Self-Taught Knitting: Zen For A Fiend

It’s been nearly a year since I picked up the needles, intending to create inexpensive (yet lovingly made) gifts for family members, and have been an addict ever since. Knitting is a world that is ever expanding for me; so far it has evolved from simple garter stitch scarves to intarsia sweaters with many increases and decreases between and a limitless horizon ahead.

Now many people out there, including myself once, think of knitting as Gran Gran’s boring hobby. These days, however, there is a movement of fiber artists out there proving that it doesn’t have to be all cutesy mittens and dreaded Christmas sweaters. Ironically, I fully intend to create dreaded sweaters, but in a different sense.

Knitting is not necessarily an easy journey, but that’s half the fun. (OK, maybe not when you have to unravel half of your project to fix a silly mistake you failed to notice way back when it was easy to undo, but that’s something you just have to get over – it’s inevitably going to happen. Besides, knitting backwards is a valuable skill to know.) With every new pattern there are different techniques to learn, designs to create, and alterations to figure out. Sometimes it takes patience, persistence, and quite possibly an obsessive personality to make it through the process.

The surprise for me was discovering that I enjoy that process. It’s a form of meditation, or self-medication with only mild side effects (mostly involving a neglected boyfriend and a growing stash of yarn). At least it provides serenity for the time being, and the opportunity to finally listen to that audio book…although now if I knit a particular leaf lace pattern haunting images from Heart of Darkness will spring to mind. …ssk, p1, k2tog…the horror. The horror.

I mean OHMMM…