Knitting with Tears

 

 

A few years ago I learned to knit  ... well, really I learned to knit when I was about 7 or 8, but did nothing with it.  But after years and years of knowing that one day I would learn, and having looked longingly at knitting books and wishing I could make those beautiful things, I finally bought myself a book, sat down and taught myself how to really knit! 

 

The saddest part of all of this is that I passed up on a perfect and beautiful opportunity to learn this skill from my own mother. 

 

All the years I asked her to make sweaters for my kids, a scarf for myself, and my treasured mittens, I never once bothered to ask her to teach me how to make these things myself.  And Mom knew all about knitting! 

 

 

 I could almost cry over how stupid I was ... I have cried over it.  I knit with tears. 

Mom had in her own knitting library the famous book, "Knitting Without Tears" by Elizabeth Zimmerman.  When I saw it there, I was thrilled!!  But when I read in Ms. Zimmerman's book right there on page 2, "If you hate to knit, why, bless you, don't; follow your secret heart and take up something else", I felt huge discouragement.  Because at the beginning of this quest I did hate to knit!  At times I would get so frustrated in trying to figure out the instructions, that knitting, needles, book (and even the poor dog!) would be sent flying off my lap in a fit of anger and disappointment.  Those words haunted me, and I wanted to prove them wrong. 

I persevered.  Maybe because I wanted Mom to somehow know that I would figure this out ... that I could make her proud.  And maybe part of that anger was just my grieving process ... angry that she was gone, and I wanted her back more than ever (believe me, I have had a very tough time since she died).

 

I'm embarrassed about some of the mistakes I've made (some just silly because I misinterpreted the instructions), but I kept learning every time I cast on.  One of the most important lessons I have learned is that you really need to know what the stitches should look like ("the anatomy of the stitch" as one knitter wrote), and you need to know how to fix your mistakes without ripping the whole piece apart.  And those two lessons are hardest to learn when you don't have a live person showing you how, and you have to decipher it from cryptic text.  I spent a lot of time frogging ... at least that was easy to do!

Teal scarf took me months to finish; Green scarf made in moss stitch from bamboo yarn.

 

I was able to show Mom only two things I knitted before she died.  Each of them were scarves (above), but she would comment on them every time I visited her (she was like that ... always quick to notice what you were wearing and giving a simple, but lovely compliment). 

 

My first big accomplishment was a watch cap (below), knit in the round.  I found the pattern on Ravelry, and it's the same pattern that women knitted up for soldiers during WWII.  I made it from wool from Mom's stash (the leftover wool from a sweater she made at my request when I was a teenager ... I still have the sweater!).

 

I made this hat five times ... four of the five were ripped back to the beginning.  It was during the fifth time knitting this hat that I set about learning to fix mistakes ... dropped stitches, and changing purl stitches to knit when I found them rows later ... all kinds of things.  It was a proud moment to finish it knowing that I fixed all the mistakes (all that I could see anyway).

 

 

And once I got the hang of knitting in the round, I couldn't pass up a book on knitting "tinies" and started making these cute little animals which are about 1" long.  Fun stuff, but fussy!

 

So this adventure has brought me today to working on a fun little baby's hat in this book.  Do I know any babies to wear it?  Nope!  But I loved the open knotwork, and since I was unsuccessful at making this last year (and have since figured out my mistake), I'm having another go and making it work!

 

I love the colours in this pure wool sock yarn.

 

 

 

I know I'll never be a fantastic knitter, but I'm finally enjoying the process.  And as long as I keep my hands in it regularly, I hopefully will remember all that I've learned and can finally start knitting without tears!!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Wendy