Today I finished knitting my first
pair of socks. This is sort of a big deal, at least to me. One of the
activities proposed as physical therapy for me at the age of 9 was knitting. I
could knit, alright, but any attempt to purl resulted in a chaotic, cobweb-like
mass of holes loosely held together with yarn. Cross-stitch and crewel were the
therapies that stuck with me. The next time I picked up knitting needles was back
in the early 80’s; when Doctor Who first
hit the US big-time, I knitted two massive Tom Baker 5th Doctor scarves.
I didn’t know much about yarn, considering neither gauge nor what the yarn I
chose was made of, merely looking for exactly the right colors. The pattern was
pencil-scribbled on scrap paper and was all knit stitch… perfect for a
purl-challenged knitter. I vaguely remembered the simple one-finger cast-on I
learned at the age of 9. Binding off? I really don’t remember how I did that,
but I suspect I got it from a child’s undersized paperback book called “How To
Do It,” featuring such things as blanket-stitch edging, one-stitch knitting,
hemming, and sewing on buttons. One thing I did do right was to work out a way
of ‘carrying up the yarn’ to keep from having to cut-and-knot for making narrow
stripes. Years later I discovered that I had indeed figured out the standard
way of doing that.
Maggi moved in with me about four
years ago. She exudes knitting the way I exude words. Anything that can be done
with knitting needles she can do, but she’s especially fond of intricate
patterns and lace knitting. Most of the gifts she gives family and friends for
birthdays and other occasions come from her constantly-moving knitting needles.
That included me, and thus I was introduced to the glorious warmth and comfort
of hand-knitted socks. Oh, how I love them!
Even that would not have been
enough to get me started knitting, except that there were a few items I dropped
hints for that she more-or-less ignored. One that I found increasingly
important was a bright orange infinity scarf for deer hunting. Hats didn’t keep
my neck warm; regular scarves were bulky enough at the neck to push my hat down
onto my nose; hoods didn’t turn when my head did. I figured that an infinity
scarf would solve all those problems. After one particularly frustrating deer
season, I decided I really needed the thing and would just have to knit it
myself.
Maggi (mostly) held in her unholy
glee at hooking me at last. When I hefted the hunter-orange skein of cheap
acrylic yarn at the hardware store and asked, “What else do I need?” she
hastily assured me that she had a pattern and could loan me an
appropriately-sized circular needle. On circulars, this simple pattern was all
knit stitch… I could do that. I learned that this results in ‘stockinet’
whereas the same procedure on my straight needles back in 1980 resulted in
those Dr. Who scarves being ‘garter stitch.’ Oh, well, I took her word on it
even though it took awhile to figure out why
it worked that way and what the differences were.
Eventually I finished the hunting
headwear and it was perfect for my needs. The next item on my ‘want’ list which
(apparently) Maggi found too boring to bother with was another scarf, this one
a copy of the Gryffindor House scarf from Harry
Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. She had the pattern in a book, and I
thought, “It’s another scarf. I’ve done those. How hard can it be?” Little did
I know!
This came in two sizes, which
turned out to be a critical point and my big mistake on the project. I chose
the adult size, which worked out to being as wide and bulky as my Dr. Who scarf
if a bit shorter. The sticking point for me was that the pattern was something
called ‘single rib’ throughout. I’d need to learn to purl. Maggi patiently
worked me through, but somehow I learned it backwards. Counting wrong, failing
to count at all, adding extra stitches, I ended up ripping out the first
section five times before I finally comprehended what I needed to do to get a
neat single rib, and what it was supposed to look like when I did. Even so, my
memory had difficulty with that purl stitch and I ended up doing the whole
scarf (which took well over a year) with what Maggi called a ‘twisted stitch.’
It ended up looking correct despite that, if about half again as wide as it
should have been. This is how I learned the importance of something called a ‘test
swatch.’ “For a scarf? One size fits
all!” had been my initial reaction to wasting time and effort on a test swatch.
Live and learn.
By that time it began to dawn on
my that, if I planned my projects cleverly, I might possibly aspire to knit a
pair of socks for myself someday. I could now purl, had learned a little about
yarn sizes, and figured the next steps would be to learn to decrease, increase,
and read pattern notation. The two other projects in the Harry Potter set, a
beanie and a pair of gloves, would teach those skills. In addition, it seemed
both would be done on multiple double-point needles, another skill I’d need to
master.
I had plenty of that cheap
hardware store yarn left from the scarf, so forge ahead! One test swatch later,
I had chosen a needle size and was ready. The first thing Maggi needed to show
me was a stretchy ‘long tail’ cast-on. I still have not mastered this. It’s
about the complexity of hand whip-finishing a fishing fly, which took me over
two months of patient coaching by my fly tying mentor for me to learn. However,
every fly gets a whip-finish, while casting on yarn happens only at the
beginning of a project which may take months. Even worse, there are two
distinct finger movements to learn for knit and purl stitches. I’ll probably be
still pathetically asking her for reminders for casting on when I’m 70. Next, she
showed me how to handle four needles without twisting that first row, and how
the stitches progressed from needle to needle, but that was pretty obvious even
to me. The beanie brim being double rib rather than single was also no problem.
I did most of the hat while travelling last summer.
However, although I understood
that “ssk” meant “slip, slip, knit,” the actual mechanics of the stitch eluded
me. I figured I slip stitch 1, slip stitch 2, knit stitch 3. That didn’t
decrease at all; I was left with the same number of stitches. I knew I was
doing something wrong. Once again Maggi had to demonstrate. Doing it her way
worked, and I was delighted to see the crown of my beanie narrowing. I could
decrease!
Hat finished, it was time to try
the gloves. By now I was getting the hang of reading patterns and had a couple
of reference books. I’m still not sure how or why the glove got wider above the
wrist when I followed the pattern, but it did. Since I despise mittens and
prefer finger-free gloves, for the first time I modified the pattern, although
at Maggi’s urging I decreased one row before binding off at what I felt was the
right length. The bind-off I chose gave a nice rolled edge and I was proud. The
thumb gave some problems; I wasn’t sure whether to start knitting clockwise or
counter-clockwise after joining the yarn (which also caused a big problem). Of
course I did it wrong the first try, but had accumulated enough know-how to
realize it. I’ve become quite adept at ‘tinking,’ or taking out my mistakes. In
addition to increasing, joining yarn, and modifying a pattern, I learned about what
Maggi calls ‘single sock syndrome’: Start #2 of any pair right after finishing
the first one.
Okay! A little roll on the drum… I
didn’t feel ready but I’d learned everything I could without actually knitting
a sock. I felt great anxiety about ‘picking up the stitches’ along the heel,
and a bit less about ‘turning the heel’ and ‘grafting.’ It turned out that the
anxiety was merited; even though I have now picked up stitches twice I still am
not sure how the heck I figured out exactly which ones to pick up how and with
what needle. As for turning the heel… follow the pattern and a miracle occurs.
Don’t ask me why it works. Grafting turned out to be a simple matter of
following directions in my beginners’ book step by careful step, no sweat
there.
It was a ‘simple sock’ pattern.
That’s what the book called it. I’m positive there is not actually such a
thing. I did end up discarding an entire section of the first sock and starting
over, but once I got to the ‘simple’ part, it was fascinating to watch the
self-striping yarn do its thing, and relaxing to just knit without counting
rows, working until the length was right. It took three months (‘simple,’ eh?)
but today I proudly laid my first pair of socks on my dresser ready to put on
tomorrow morning.
Maggi’s already starting to talk
about me doing a lace shawl next. Whoa, girl. You may love those intricate
patterns, but it seems I only really find knitting relaxing when there are long
sections of tedious (to you) stockinet or garter stitch between the necessity
of puzzling over the pattern, counting stitches, and swearing. Let’s just find
some shawl pattern that fits that description, okay? At least there is sure to be a ‘next project.’ I am still a
product knitter, but I’m beginning to enjoy the process as well. Let’s keep it
that way.
