starting at the end
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Thank you, all of you, for your responses to my last post. I have never felt less alone, and while the situation remains very, very sad (as I’m sure it will for a while) distance has helped, as have your comments. Knitters amaze me.
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When I was nine years old I was already an avid reader. I give my parents the credit for this: they read to me constantly. I was the kid under the blanket with the flashlight three hours after bedtime. I escaped into reading.
One day I noticed a copy of War and Peace on my mother’s bookshelf. It was enormous. It weighed like eleven pounds. It was by someone whose name I couldn’t pronounce. I was mesmerized - here was a book that would make me cool if I read it.
I asked my mother if I could read it. She must have been absolutely hysterically laughing internally, but she told my eager little nine-year-old face that I could - if I gave her a summary of the first five pages.
“Fine,” I said defiantly. And I picked up the enormous tome, and I hefted it onto my lap, and I read the first six sentences.
As you might imagine, I was unable to give my mother a summary of those first six sentences, let alone the first five pages.
“Stupid book,” I sniffed. I casually gave it back to her and vowed never to talk about it again. It wasn’t a failure if nobody knew about it. Right?
And thus began my lifelong obsession with starting at the end. With beginning at the most difficult section. With learning the hard stuff first.
My first knitting project was a lace scarf. True, a big yarn/big needle lace scarf, but there were k2togs and yos aplenty.
And thank whatever deity was on duty that day I was able to complete it, otherwise knitting might have ended up on the shelf next to War and Peace and the Rachmaninov piece I tried to learn when I was seven.
All of which has culminated in my knitting something legitimately complicated while possessing the knowledge and skills to complete it.
This is a new thing for me. I actually know what I’m doing. I’ve been able to fix mistakes several rows ago without ripping back.
I can’t watch TV while I’m doing it, and it’s not 100% perfect (nothing I’ve ever knit is)... but it’s good. And it’s easier than any other piece of lace I’ve knit. And I get it.
I GET IT.
I did finally read War and Peace, by the way. It’s exhausting. Not nearly as fun as lace.
FYI: this is the Cobweb Lace Stole by Michele Rose Orne from Interweave Knits Spring 2008. I’m using the JaggerSpun Zephyr Lace in Basil that you may recognize from the defunct Mystery Stole and Addi Turbo US 5s.
the knit mongrel
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
