Confession: I cannot get into knitting. I don’t know why. A few years ago, it seemed like all my friends were going out and buying yarn by the pound. All of a sudden, knitting was cool for teenagers, and although my friends looked at balls of yarn and saw an exciting new trend, I just saw grandmas making tea cozies. I rolled my eyes and chose to abstain. It just didn’t capture my attention.
A few years have passed since that initial wave of knitting fever, and I have realized that it’s actually a really useful craft: you can make scarves, socks, and even sweaters—think about all the money you can save! (Not to mention the pride of saying “btw, I made this”) So when I found myself with a surplus of creative energy that I was itching to put to good use, I decided to sign up for Beginning Knitting at the Craft Center.
My friend and I showed up to the old Art Barn with high hopes. When our teacher arrived with wooden needles and cotton yarn in hand, it seemed like the class would meet all my expectations. We began to knit, and I became convinced that a) I could definitely do this and b) it was definitely addictive. But it’s been a while now, and I have nothing to show for it, except for little pieces of yarn strewn about my room.
‘Expectation’ photo from purlbee.com, which has some wonderful (and simple) patterns, if you’re looking for inspiration.
It’s not that it’s a difficult task. Knitting is a bit confusing at first, but the more you practice, the faster, and easier, it gets. It becomes almost mechanical. And it’s not that it’s boring. It really can suck you in. Those classes were two hours long, and we spent most of that time in silence, each of us concentrating on the pattern we were attempting to follow. I lost all sense of time!
But, that is the biggest problem I have with knitting. Time. I was told that it’s easy to fit in a row or two everyday, that it was perfect to do while watching Netflix after dinner. But every time I tried I forgot where I was in the pattern, or got distracted, or got too invested in the project and decided to just get up early to finish my reading. I couldn’t justify the time I spending, and I was bummed.
‘Reality’ photo courtesy, sadly, of the author.
I was also a little confused—I didn’t know why everyone else seemed to find knitting relaxing and easy when it just brought me deeper and deeper into a bubble of procrastination, which only made me more anxious in the long run.
So I decided to turn to the pros.
Lauren Schick ’13 is a self-described “avid knitter.” This seems like an understatement to a novice like me, since she makes shawls and socks, while I only have a sixteenth of a scarf completed after almost two months of work. When I asked her for some tips for people having trouble with getting into knitting, she had this advice:
1. Don’t give up when you first start learning how to knit! Sometimes it takes a few tries to learn a new stitch.
2. If you are having trouble, there are a million tutorials on YouTube that show you how to do different things. I’ve made like 8 pairs of socks and I still need to watch a video every time I finish the toe or I mess it up.
3. Knitting has a short hand for patterns and the like, and you should learn it! Knowing what k1p1 etc. indicates really widens the number of patterns you can do.
4. Join www.ravelry.com. It’s a whole social network for knitters, with forums, patterns, yarn reviews, and more!
5. Know when it’s time to move on to the next thing. I recently had to pull out half a shawl that had a mistake in its pattern, but pulling it out was better than spending weeks trying to fix the problem.
Lauren even partakes in a knitting group with some women from the Gambier area. They meet most Wednesday nights from 7-9 in the bookstore. If you’re interested in the class at the Craft Center, which is only five dollars (less than the cost of the needles and yarn that the CC supplies), be on the lookout for emails about classes for next semester.
I’m not giving up on knitting, and I don’t want to encourage anyone else to—I still think it’s a really great hobby. Being able to create something tangible– something that reflects the amount of effort you put into it–is amazing. So, I’m going to watch the YouTube tutorials, call up all those friends, and see what happens. Who knows, maybe over the summer I’ll finish my scarf…just in time for fall.