Knitiot Savant

The Knitting Confessional

It's pretty straightforward this month; I knit socks like a little freak.  Not freaky like "Gee.  They're all so wonderful and fab", but freaky like "Gee.  You're sock is inside out as you knit.  How the hell did you do that?"  I've enlisted the help of a pretty famous face to point out my bizarre technique.

Here we see Dawn standing in the freak sock.  It's wrong-side out and upside down.  It's upside down only because the sharp little needles gave Dawn the creeps and she refused to participate unless I made it a safe set for her fierce modeling skills.

I flipped the sock right side out making Dawn happier and providing her an opportunity to get a little profile action.  Now it looks like a pretty sock.So what do I do when I knit?  How is it that I keep going wrong side out but end up with a sock?  I'd love to tell you that it's magic or that I'm some sort of sock miracle worker.  But I'm not.  I'm just me and I knit like a little freak.  Here's what I see when I knit socks.

Okay so my hands aren't in the picture 'cause someone had to hold the camera and I was sure that the teddy bear was in no mood to help out.  See Dawn's cute little hand at the tippy-top of the sock?  Right where the needle is just about to make a knit stitch?  That part stays away from me the whole time I knit the sock.  Through making the heel flap, turning the heel...every little step of the way it's away from me.  The advantage to me is that once I'm ready to finish up the toe, I'm already on the wrong side so I just finish away.  Dawn was not happy with this shot.  She's just not a hand modeland I'd promised her much more face time.

I suppose I could change how I'm holding the needles, but why?  It may be freaky, but I manage to get a sock or two out of it.  Maybe when I'm a grown up knitter I'll change my evil ways.      Nah!!

The Knitting Confessional

This may sound more like a testimonial than a confession so just bear with me.  I confess to being a little less than compassionate when folks complain about sewing up seams. 

Before I knit I used to sew.  A lot.  A whole lot.  I drafted my own patterns.  I had a room literally filled to the ceiling with fabric.  Notions?  I had a button/zipper/snap/Velcro thing for every occasion.  (What was I sewing you might rationally wonder.  Quilts?  I wish.  Clothes?  Sort of.  My sewing confession will have to wait until anther day.)  For me seaming meant breaking out the iron, doing a little pinning,  a smidge of pressing, then running that sucker through the Bernina as fast as possible.  Pins would fly!  Little bits of thread would hit the floor to be eaten by a cat or, if the cat got lucky, swept away.  Seaming was a real no-brainer.  At least it was until I knit a garment.

Boogie's dress was the first garment I'd ever knitted.  I went into the seaming like a cocky little prize fighter; I knew I was a lightweight but pretty sure I was mean enough and scrappy enough to seam the hell out of anything that came my way.  I studied up on mattress stitch  and had lots of reference material available as well as phone numbers of a couple of knitters from my group.  After the first 2 inches, everything looked great!  I felt happy and confident; ready to tackle another round of seaming.  By about the 6th inch, I was eyeballin' my sewing machine.  Sure it hadn't been oiled in awhile but it worked.  It's entirely possible that the feed dog would shred what I struggled to knit.  I pressed on vowing not to give in.  Before I knew it, I'd finished one side and was headed for the second.  "Okay," I thought.  "Not too bad.  I can do this.  Must breathe.  Remember to breathe."  By the time I'd finished the second side, the sewing machine was out and oiled.  Feed dog be damned!  Even the image of my pretty dress being ripped apart was barely enough to stop me but stop me it did.

I can say with confidence that I feel the pain of every knitter who has ever wept over her/his seams, begged the Gods for a merciful end to their suffering or sworn off knitted garments all together.  It was a humbling and enlightening experience that I'm not sure I want to repeat any time soon.  I did see a really cute pattern for a cardigan, though.

The Knitting Confessional

Welcome fellow sinners to the new and improved confessional.  We offer low lighting and a warm, one might even say womb-like space in which to confess your deepest knitting sins real or imagined.  My confession for this month is pretty straight up: knitting for baby while pregnant with said baby.  I didn't.

When I was pregnant with my little Boogie, I had maternal visions of booties and blankies dancing through my head...in between the vomiting and back pain.  I wanted to be all Earth-Mothery and shit.  Instead, I had an attack of "Bizarro Pregnant Woman Behavior."  I was absolutely convinced that if I knit anything for Boogie my pregnancy would end badly.  Did it even matter to me that my pregnancy was picture perfect and normal?  Did I give a flip that the ultrasound showed a completely perfect child? Hell no!  I was utterly and completely convinced that knitting for her would curse us both.  (I was also convinced that Chinese food was from hell and that all meat was foul and rotten.  It was all weird.  Oh yeah.  I also only ate watermelon for the first 3 months.  No kidding.)  I didn't start knitting a darn thing for her until she was 10 months old and it was the infamous dress. 

After Miss B was born, I cranked out a couple of hats but only because I was pretty convinced she was going to stick around for awhile.  'Cause sometimes those newborns decide they picked the wrong mommy and daddy and go lookin' elsewhere for that good love.  It could happen.  After much soul searching and no lack of a guilty feeling on my part, I decided to attempt to recapture my inner earthiness.  (That sounds sort of gross, huh?)  I chose the dress that continues to haunt me to this very day.

It's been neat, though.  I've changed a lot as a knitter and as a mommy. Boogie has probably changed the most.  I'm a little more confident in my knitting though I occasionally over think the obvious when it comes to reading patterns.  I'm a more confident mommy but that may only last until some crazy ass parenting drama comes along.  And my beautiful, smart Boogie just gets cooler everyday.  I'm going to finish the dress even though it's very likely that it won't fit.  There's a lot more to it than just a little dress.

Confession is good for the soul, my friends.  Join in.  Confess.  You know you'll feel better.