The thing about knitting is itâs much harder to fear the existential futility of all your actions while youâre doing it.
Like ok, sure, sometimes itâs hard to believe youâve made any positive impact on the world. But itâs pretty easy to believe youâve made a sock. Look at it. There it is. Put it on, now your footâs warm.
-Your pattern calls for size 8 needles. You have all the size 8 needles in the world, you buy extras to teach people. You go to grab a pair. There are no size 8 needles.
-Your scarf is 3 feet long. Itâs been 3 feet long for a month. No matter how much you knit/crochet, it will always be 3 feet long.
-You made a gauge swatch. It is perfect. The project youâre working on is nowhere near the right size. Your gauge still matches.
-You find the perfect yarn for a pattern youâve been wanting to make. The craft store doesnât carry it. The local yarn store doesnât have it. It may have been discontinued years ago. It may never have existed. You no longer remember where you learned about it.Â
-Youâre running out of yarn on a project and go to buy more. The dye lot number is different. Is it close enough? Maybe. Pray to the yarn gods, they are sometimes gracious enough to grant small prayers.
-You vow to only buy yarn for planned projects, your stash is getting overwhelming. It doesnât matter what you plan, your stash will still grow without your help.
-You have yarn you bought for a project once.It didnât work out and now it sits in your stash. Forever. There will never be another project thatâs right for it.
-You took up spinning to curb your yarn habit. Your yarn habit is now your fiber habit and you have dual stashes. You may never actually make anything out of most of the yarn you spin. Both stashes continue to grow when youâre not looking.
-Your wip basket has things in it from years ago. Youâve forgotten about them. Youâve forgotten the patterns. Youâre not sure you ever made them in the first place.
-Somehow your 3 foot long scarf is finally long enough. You run out of yarn before the end.
If you have cashmere taste and a Red Heart budget, this is a friendly reminder that acrylic yarn can be softened very easily by
Prewashing your skein in a lingerie bag with fabric softener and warm water in the washing machine & dryer
Soaking your finished project in a bath of cheap hair conditioner and warm water in your kitchen sink
I know there are a lot of yarn snobs who might talk a big game about how âterribleâ acrylics are so, here. Have some tools to prove them wrong. đ
Was knitting a sock with a set of five dpns on a bus one day, and noticed a guy across the aisle watching me. I often get looks while knitting in public, though rarely from guys, so I smiled a bit awkwardly. He smiled back and remarkrd that heâd been finally learning to knit, but that five at once was waaaay beyond him. He didnât think heâd ever get to that point. I chuckled and held up my hand to cover up the back three needles that were hanging loose, so he could only see the two active needles, and I said, âOnly two needles ever matter. Forget the others are even there, and just keep going forward.â The change that went across his face a few moments later as he realized it was that simple was so validating.
I didnât figure he was ready for an explanation on turning a heel just yet, but at least heâd have the idea down before he got that far.
Diary's Blog 