Means Ends; Ends Means

I first learned to knit my freshman year of college. I didn't have a sewing machine with me, but I needed to craft, so I went to Wal-mart and bought a pair of size 17 needles, a skein of Lion Brand Homespun yarn, and the "I can't believe I'm knitting!" book. At some point, (on like, page 3) I got confused. I then bought the "I taught myself knitting" kit, because after all, two books telling you the same thing is certainly better than one.

I figured out how to cast on. Woot! I think I initially wanted to start out by making a scarf, but had no clue as to how many stitches to cast on, so I ended up casting on the entire length of the needles - 14" worth of cast on stitches. Size 17 needles are bulky and kind of awkward to use in general, but even more so when I was learning.

I learned to knit English. The book told me so. I hated it. It just seemed obnoxiously hard. Unbeknownst to me at the time of course, was that English knitting tends to produce a tighter gauge than Continental. I struggled to get the stitches off the needle, using the tip of my finger against the tip of the needle to give enough force to drag the stitch off. Well, you can imagine that after about a row of this, I had a very sore finger. (Plus I was knitting garter, which, in my opinion, is harder to knit than stockinette because the stitches "face" the wrong direction.) I think I got about halfway through the skein of yarn before I considered it quits, and the project got shelved.

I wrapped the knit part of the [what was now quite evidently more of a shawl than a] scarf around the remainder of the skein and stuck the extra needle through the middle. And so it sat. For 5 years. And got stretched out. But I picked it back up, this time with a determination to finish it. Not even so much to knit for knitting's sake - just to finish it. I ended up buying an extra skein to get the length correct (it being so wide and all) and finished it. One side ended up being a little wider than the other, but who cares? It's done! It actually stayed that way for about another 3 years, until I finally washed it and that evened out the stitches - sigh.

One knitting project down, why not start another? My mother had a bit of yarn (black, of course) left over from some project or another; she passed it off to me, and I cast on again - this time on size 8 needles - much easier! I'm sitting in the kitchen, knitting (or at least making valid attempts to) when my father walks in, glances in my direction and flat out tells me I'm knitting wrong.

Ok.

My grandmother, who was an avid sock knitter, but also a teacher (his teacher in fact), taught his entire 5th grade class to knit. And after all these years, he's managed to retain that information. I guess it's true when they say knitting is like learning to ride a bike - muscle memory never really forgets. He showed me the "proper" way to knit - Continental, of course.

For me, Continental was the gateway drug. It was faster, more intuitive.* It was easier to "pick" the yarn - for both knit and purl stitches - than it was to remember which darned way to wrap it.

Now, I'm not saying there is or isn't a "correct" way to knit. Knitting is the means to the end; as long as the fabric comes out correctly,** then do what makes you happy.

*Which is not to say that Continental didn't have it's pitfalls. For about a year and a half I didn't know the difference between k2tog (knit 2 together) and ssk (slip slip knit). K2tog: yes, ok, put the needle through 2 stitches instead of just one, and knit them, ok. Ssk: it's the exact same thing! Why would I slip them first? And what's with all this "back of the stitch" business? I am putting my needle into the back of the stitch! Of course I later learned, that based on how I knit, I had to put my needle into the front of the stitches in order to k2tog, and that k2tog and ssk are not the same because they slant in different ways. Oh, and about 3 weeks ago, I finally figured out how to properly make left and right slanting increases.

**Increases, decreases, yarn overs (a term that is entirely too vague in most patterns - I prefer the British delineations of yo, yrnd, and yfwd), and knitting in the round were all learned the hard way. I think almost every project I've ever made, save the last 2 or 3, has mistakes in it. Some which actually compromise the integrity of the garment - like socks with twisted rib instead of regular rib, that then won't stay up.

But I'm ok with it. So what? It doesn't prevent me from wearing the things I've made. I have a whole closet-full of lessons learned and I'm proud of each one. What's more, knowing that I still have so much more to learn is what keeps me knitting. Off to go screw something else up!