Knitting

We are on the cusp of winter here in the Heartland. There is already several inches of snow on the ground and it is only the first of November. Of course that kind of cold will ebb and flow for a while. There will be days so warm it will feel like spring, but the trend will relentlessly move towards colder and colder.

Today when I put on my coat I looked for a scarf only to realize I must have given them all away in the great purge a few weeks ago. Necessity is often what tweaks my interest in renewing old skills, so I checked out my knitting bag. Sure enough there was a nearly finished short scarf in there.

Not the color I wanted and not quite the length I wanted, it sent my imagination soaring. I imagined all sorts of wonderful confections from fuzzy chenille to practical stockinette wool and after walking at the zoo this morning I stopped by to look at yarn.

The yarn I picked out was neither fluffy, nor any shade of coppery pink that I had imagined. Instead it is one of my old favorites of dark forest green and burgundy, but I love it and loving it is one of the determining factors for me knitting anything and finishing it.

I learned to knit from my next door neighbor, Aunt Jo. In theory because my mother was a lefty and didn't feel she could teach me properly. In truth, I never saw my mother pick up a knitting needle. Aunt Jo knit all the time. She made fine cashmere suits and soft beautiful shawls. And even more important she was very patient.

She stuck with me until my fingers learned the stitches. My eyes didn't see the difference between knit and purl for many years and I'm still not sure I could teach anyone else how to cast on, but my fingers know it and they remember it. It is the same way I played piano. My fingers seem to have a mind of their own and it isn't always attached to the mind in my head.

The last ten years have been a boon. You tube is always there with someone who can show me whatever I have forgotten. How to cast off, how to make a particular pattern, what ever I need and it will play it, replay it and replay it as many times as I need it. With this kind of help I have made a few pretty involved things.

But mostly I just like the feel of plastic knitting needles clicking in my hands and the sight of some beautiful yarn growing into a pattern that gets longer and longer.