarn. I really need to shut up and go knit.
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| Knitting, from the Continent |
[11 Nov 2007|06:28pm] |
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mood |
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music |
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Patrick Wolf - Get Lost |
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My first, like, 10 forays into Continental knitting didn’t work out particularly well.
I understood how to do it in theory: Hold the yarn in your left hand, thereby not having to “throw” it over the needle for each stitch. Easy! …Right?
Apparently not. ‘Cause every time I tried to do it, I would stick about an inch of the right needle into the loop (as I would when knitting English style) and then try to “pick” at the yarn like I’d heard you’re supposed to. I would then proceed to miserably fail at getting the new loop back out through the old loop, stomp my foot a bit and grumble, and then end up doing some complicated thing where I’d wrap the yarn around the needle using my left index finger and hold down the loop in order to pull it through the old stitch. I’d do that for a bit, then decide it was way too slow and ridiculous, and I’d give up and go back to knitting English style.
But I knew I’d have to learn it someday. Stranded-colourwork has been looming over my knitting horizon, and it would be really helpful if I could knit both ways.
So I kept on trying… for a few minutes, once every few months or so… futilely, so I thought. But you know what? By some fluke, I managed to accidentally learn how to do it! Finally!
I was working on a dishcloth, and figured I’d try doing it continental, since I didn’t much care if my tension was off on something that I’d end up scrubbing dishes with. And I was doing it my usual way, trying to figure out what on earth I was actually supposed to be doing in order for it to work properly… when I stuck the tip of the needle in just a bit, and picked at the yarn… and voila! A stitch! It was so brilliantly simple that I can’t believe I’d never figured it out before.
So the lesson of the day was: Don’t stick the needle in too far when knitting a stitch in continental style, and it will actually work! Amazing!
It’s still painfully slow to do compared to how smoothly I can knit English, but my epiphany inspired me to practice all morning.
Here is my first piece of Continental knitting, a moss stitch swatch:
( Knit-purl goodness )
Here is my first Continental FO, good ol’ Grandmother’s Favourite Dishcloth:
( For scrubbing 'n' stuff )
I don’t want to work on any of my “real” projects in Continental because my tension is really horrible, but this motivates me to finally use up all that kitchen cotton I have.
Today, dishcloths; tomorrow, fair-isle sweaters! Hurray!
ETA: I'm not really knitting a Fair Isle sweater tomorrow. Are you kidding me?
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| Knit-blog-ish (or "Jumping on the bandwagon and trying to avoid the pointy sticks in it") |
[11 Nov 2007|12:06pm] |
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mood |
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geeky |
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music |
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Dir en grey - OBSCURE |
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So, I’ve been contemplating starting a knitting blog since all the cool knitters are doing it since all I ever think/talk about anymore is knitting. I sometimes have to consciously keep myself from bringing up knitting when I’m in conversation with people. It’s bad.
But I haven’t started one for two main reasons:
1. I’m lazy. And starting a new blog takes time and effort that I could put towards dicking around aimlessly on Ravelry knitting instead.
2. For all the effort, no one would actually read the damn thing, so I might as well be talking to myself about knitting in my bedroom like I usually do anyway.
And then I was thinking about my poor neglected LiveJournal. I still use LJ everyday, obsessively reading and posting and commenting on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) punk_knitters. And getting off on reading HP slash comms. But I’ve been posting in my own journal… like, once a month? And I’d like to post more often, but what the hell do I ever want to talk about? Knitting. So the natural solution I’ve come up with (and please let me know if you think of a better one) is to turn my LiveJournal into a KnitJournal. And it won’t matter if no one ever reads the self-indulgent crap I write, because it didn’t take any additional effort to set this thing up. So, non-knitting entries are now friends-only. But most of what I foresee writing in the near-future will be knitting-related. P.S. Anyone who is horribly offended and doesn't want occasional entries about knitting appearing on their Friends Page, feel free to remove me from your Friends Page. I don't have many friends on here anyway. >_>
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