Oh, the miles and miles of yarn I’ve consumed, from my very first stitch, to “Always… a scarf of witchcraft and wizardry” (my first published pattern, a double-knit scarf following the story of Harry Potter from the Sorcerer’s Stone to the Deathly Hallows)!
My immense pride in my scarf comes not just from the overwhelming positive response from knitters and non-knitters alike, or the fact that JK Rowling liked my tweet of the scarf !!, but the fact that the design was mine, from the first passing brain wave to the final product.
My knitting life commenced in earnest 4 years prior. I was a crocheter for a decade before that, commencing due to insidiously passive college peer pressure.
A visit to a friend’s dorm revealed every hall door open and everyone crocheting (afghans mostly). One or two girls with the skill had started a veritable blitzkrieg of yarn craft that spread like a virus. My next weekend at home, I implored my mother to impart the knowledge post-haste and thus began years of blankets, amigurumi, and incalculable baby items- my friends/co-workers all seeming to get into the family way in large batches requiring my crochet hook to fly! Oh, foul carpal tunnel beast- stay your hand! As a zookeeper, I especially enjoyed matching the item to the animals the mother-to-be worked with :-).
I got very fast and very skilled, with the pinnacle being crocheting zig-zag baby blankets and reading at the same time! Oh the productivity! Oh the efficiency!
My crafting evolution can be defined as a punctuated equilibrium (biology reference! whoo hoo!) with each stage always (pun intended) spurred by coming across unique and beautiful patterns that were out of my reach. Some patterns just have that extra “something”, that certain je ne sais quoi, and they pull at my imagination in a way others don’t. It might be a connection to another of my loves- a book, a movie, an element of nature, an entire fandom or a time period- that gives it that added Umph! I don’t have infinite time to knit, so if I’m going to devote some of that limited resource to something then I want to love it!
Alas, my first attempts at knitting were half-hearted: a couple of basics from my sister and 2 lessons at a local yarn shop (LYS). I confess I couldn’t get casting on for an embarrassing long period of time. I finally succeeded in making 2 flat, right-angle-only items from the Charmed Knits- Unofficial HP pattern book (which I bought long before I knew how to knit- because Harry Potter, of course!). But I was frustrated with knitting. I didn’t know what I was doing or what I needed so I was using the kind of ridiculously long metal needles you find stuffed away in an old sewing basket- the kind you could defend yourself with in an alley brawl and send your assailants running. They were clunky and awkward but that’s all I had. I had to go so slow that it seemed pointless and was EXTRA galling because I kept comparing it to my comfort and speed with crochet.
A friend, that I had taught to crochet, jokingly told me that it was really nice to see me have to slow down as I was stumbling through a Gryffindor scarf. Eh hem…. not amused 😉 There were still so many awesome patterns in the Charmed Knits book but I couldn’t fathom committing what I expected to be years of painstaking work and practice to master the more advanced skills they’d require. My despair knew no end!….. Well, it was pretty intense but it probably knew an end at some point…. and I just put knitting aside.
Fast forward a couple of years: I was in Nebraska visiting my soon-to-be fiancé where he was teaching. I insisted on visiting the awesome LYS there called the Wooly Mammoth and impulse-bought two Jane Austen Knits Magazines, which was, unbeknownst to me at the time, a brilliant move. I knew I didn’t have the skills to make much of anything in them but they were all gorgeous. I just kept thumbing through the issues and reading the patterns and the yearning to be able to confidently pick up and make any pattern I saw was intense. Being restricted rankled me and Lo and behold!, it forced me to try.
I chose one of the easiest patterns, the Modified Mobcap, bought yarn and dove in.
Welllllll…… the yarn wasn’t close to the weight suggested (I’d never crocheted anything that needed to fit, so gauge was a new and, as of yet, unbattled beast for me) and I accidentally felted the whole thing in the wash not long after finishing (which I conveniently never told any of my knitting peeps due to embarrassment). But I learned some foundational things:
I added knitting in the round, and basic increases and decreases to my skill set. I also learned about the perils of unwanted felting- and learned on a small, beginner’s project, not one I’d spent lots of money or time on. Super important stuff! The thought of unintentionally felting something like “Always…” sends a chill through my spine… Away foul thought! Away!
And Lo! With just those few extra skills, the Venn diagram intersection (sciency/math reference! Huzzah!) of “patterns Sara loves” and “patterns Sara could conceivably attempt” didst increase significantly.
And this was the delicious dangling carrot that kept my mulish self plodding ever onward!
