Itchy fingers

I just started knitting in January, and when one of my fellow yiknit-ers showed me her set of sock needles, I was dubious: so tiny! so tricksy! But, sure enough, I ordered my own set last week (and of course ordered sock yarn at the same time!). I've got some burning urge to make socks that I can't even explain! I think the appeal is that they are tricky, and varied, and relatively complete-able.

Now, I am trapped in a no-knitter's-land of no project, as I wait eagerly for the arrival of my needles and yarn. I've got at least ten sock patterns queued at Ravelry. I've practiced turning a heel on some scrap yarn. I just want to doooo it! But instead, I'm between projects and getting restless.

Projects I could do:

• Seam & make handles for the nearly-finished market bag project that I started in, oh, February.
  
• Buy circular needles and make a second (different pattern) market bag
• Work on the emergency backup project I started one night when I left my real project at work
• Buy needles and start on one of the two sweaters I want to make.

I'm trying to hold off on buying individual circular needles, because I think I'll be buying a kit that will let me swap out needles and lengths. However, the reason I want to start a second market bag is this: I'll be staying with friends in New York and Boston in another week or so, and I want hostess gifts for them. My first market bag is a mess, so that's no good (never mind that it's unfinished!). But can I do one or two bags in the next week and a bit? unlikely. But I think that will be my short-term challenge.

Of course the second those sock needles arrive, I'm dropping that bag like a hot potato.

Commitment Issues

I have been bringing a mitten back and forth to work for over a month now. All I need to do is stitch the palm closed and knit the thumb. The other mitten was finished years ago.

I have started, restarted, restarted again and abandoned more felting projects than I care to admit.

I have bought yarn, and then later decided that I hated the colors.

I'll admit it: while knitting one project, I am usually thinking of another.

Until last week, I hadn't finished a single project in years. And then it happened: the miracle I've been waiting for! I fell in love with a project, and it is (knit-wise) complete! All I need to do is felt it--but not until I've brought it to the iiiiknits for show and tell. :)

I was so boosted by my success that I'm already halfway through a new project: a sweater for my son. Though I'm having second thoughts about the colors picked more for their names than anything else (Pumpkin and Pickle) and am secretly desperate to go to Article Pract to just check to see if maybe I missed some fabulous color of Blue Sky Alpacas organic cotton, I think I'm in it to the finish line with this project.

That leaves 2 felted bags and 2 pairs of socks in limbo: all with color choices I'm somewhat ambivalent about now. Shall I abandon forever and move on? After all I've queued 11 new projects on Ravelry...

The highs and lows of ebay

As we all know, knitting ain't cheap. Especially if you are surrounded by beautiful work done with extreme skill using amazing yarn - you start to get a taste for the finer things in life! I certainly have.

I've also really been enjoying the process of making various items, and I feel like I'm ready to take on the Next Big Thing: a sweater! ...which takes a LOT of yarn.

Enter: eBay! I thought, hey, maybe I can find yarn on eBay! And I did find some yarn that I think will be acceptable, and I submitted a bid and worked with the seller to get 15 skeins of two different colors, which will be enough for two sweaters, by my calculations.

But then, things went silent. I transferred the money via PayPal, and didn't hear from her for a while. I'll spare you the anxious sweating and say it's worked out so far - she finally acknowledged receipt of payment and will ship the yarn today. I'm looking forward to my lovely box o' yarn.. but I think I'm going to hold off on further eBay ventures for the time being. Yeah, I'll be able to make two sweaters for the price of one, but oh, my nerves can't take the stress.

Signs of Spring

Most people think of Spring as the time when the birds start to sing, or the sun comes out, or the flowers bud and bloom, or daylight savings time wreaks havoc on our internal clocks. Not me. For me, the surest sign of Spring is when I dig into my closet to find my warmest coat and scarf, pack up a few blankets, and go looking for the boys of summer. In other words, baseball season begins.

Baseball, like nature, has it's own signals that the seasons are changing. First the pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. It may be February, but all over the South baseball fields are starting to sprout players. Then comes the rest of the teams. The experienced veterans shuffle alongside the youngsters. The stars rub shoulders with the utility players. They all work on their swings, their footwork, their pitching, their fielding. The first tantalizing reports trickle through the evening sports news, and I start to watch the roster. Who's new? Who do I know? Before too long, the roster is trimmed to 40, and the faint memories of peanuts and hotdogs begin to tickle my nose. Time to buy those tickets for the Home Opener. Then comes the final week of training and the final cut to 25 - the last ritual before Spring begins.

Here in the San Francisco Bay area we have 2 teams to root for. I choose the Oakland Athletics. Not only do I live and work in the East Bay, but I also am a life long fan of the American League. Heck, I like the DH. So, yes, April 1st I will be sitting in the stands watching the 2008 Oakland Athletics play for the first time. If you happen to catch the game on TV and wonder who I am, I'll be the one wrapped in the knitted wool coat, wearing the knitted hat and wool scarf, huddled under an A's blanket. It may be Spring, but it's also darn cold in the Coliseum in April.

Comeuppance

I've been feeling pretty good lately. My new knitter is catching on quickly. She's knitting in amazingly even stitches, following instructions, and generally behaving like the knitting prodigy I believe she is. Of course, I can't really take the credit for this since she's doing all the work, but I can bask in the reflected glory. I even taught her how to fix her knitting mistakes! She took to it like a pro, and you wouldn't be able to tell there ever was a problem no matter how long you looked.

So here am I, all puffed with pride and glory at the great job I'm doing with her. The stitches are even, the row numbering is correct. There's only one eensy, teensy little problem. Her knitting feels a little, stiff. Sure you can bend the fabric, but it doesn't like to be folded. In fact, it could probably stand straight on its own. Now, this is a project that will be felted, and I'm used to a little more looseness in pre-felted knitting. Shouldn't the stitches be bigger? I have an uneasy feeling that something is amiss with the gauge. Maybe we just need bigger needles. I check, and she's definitely not getting gauge. That's the good news. The bad news is that she's actually knitting fewer stitches to the inch than the gauge. This is unexpected. We did get the correct yarn, right?

Okay, all of you who know that Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride comes in multiple weights can burst out laughing now. Yes, I've made the classic mistake of picking out the correct brand and name of the yarn but not the correct weight. My new knitter is knitting Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky on size 9 needles and following a pattern intended for Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted. And she's being very gracious about it too.

As for me, I am feeling a lot more human and a lot less uberknitter. That's probably a good thing, and I'm sure I'll accept some time that I needed the knitting universe to remind me of my fallibility. In the meantime, I'm just going to console myself with my new shipment of Sundara sock yarn in the Bronzed Forest colorway.

I do have a question though. What happens when you try to felt a tightly knitted object?

Charting a forward path

I'm in the enviable position of having many options in knitting-land, but it's feeling like a challenge in itself. How do I decide what to do next? How do I know what I'm ready to tackle?


Finished project:
First of all, I finished the cabled mitts I talked about last week. They came out great! See?


Lessons learned:
Now I know I like cabling. It's a bit fiddly, but nifty. I've learned that I need to get more skilled at finishing projects. When I finished the mitts, I worked in the ends and snipped them off, and I already have little stubby ends poking out ... not really the look I'm going for. Plus, am I running the risk of the project unraveling?????

WIPs:
Right now I'm working on the second half of a market bag, although I've since found two patterns that I like better. I considered ripping out the first half of the bag and starting over, but I didn't have the needles the other patterns require, and I figure I ought to see this thing through, so I'm going forward with it. I'm also working on a scarf for my sister and don't know if it's kosher to knit in big meetings at work.

Next up:
I want to make another set of mitts for a small-handed friend in the building. Do I need to modify the pattern, or can I block it when I'm done?

Also, I haven't made any hats. I'm going on a camping/biking vacation with friends later this year and it would be cool if we had matching or similar hats. I also think making a sweater would be cool, but expensive, and what if I can't make it fit right? On top of all that, a friend is having a baby in a few months, and I want to make something pretty for her.

So as you can see, my head is spinning (ha! no pun intended) with knitting thoughts. What to do? How to proceed? It's a pleasant dilemma.

Teaching Old (Ahem - Experienced) Dogs New Tricks

Lately I've been thinking quite a bit about what it means to be an adult learner. I'm teaching a co-worker to knit, and I'm crossing my fingers that I'm doing it right. How much is too much information? When do I need to leave the new knitter to make her own mistakes, and when do I need to step in so that she doesn't become frustrated and give up? What's a good beginning cast on? Will I go to knitting hell if I teach her to throw her yarn?

This is turning out to be a learning experience for me as well as for the new knitter. And one thing I've learned is that starting something new as an adult is hard. I have a friend who is a voice teacher, and she once told me that she preferred teaching teenagers over adults. Adults, she explained to me, were afraid to make mistakes while children expected the mistakes and saw them as part of the learning process. I understand this. I'm one of those people who always has an answer. (I find that speaking in a loud, positive voice helps too.) I have a lot invested in appearing competent to myself and others, and I think this is true of many adults.

By the time we are 30, we usually have developed competency in something (she's the knitting guru, he's a wonder with html, he has mad cooking skills, she knows how to repair broken appliances). It's a good feeling to be the Go-To person, the one everyone looks to for help. To learn something new means that we have to give up our expert status. We run the risk of appearing incompetent to our friends and enemies. We set unrealistic expectations of perfection for ourselves based on the fact that we are competent in a completely different arena. We prove yet again that the learning curve is indeed a curve and not a flat line.

The struggle to learn something new is a humbling experience, and I think a worthwhile one. I find that learning something new gives me more sympathy for those around me who are struggling to learn how to use a new product or to prepare for a new release. I find I am less likely to sneer at basic questions or wish that someone would RTFM. I hope I am a more patient person as well.

Time will tell if the new knitter continues on to become a full-fledged member of the knitting community. In the meantime, I will support and encourage her as best I can. And I will try to remember what it's like to be a new knitter when teaching her a new technique.