27 September 2006

10 Knitterly Things ...

I enjoy reading Grumperina's blog, and the other day, she posted a meme* of ten things related to knitting that her readers probably did not know about her. It was fun to read, and she encouraged others to provide a list as well. Since I'm new to all of this, I figured I would play along, since probably not many of you know a whole lot (if anything at all) "knitterly" about me ... so here you go:

1. One of my goals is to knit Alice Starmore's "St. Brigid" pattern (without the tassels). I have had the book where it is published, Aran Knitting, since it first became available, and I love looking at the pictures. Someday.

2. I don't mind purling. I read other's comments, posts, and some of the knitting listservs, and it seems like the purl stitch is something that a lot of people go to drastic lengths to avoid. My purl stitches are really not that different in appearance from my knit stitches, and, at least in my case, purling does not cause anxiety attacks!

3. I love beautiful wood needles, and if I had unlimited funds, would buy them whenever I could, whether or not they were practical, or a size I needed.

4. I am one of the Founding Mothers (as we liked to call ourselves) of the Penn Knitters, the staff/faculty/knitting group at the University of Pennsylvania here in Philadelphia. The others are Lizz Gable, who I think is still in the area, but I have lost touch with; Karen Walter, who lives out near Reading, and teaches knitting and spinning and is one of the most amazing knitters I've ever met; and, Robin Dougherty, who moved to Cairo last year from Cambridge, England, and the e-mail address she sent me doesn't work, so unfortunately, I've lost touch with her, too. But as far as I know, the Penn Knitters are still going strong, even though the four of us are no longer at Penn.

5. My husband Tim is an enabler in the best possible way. He is always bringing home books about knitting that he comes across at work, or tells me about them to see if I'm interested. A couple of years ago, he actually brought me a printout of knitting books they were getting in for the holidays, and asked me to mark the ones I might like! And it's not like I don't already have plenty of knitting books ... He also never says anything about the amount of yarn I have, or how many projects I have in process, or really, anything negative about any of it. This year, we even took Sebastian and the three of us went to Maryland Sheep & Wool! A real keeper, no?

6. The fact that people like Julia Roberts and Gwyneth Paltrow knit, and it's always presented as something that just makes them so much more wonderful, just annoys me. However, finding out that former Secretary of State Madeline Albright was a knitter pleased me.

7. I absolutely cannot stand it when people assume that you knit, or that you learned to knit, because you are/were/hope to be pregnant. Puh-leeze. Even before I became an old bitter crone, it annoyed me when that would happen.

8. It makes me nuts when knitters criticize other knitters because they do not create their own patterns. Yes, everyone probably could, at some point, create their own pattern. Much like everyone could learn to play the piano. But not everyone wants to, and not everyone has the aptitude to make it worth their effort. So, if you can create your own patterns, that's pretty amazing. But if I want to follow a pattern, don't lecture me about how I'm limiting myself.

9. I absolutely suck at crochet. I know the chain stitch, and I took class where I managed to create a reasonably nice-looking purse, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not wrap my brain around it. Even though I don't have any plans or desire to give up knitting for crochet, I would still like to get to the point where I could understand the different stitches. And it would be great if, at a minimum, I could crochet well enough to add edgings onto things, or create embellishments for knitted items.

10. Though I do not think I am exceptional, I'm pleased with my knitting abilities, and since I've started helping out now and then at Rosie's, I find I'm picking up new knowledge all of the time, and some concepts/stitches/whatever are finally becoming comprehensible to me!

*Until I started reading other knitting blogs, I had never heard of memes. Who knew?

4 comments:

teabird said...

I love to purl - once, I did a whole scarf in purl instead of knit because the yarn - ribbony stuff - was less apt to get pierced and ugly that way!

Anonymous said...

I used to know how to crochet. Used to. When I was in grade school, my mom showed me and I went on to create one long single chain out of an entire skein of yarn. She tried to teach me how to turn it into something but I refused. Once I reached the end we undid it and rolled it into a ball. It looked like Chinese curly noodles. I remember it was a charcoal grey yarn and the needle was this beautiful silver blue. I think she still uses it.

Anonymous said...

tea swap pal spoiler here, I'm still working on you. soon, soon a package will be on the way.

Lorette said...

You and I are a lot alike. I like purling, too. I haven't quite figured out why many people will go to such lengths to avoid it. I want to make St. Brigid. Ebony needles make me swoon. Though I've tweaked patterns now and then, I really don't have much desire to be a designer.
And I think it's very cool that Eleanor Roosevelt was a knitter. Julia and Gwyneth who?