I’m taking a bit of a risk with this post. I’m going to concentrate on one of the less written about areas of my creativity and I don’t know how interesting you will find it, so I’m dropping it out as an extra, mid-week piece!
One of the sections in this substack is called Readsknitswritesgardens. It’s supposed to be descriptive of my Substack and cover the things I write about most. For obvious reasons, the ‘Writes’ element is fulfilled most diligently - once a week for 24 weeks so far according to Substack stats - apparently that puts me in the top 11% of writers for consistency, so ‘Writes’ is well in hand and brava me.
I do sometimes write about reading, though I’m more likely to put my current reading in a Note and enjoy the ensuing conversation, rather than write a whole ‘stack about it. In the past I’ve put up a summary of the month’s completed reading, but it gets the lowest of opens and views so I don’t do that much any more. Which is a shame, because I love reading and writing about what I’m reading. Perhaps when I have a few more subscribers who are readers rather than writers it might work better? I need to find the best approach, but I would say that the ‘Reads’ element is also catered for.
I write from time to time about the garden and nature and wildlife, posting pictures of plants and flowers, skies and sea. I would say that the ‘Gardens/Nature’ element is OK too. The latter two don’t make it as often as I would like to, but I write as the mood takes me, and mostly it takes me for memoir or life in general. That’s Reads, Writes and Gardens accounted for. So far, I have not written about Knitting. Not once. Yet knitting is creative isn’t it? It requires skill and dexterity? It’s constructive and productive? It ticks a lot of the creative boxes so why, on this platform aimed at creatives, have I not exposed my knitting to the conversation? You know, I think I’m a bit embarrassed about it. Here I am, being a writer, getting taken seriously, and then I spring my knitting on you. Ah me.
So today’s post is about my knitting habit. I’m not a knitting designer, or a knitting business-person. I’m a hobby knitter. I knit for pleasure. I don’t know if that’s worth writing about, but here goes anyway:
Why do I knit? Because I like it - mostly. Depending on what I have chosen for my project I find the repetitive bits quite soothing, the creativity satisfying, the utility of making a garment for myself equally satisfying. I like the slow progression to the finished item, the feel of the yarn, the weight of a part-knitted project. I love choosing new yarn, the trip to the brilliant yarn shop an hour’s drive from here - The Lace Knittery, run by the estimable Debbie Munro - the return home with a bag full of squishy, beautifully coloured yarn, pattern books, and yet another pack of cute stitch markers.
Do I knit to relax? Not really. It’s only certain bits of knitting that I find soothing. Whenever I have to actually ‘do’ something - like start a pattern, or increase, or decrease, or turn a heel, or judge the tension of a neckline - then concentration has to set in and sometimes anxiety if it’s something complex or new. Also my husband says I am a sweary knitter, though I, of course, dispute this.
Do I knit to help my mental health? Not consciously, see above about the difficult bits, but when I’m not getting frustrated it can be done mindfully. Generally speaking, I quite like overcoming a challenge and having something to show at the end of it. Like these socks.
There is always a pair of socks on the needles. They are the pick-up-and-go of knitting. They fit in a bag, they’re portable, they travel, where you can sit you can knit them. Although there is a woman in our small town who knits as she walks around. I can’t even think about that. Back to socks - plain (or vanilla socks, as we knitters call them) to show off fancy wool, or patterned in a block colour for knitting interest and to show off your skill. I knit socks summer and winter, plain and patterned, long and short. And there is nothing like wearing hand knitted socks. So cheering.
How do I knit? Slowly. I pick up and put down. I am often distracted by a new project so the current project gets sidelined. This year it took me 5 months to knit a summer vest. Started in March, finished right at the end of August. I knit in the traditional English style, the ‘throwing the yarn round the needle’ way. I’ve tried continental style knitting, and nope, can’t do it. Well, I can do it, but I find it hard to maintain an even tension and then it annoys me, and then I revert to my old way. I can knit using circular needles, but I can’t do ‘magic loop’. I can knit on three or four double-pointed needles, but I don’t enjoy it. I can knit top-down or bottom up, in pieces or in the round. I am by no means expert and finishing a garment still gives me a thrill of seeing something I created being good enough to actually wear without feeling self-conscious.
I was taught to knit at primary school - grubby, holey dishcloths of dubious utility at first, then grubby, holey scarves, also of dubious utility. I didn’t knit seriously until my twenties, when I was looking for a creative hobby. It was the late 1970s, knitting was having a bit of a revival and I discovered the village hardware store kept a stock of reasonable wool at the back. So, I honed my basic knitting skills through a BBC television series and the accompanying pattern book (note the 1970s vibe - crocheted shawl, felt hat..yes Reader, I was there). The first garment I ever knitted was a simple pullover for my husband. The neck was so tight that we seriously feared for his eyeballs getting it over his head…
In the 80s I knitted the then-fashionable picture sweaters à la Gyles Brandreth, whilst hoping for a more sophisticated Kaffe Fassett look. After that, a burgeoning career took over and my knitting habit lapsed for forty years. Retirement, of course, brought the needles out of storage and I began again in earnest. I knit for myself mostly - I’m never sure if others get the work and concentration that goes into producing even a small piece of work, but I sometimes gift gloves or a beanie, or a simple scarf in nice wool.
Sweaters are mostly my thing now. Here are a few completed projects.
At the moment I’m working on a slipover vest for when the season turns properly - at the moment it’s 29 degrees here, very unusual for early September, so knitting sweaters feels a bit premature. And I have some goals to achieve this year, to push myself out of my comfort zone. I love knitting Fair Isle colourwork and in order to take full advantage of the huge range of wonderful patterns out there, I have to tackle the bane of the novice knitter’s life - steeking. Steeking involves taking the scissors to your knitted fabric, not something I’m very confident about - also not two words one expects to find in the same sentence, scissors and knitting. The fear of all my hardwork unravelling in a heap of ends and holes (can you have a heap of holes?) has been preventing me from attempting this for so long it has become my holy grail of knitting achievement.
So there you have it. A romp through my joy of knitting, a show and tell of some finished work, and enough technical phrases to send you to Google. I really hope you enjoyed it. It has helped to justify my having ‘Knits’ in the title of my section. Maybe I’ll write more occasional pieces on my forays into woolly making, but it means you’re going to have to take the slub with the smooth (see what I did there?).
That’s it for today. I’ll write soon x
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Sweary knitter over here too June 🙋🏻♀️ loved this piece, Substack needs more knitting content!!
Brilliant piece, thank you. I think we definitely need more knitting content here. It's part of what makes us who we are, after all.