1:30 a.m. - 2004-09-28
K1 P1 K2tog
k1p1. yo, k1. co 30st. k2tog. inc 3st. p2tog. dec 3st. k4p4.
I live a life of secret codes these days. I've immersed myself in the language I was taught when I was six but didn't bother to really learn until two years ago.
I have become an obsessive knitter.
It's the perfect activity, really. It's mindless enough to do while I watch tv or ride the bus or wait in line. It's less expensive than a lot of other crafts, and at the end of the day you have a final result that people might actually use, assuming it isn't totally hideous. (Not always a safe assumption given that I'm kind of haphazard about patterns.)
On the go right now I have five different projects, some for Christmas, some for other occasions. Finished and sitting in a box in my room are five other presents, waiting for the appropriate time to be passed along to their hopefully enthusiastic recipients. Out in the world are more than a dozen previous gifts, getting varying amounts of use but all appreciated for the work that went into them. Some more impressive than others - the super fluffy scarf for my sister out of the wool of doom, the nifty felted bag for Hermione that was my first foray into real wool, the baby blanket for Peanut that is the biggest thing I've ever made.
Others, though, have sentimental value - the scarf I made for the Bean that was the first project I ever finished, the scarf for Jamie that was started and stopped so many times while he waited patiently for it, the hat for the Bean that matched the scarf, made more than a year later and positively irresistible in its cuteness.
I don't have many delusions of grandeur with my knitting. My tension is pretty good, and I've gotten a lot better at not dropping stitches (knock on wood), but I'm usually too lazy for patterns and I'm afraid of socks and mittens. I have yet to tackle a sweater as I feel my skills are lacking to make a non-ugly one. My forays into real wool have been pretty limited, mostly due to budgetary constraints rather than aesthetic ones. But I grew up in a house where a sweater could be produced to specifications in a matter of weeks, exacting perfect garments flying off the needles at a speed that drove my father crazy with the clicking. My grandmother once made dozens of hats for the entire family, hats that most of us still wear. My mother knit dozens of outfits for us as babies, delicate little lace ensembles and sturdy little sweater sets that wait in a dresser for our children to wear. There are tiny knitted versions of ourselves that hang on our Christmas tree, amazingly accurate in their minature selves.
I don't know how to cable knit. I am afraid of socks and intimidated by mittens. I'm too lazy for intricate patterns and I don't like things that take a long time to knit.
But I pick out really nice wool, fluffly delicious soft stuff that knits itself into fluffy delicious scarves and hats and bags. I knit neatly, and fairly quickly, and I take requests. I make an excellent pom pom and very jaunty tassles.
And I never knit for myself. In the last year that I've been knitting up a storm, I have made exactly one thing for myself, a bag that I made with the wool that I bought with a birthday gift certificate to the wool store. I felt like I shouldn't give away my birthday wool, so I made myself a duplicate of Hermione's bag, since I was so loathe to give it away. And it turned out well, and it's very pretty, and it felted nicely. But knitting it wasn't exciting, it wasn't as satisfying somehow. It's knowing that I'm going to be passing on my time when I finish, know that there's someone who will open their present and clap their hands to see that they've joined the crowds who receive a SarahJanet original. It's a sign of true devotion, a knitted gift. A sign that not only the money (yarn isn't free!) but the time, the hours and hours of k4 p4, went into your gift. It's proof that I was thinking about you daily as I knit away at your present, one stitch at a time.
So even though my repetoire is limited and my patterns are unimaginative, I knit every stitch with love.
But I still really want to learn socks.
