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November 29, 2004

That Was Short, This is Long

I'm back in SLO after what feels like a very short holiday break. Rosie came back with me because Noel has a conference this week, and we had a good talk on the way down about how too much traffic sucks, and how we're not going to get to play as much this week as we did last week, because it's going to be very busy.

I did all the talking, of course.

This week is my last week of school, with a crit of the model I need to finish building in studio on Friday afternoon, then next week I have three final exams in a row, all early in the morning (my intro lecture, engineering, then physics), so of course I'm getting off to a good start by staying up late reading a knitting message board (knittyboard) and ruminating on how I'm really not a modern knitter-type.

For one thing, I'm really not all that into Stitch and Bitch. I have it (thanks, Mommy!), and have read it, and will probably make one or two of the patterns from it, but I don't think it's the greatest thing to hit knitting since yarn. I prefer my old Vogue Knitting, plus a couple ancient books I have on pattern drafting. I'd like a couple of other knitting books (like The Lacy Knitting of Mary Schiffman which looks terrifying and interesting at the same time), but for the most part right now I'm looking at patterns, and I'd rather not get a book of patterns with a bunch of "how to knit" in the front, because frankly I don't need it and would rather not be paying for it.

Also, I am only now learning how to read patterns, although what I've ended up doing is taking the instructions and charting them out in the patterning format I developed for myself, which I don't think is cheating because all the books say to make copious notes when reading through the pattern before beginning. Apparently, most knitters start out with patterns (for a stockinette scarf? Heavens) and only later branch out into designing their own stuff. I would like to thank my mother for not pushing me in that direction, because I have some great handmade stuff I would not have today if I had to rely on commercial patterns.

I've noted before that I don't have a stash (though for some reason certain people keep trying to encourage me to build one). I buy yarn for the project I'm working on or planning to work on, and that's pretty much it. I don't save yarn or buy it on sale and try to figure out what to do with it later. This is pretty much entirely due to yarn being so fricking expensive -- I tend to make large projects and buying enough yarn to account for a huge sweater or wrap isn't the sort of thing I can afford to do on a whim-- but also it's because I go through long periods of not knitting (or, now, crocheting) at all, and during those periods, yarn takes up a lot of room and attracts cats who nest in it and leave it all furry. Apparently, this makes me rare in the knitting world, because everybody talks about their stash and how they're trying to knit their way through it.

Now I've also noticed that I'm a one-project kind of gal, and this is unusual. I have one thing going at a time, and I work on it until I'm done. This is not due to some random chance, but it is entirely due to an understanding of myself I came to after years of self-observation: if I can switch away from doing something to doing something else, I will, and neither thing will ever get done. So in the interests of getting things done, I don't let myself start something new until the first project is finished.

This also means I only need to own enough needles to do one project. This evening I followed a link to the web page of a woman who has eleven unfinished projects going, and just sat there and marveled at her investment in knitting needles. I have four pairs, myself (sizes 3, 5, 7, and 8). I've got two circular needles (stolen, I believe, from my mother, because I've had them for so long), and no double pointed needles at all (I've always made my own patterns based on sewing pattern design, so no knitting in the round was called for). I'm a real minimalist knitter. But then again, I'm not totally obsessed with it. I like knitting thing to wear, not knitting just for the sake of knitting, though I do find knitting itself relaxing and it's good exercise for my hands.

When I was getting my first degree, I knit while doing schoolwork, because schoolwork was usually reading some long treatise or going over verb tables or something like that, and knitting occupied my hands and helped me concentrate on not trying to track down and bludgeon every deconstructionist still living. I'm finding that this time around, my schoolwork and knitting are incompatible. You simply cannot knit and draw at the same time (or at least, not doing a decent job at either one). On the other hand, knitting limbers up my arms and hands for drawing, so I do want to keep doing it, even if it doesn't go as quickly as it would if I could double-task.

And now, to bed.

Posted by ayse on 11/29/04 at 12:38 AM