Knitting & Me

 

I’ve had and obsession/addiction to yarn for more than twenty years now.  It all began years ago with a ball of scrap yarn, hook and an old pattern book from a neighbour.  Teaching myself to crochet was a lot of work (we didn’t have YouTube back then) and I was left to fumble through, learning from my mistakes and being proud of my accomplishments!    I’ve spent many an hour lost in the mindbending task that is unravelling the knot of all knots from a failed attempt at pulling out the centre end.  A peril all yarn junkies have faced down a time or two i’m sure.  I am now also seriously (like I’m not even joking here) qualified to untangle any birdnested fishing line my husband hands me!

Crocheting may be my first passion, but Knitting is coming in a close second.  One obsession has indelibly lead to another.  I love the bang for your buck quality of crochet.  It builds up quickly and the need to only  use a single instrument to create wooly magic is also appealing.  But the draw of knitting has always called me.  I used to watch my now step-mom knitting, sitting on her deck at their cottage, chatting away enjoying a cup of tea on a warm afternoon.  She’d occasionally glance down and check her count, then continue on like she wasn’t doing anything Extrodinare, but meanwhile I sat thinking what she did was like magic.  I had, over the years, tried to teach myself to knit.  It all seemed cumbersome, and i gave up quickly and repeatedly.  The concept of having to drop the yarn and then pick it back up in my right hand was awkward and I never really got the hang of it.

Then in 2012 everything changed.  My husband and I bought a cottage, a lovely little place tucked on a hill beside a river, with a network of neighbours who are now more like family.  On our road I found a spirit similar to my own, my spirit animal and fellow Yarn Junkie, Lennie.  Lennie and I share a lot in common but our biggest commonality is our love of building things from yarn.  After many a conversation, one day her and I sat on her back deck in the shade, and set about chatting away and working on our current WIPs, me with my trusty hook, her with her needles.  My mind was instantly blown,  What dark magic was this?!  She carried the yarn in her left hand!!!  Thus was my introduction to Continental Knitting.  

It just seemed so natural, to carry the yarn in my left hand from crocheting that i never realized that there was a form of knitting that did it the same way. An entire new world opened up for me that day. Now i cant get enough of it.  I still crochet, I have a blanket I’m making for a friend but I find now that my WIP’s are more knitting than crochet.   I love the versatility   of knitting, the shapes and draping one can achieve with nothing more than yarn and needles.  It’s something that can be harder to achieve with crochet.  Will I always love crochet?  Yes I will.  Will I find room for knitting as well?  The answer is most definitely.