50 - Knitting

I am prone to obsessions in handicrafts. One previous obsession was making purses -; all kind of fabric purses, lined and quilted and what have you. I use them. Problem is you sort of have to have a 'purse kit' containing your keys, wallet, comb, credit cards etc. all ready to go so that when you change purses you don't forget your keys, your coin, your cards – whatever. I'm getting the hang of that. I only forget my keys now and again.

However, I digress. My new obsession is knitting. I think it started when I began to knit a purse and it snowballed from there. Now, I'm a real yarn collector. Oh boy! Stash is everything. I have to have these yarns, both wool and synthetic and their combinations and cotton yarns too because I belong to an online Forum (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MonthlyDishcloths/ where you knit along with other people and make dishcloths with cotton yarns.

The first part of the month is a dishcloth with a pattern on it. - a lighthouse or an oak leaf or something like that, worked with knit and purl stitches. The 2nd knit along of the month is patterned or lace stitches which is a wonderful way to sample stitches in a small, do-able project. A dishcloth isn't very big. You do it in pretty colours, then roll it up, tie a bow around it and there's your stocking stuffer, if you don't need it yourself, you've had the joy of knitting the thing. I use them as washcloths and they're wonderful for that.

I used to be devoted to cross stitch and have a charting program for that called PC Stitch. With the Stitch Along you only get 10 lines of the pattern at a time. With the picture at the start of the month I just chart the pattern as it comes along and later, if I like the picture, I can knit it up and it is great fun trying to guess what the picture is going to be as the pattern is sent to the Forum bit by bit.

This way I save my needles for the mid month patterned stitch along.

The best pattern so far was a leaping dolphin over fancy work patterned waves. I may make another one of those and turn it into, you guessed it, a purse!

There's an on line facility called Meetup.com (http://www.meetup.com) which helps niche interests, no matter how obscure, to meet up at local venues such as coffee shops, restaurants, etc. Here I joined up with the local Stitch and starts with 'B' and rhymes with stitch group that meets on Wednesdays in a coffee shop. Fifteen or so of us, maybe twenty, sit there for two hours and just knit! We talk about everything. These are very intelligent ladies with decided opinions. Knitting, particularly the fancier bits of knitting, are not so simple and require a certain amount of brain power and persistence,. Knitting acts like a filter to get a bunch of pretty intelligent ladies together . I really enjoy it. I go every single week and I sit and I knit. I've learned not to take my more complex patterns to the meet up because you get to talking and you're going to drop a stitch or miss part of a pattern. So I just take the simple stuff – hats that are knit in the round, scarves and things like that.

Speaking of scarves, oh my gosh, there are fancy yarns called ribbon, ladder or eyelash yarns and for my young nieces I have put together these scarves made with eyelash yarn that are very fluffy , fancy and colourful. I Added a nice brooch to go with them because they are short scarves. The brilliant pastels make them really fun to knit and to give.

I get bored fairly easily or I have a short attention span, something like that. In any case I need variety. Some don't like this phrase but I practice a form of knitting that I call 'knit and hurl' I have, a whole bunch, of knitting projects on the go right now. Two scarves, 2 hats, a pair of socks, a cotton dishcloth, a dress for Barbie which I'm trimming with some extra eyelash yarn to see what it looks like, a lace pattern bookmark and, oh yes, another hat. When I get tired of one project I pick up another. It keeps me from being bored. I've got these plastic bowls with handles which I got cheap at a dollar store. I keep my knitting projects in them and move them forward or back, depending on which is the project of the moment..

Thank goodness for the Internet! What a wealth of patterns are there– quite unbelievable. For instance, I was looking for a pattern for a bolero shrug. I'm not quite up to sweaters as yet. I'm sticking with smaller projects because I'm afraid of getting bogged down. I found 6 or 7 bolero patterns before I settled on the one that I wanted. I find this quite wonderful. You can get these patterns free because 1) knitters share knowledge 2) wool companies need to sell wool. Knitting is fashionable right now.

I took my knitting to a local pub for the computer folks EMCC beer bash. These System programmers and the like meet every 6 weeks. I get along with these guys and gals. Been with them for quite a while. Being a senior I was immediately classified as 'Miss Marple' because of my attained years and bag of knitting. I sat there doing my knitting and sipping my beer. I've scaled down from Guinness to Upper Canada dark lager. We had a wonderful time. There's something about knitting that promotes conversation. It was almost as if my computer folk outing had turned into a quilting bee, although I was the only one knitting. That was funny.

Knit I must and everyone will get a scarf or a hat or a dishcloth this Christmas. Thereafter, I'll have to go into production for myself. I think I'm going to have to focus on socks a fair bit or start knitting purses again. I don't know how long this obsession will last. I never do. Cloth doll making lasted most of my life. I hope knitting lasts a while because I'm enjoying it very much.!