First Quarter: Knitting updates

Hello. It's Friday, and this is going to be a relatively practical reflection; I haven't written a public post about hand crafts in a little while, even though cultivating those old skills is a core theme of my First Quarter posts. And it's occurred to me that since I started knitting a few years ago it may now be acceptable to make this next hand crafts entry rather self-centered. Since there is still only so much I can say about my experiences and abilities, I suspect you're in for a quick read, but I assure you that I'm planning on some fairly long ones over the next several weeks. Hopefully things will balance out.

As for the knitting update itself, let me go right into it.

Remembering & rethinking the origins

I've already written sometimes about my instinct toward knitting and toward fiber arts in general. Once upon a time, I had rejected such activities because of rejecting the gender role that I saw them belonging to. But gradually, I would come to observe that the gendering was not altogether warranted; and to the extent that it ever is, I have become much more comfortable with a not-identical but parallel gender, and I have celebrated the great achievements that fiber arts have facilitated both as a human invention and as specific "women's work." I have aligned greatly with the relationship between fiber and myth, gendered and not. And I have felt especially inspired to take up certain fiber arts in honor of my maternal grandmother, who knew how to do any hand craft I can think of. I have likewise felt inspired to work with wool in particular, reflecting my ancestral heritage from a pastoral people and their rich tradition of wool textiles. Someday I want to have sheep, or to be close with someone who has sheep, and I'd like to take part in all the steps of processing raw wool into a finished garment.

A few years into the learning process, I think that all of this logic remains true, but there were also other motives I haven't spoken about as much, although given the overall focuses of Salt for the Eclipse you would probably not be surprised by what those motives were. Namely:

• The possibility of making highly durable, custom-fitted clothes without relying on the deeply dysfunctional global garment industry (with knitting this applies mostly to outerwear and socks, but if I could also weave fabrics then there would be even more possibilities)
• The psychospiritual benefits of giving my hands a highly tactile, material pastime that takes me away from computers and also reduces self-disfiguring stimulation (my autism partially manifests through excoriation disorder)

And now — I have been warmed by a newer, more sudden motive, which is the prospect of making certain things for my forthcoming child to wear. Of course, assuming all goes well with what's left of this pregnancy, they will grow too quickly for me to make many things for them at any size, and I already can't knit fast enough to make them every knitwear item imaginable. But I will come back to what feels possible at the end of this post.

In the meantime, lately I have tended to feel as if I've knitted enough to describe myself as a knitter, which is very satisfying. And simultaneously, I still also prefer to qualify that description by saying I am an amateur knitter.

Specific skills I have learned & those I hunger for

So far, I have learned the basic ingredients of most knitting patterns, namely the actual "knit" maneuver, plus purl, yarn over, making a new stitch from a "rung" below, and combining knit stitches (knit-2, knit-3, and so on). This has allowed me to reproduce common stitch typologies like garter stitch, stockinette stitch, ribbing of various widths, seed stitch, and moss stitch; and I can follow patterns that result in eyelets or other interesting little textures and interruptions. I can knit both straight and in the round; in the round, I can use actual round needles or double-pointed ones. I can read a pattern that works through text alone, and I can also read a pattern that works through visual symbols.

All of this probably reads like word salad to somebody who does not knit, but to explain what I mean, I would need to write up some explanations that would practically amount to tutorials, and I don't feel experienced enough to trust that I can write a good tutorial. But if you do feel lost by what I've said above and you would like to understand better, please let me know; I can try to link you to other people's tutorials that I've followed myself.

What all of this translates to in terms of "what I can produce through knitting" is basically that I can make some rather nice scarves, small flat objects, and hats, especially if I get good yarn in the first place and follow a well-devised pattern, although I'm comfortable enough with improvisation that about a third of the things I've knitted were just my own invention. I also suspect that I am quite technically capable of and ready for progressing from knitting hats in the round to also making socks, mittens, and gloves, so I have some sock yarn sitting around in anticipation of my first attempt therein. However, besides not yet knowing for certain that I can make those items, I feel limited in other ways, namely:

• I've been assembling my knitting kit piecemeal for budget reasons, so for the most part, if I need a needle size or type — or some other tool — that I haven't used before, then I'm unlikely to try out a new project until I not only have the right yarn but also the other stuff I'm missing.
• I really only know one colorwork technique, which in the specific technique's case is best for making very basic alternating horizontal stripes. I'm very intimidated by any pattern that relies on more than two colors or uses them to create designs other than striping; if I'm going to invest in so many different yarn colors for just one project, I want to at least feel like I don't have any other projects waiting around for my attention while I make a million mistakes.
• I feel absurdly ignorant about how anyone makes larger knitted objects. It already took me a while to understand that sweaters are usually not made all in one go, but rather through separate panels that are then darned together. But what if I wanted to knit a really, really large blanket? What are the biggest needles I could ever find? There has to be an upper bound to what would ever be convenient to use. So is this why so many big blankets and shawls are actually crocheted, since then size-wise there's nothing stopping the creator except how tired their hand gets? (Or things are woven on a loom, which can be much larger than a pair of knitting needles.)
• I don't yet intuitively know how to make things like eyelets without a pattern, so I'm also fairly intimidated by lacework even though I would love to learn it eventually.
• I estimate stitches per inch very imprecisely, if at all, and don't even use free yardage calculators very much, so I'm lucky I haven't thus wound up with more projects where I've run out of yarn way too early, or where I've followed a pattern to the letter but the final product is much smaller than expected.
• I figured out how to make very consistent, tidy stitches early on, but maintaining such perfect tension has taken a toll on my shoulders and I can't yet figure out the most ergonomic knitting pose that accounts for how short my arms are and (there's no easy way to say it) how large my breasts are.
• This is a very self-imposed limitation, but since I insist on working with natural fibers only, this limits the scope of patterns I can use that assume you're going to buy xyz brand of acrylic yarn to make some sort of self-striping, etc. work out the way it should.
• I only have a couple of hours per day, if that, where I can make any knitting happen. I take it seriously but it's a lower-priority ritual activity than some others, such as writing.

For the first couple of challenges in this list, I know that becoming employed again and having more disposable finances would allow me to make a much more significant up-front investment in what I need to improve my skills; it's occurred to me that I've been unemployed for about half the time that I've been knitting. But as for the rest, it's simply going to take a fair amount of additional self-study and time, or in certain cases I've resigned myself to whatever sacrifice I've made; I'm so far not budging on the natural fiber issue. And part of me is tempted to not care if I play fast and loose on measurement questions. So far my non-system works for me pretty well, and I may not need to adapt it until I ever do run into a serious measurement mistake.

In any event, of course, the limitations do exist. For now, I'm very much not the sort of knitter who can freely improvise any sort of knitwear, and reading or attempting certain patterns would be very beyond my capacity.

The current project

One knitted item is very much within my capacity. I mentioned small, flat objects earlier; over the past several month I've been working on one of those. It's a baby blanket.

I hadn't selected the yarn with that in mind, instead thinking I would make myself yet another scarf, this time more colorful than my wont, because the swirl of colors was simply magnificent. Rich, oceanic jewel tones, one color spun erratically into the next, sapphire and amethyst and turquoise with a little bit of emerald or garnet here and there. The wool is also fairly soft and pleasant to touch. I was excited to work with it, although I had intended to start my first sock project beforehand.

As it happened, once I finished my prior project, which was a hat for my owner, I had reached a stage in this pregnancy at which I felt far more certain that this third child would finally be carried to term, finally live, finally be held in my arms. Suddenly, learning to make adult-sized socks did not feel so important. The colorful, jewel-tone yarn was too thick to make a proper, supple swaddling blanket, but I remembered how when I was very young, I slept under a little quilt that my mother's friend had prepared and gifted to me at birth. A first night-covering feels important to me as a result. This child will have such a blanket.

The blanket is now about two-thirds complete. I chose to keep it all as an extremely simple garter stitch, just to be sure I'd have enough yarn — going by my absurd guesstimation system, at least. I could have played it even safer and used stockinette, but this way I also don't have to block it. I would have plenty of time to make this a complex project if I wished, but my intuition has said that I don't want to have to think while making this blanket. I only want to feel. I have felt very close with this child whenever I work on it. The longer that the blanket becomes, the more that it starts to rest on my growing belly.

Blue does predominate enough in the colors that I hope nobody will assume "it's a boy," since my owner and I don't intend to know their gender until they're ready to tell us directly. However, the work so far is beautiful, and just as knitting feels like a link to my ancestors, I enjoy that my knitting practice may soon center for a while around a member of the generation to come.

That seems like a good place to end for today.

Thank you for reading. I would of course love to touch base further with those of you who knit or who are at least fellow fiber artists of some kind.

With next Friday being Calan Mai (Beltane), I will be publishing a special holiday post, written at least partially in advance to account for the significant number of festivities that are going to require my attention. The following week, I will then have a post for paid subscribers with some in-depth reflections on my fertility journey, in relation to specific fertility deities.