Anyone who's known me for longer than 10 seconds knows I knit. Few people realize this is a fairly "new" development for me. Sure, I learned the actions of knitting on a long trip with my Aunt Joyce when I was 7--having a 7-year-old has convinced me that she taught me in self-defense. And later, learned to purl from my mother--a lefty, which lead me to purl backwards for a number of years before being corrected.
But while I dabbled for years, occasionally producing a strip of wonky garter stitch--my daughter still wears my first high school effort at a "scarf"--I didn't truly "understand" knitting until the last 3 or 4 years. I picked up a little booklet in the Walmart one day called "10-20-30 minutes to knitting" to remind me of the steps, some cheap acrylic yarn & needles and off I went, knitting something...horrendous, I don't even remember what it was, but I was knitting.
Wrap, pull, drop; wrap, pull, drop; over and over and over until I had it down again. Then the purl--backwards, twisting each and every stitch, but it was purling of a sort. I tried a few little things, some worked, some didn't. My friend Katy set wool in my hands, gave me a hundred reasons why it was better, and taught me to felt. I ordered my first yarn online, followed my first patterns out of my first pattern books given to me by my mother-in-law, never looked back.
When I was 12, I tried to paint, with horrible results. As a young teen, I wrote, convinced I'd be the next bestselling author when I grew up. I tried singing, I even tried a brief-but-terrifying foray into dancing. I acted. But finally after all those attempts & failures--I found my medium. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but sticks and string excite me....
There's just something magical about this medium. Taking something simple & two dimensional like yarn, and turning it into useable, wearable, three-dimensional garments--magic. Manipulate the stitches this way, you get a cable; that way, you get lace. You can produce a plain, reliable sweater, a delicate, gauzy wrap or a dense, sturdy basket, all from the same motions of knit & purl, wrapping string around sticks over and over. Amazing.
I love metal needles. The clicking sound they make, the slickness of them--nickle plated, extra pointy ones are my favorite. With them I can churn out socks quickly, I can work on tricky stitches, and there's nothing like an extra pointy metal needle for working multiple stitches at once. Some prefer the warmth of wood or bamboo, and they have their place, but for me the ultimate tool is a good, sharp, slick metal needle.
I like wool best. Ever since Katy handed me that first skein & extolled its virtues, I've realized that she's right in every way. I abhor acrylic, preferring to spend a little extra on superwash wool for those afraid of the felt-factor. I like other natural fibers as well, but cannot work with some of them. For example, as much as I love & appreciate a cotton dishcloth, cotton itself makes my hands ache because of the lack of "give" & stretch. I like alpaca, but sometimes the fuzziness of it gets on my nerves--just like I like a sharp needle, I like clear stitch definition, and anything that obscures that tends to bug me. Wool is my friend.
I love color! Wool takes dye so well, and so it comes in so many shades & colors. I love handpainted yarn, because that started with a person and an idea. It's like a small, fuzzy canvas that the artist has expressed themselves on--and then I get to USE it to make my own art. Simply incredible. With yarn you can go for vibrant, amazing shades that you wouldn't normally wear, and put them on a small project, like a sock--and voila, a masterpiece.
I knit a lot of socks, for lots of reasons, but mostly because the projects are short & sweet as long as the recipient's feet aren't too big. (Thankfully my husband, size 12, doesn't care for overly warm feet.) After 27 complete pairs (and a multitude of single socks that never found their mates) I can pretty much turn out a sock in my sleep, even with a little pattern thrown in for interest. And with the huge variety of self-striping and space-dyed yarns available, even a plain sock can be a work of art.
I could go on forever, but everyone thinks I may have gone a bit far with this string thing already. But I will say this--if you're looking for a medium, and have been unsuccessful at everything else creative that you've tried, give knitting a shot. You might be surprised, once you really get into it, at what a good time you can have with just some sticks & string.
