Thursday, October 3, 2013

My Knitting Bucket List



Given my focusing disability I decided that I need to start a list of exactly what I plan to work on in the coming year because if I don’t I will continue to chase butterflies (which is a euphemism for mindlessly knitting one pattern after another).  So here goes…

1   1)      Tunisian Crochet – I have the yarn and pattern so I am hooked up and ready to go!!!  I also have a book to help me through the hard stuff but I don’t expect there will be much of that.  I know, famous last words.

2   2)      Entrelac – I’m signed up for a class at the end of October with Amy…  can’t wait!  I took a class before and was impressed with my ability to learn to knit backward since attempts at backwards stuff has always proven to be somewhat detrimental for me (roller skating springs to mind).  My daughter was able to march backward in formation while playing the saxophone in the marching band and I was absolutely fascinated by that.  I bet she’d make a great Entrelac knitter.  Except she doesn’t knit.

3   3)      Colorwork – Stranded/Fair Isle, Intarsia, Brioche…  LOTS to learn here!  From my brief (I’m talking no more than 10 minutes) attempt at Fair Isle I’m pretty sure this is going to require a class, maybe some one-on-one instruction and possibly therapy.  I’ll see what Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet festival has to offer, I’m sure someone there can get me through it…  well, maybe not the therapy but that’s not really yarn related anyway.

4   4)      Dying yarn with natural ingredients – I bought some undyed yarn and an Indigo plant at the Great Lakes Fiber Festival in the spring.  The plant is doing great but it’s still very green, isn’t some part of it supposed to turn blue at some point?  There was an article in a spring magazine that gave instructions on how to dye yarn in big jars of water set in the sun, kind of like sun tea.  That was my purpose for buying the plant and yarn, but it’s October now, not much sun so I guess this one will have to hold off until spring or summer as long as the plant doesn't die.  That’ll buy me some time to figure out the whole green to blue dilemma.

5   5)      Spinning – I bought a drop spindle last year and received a spinning book as a gift AND I have roving.  Originally my husband Jerry thought he’d like to learn how to spin yarn but that was very short lived.  One of our members was spinning at SnB last Saturday.  She made it look really easy.  I’m pretty sure it’s not.

6   6)      Knitting Math – From what I can tell, this is very similar to Algebra or Trigonometry or one of those math courses that I was able to avoid in college.  Then you add in increases and decreases and right slanting stitches and left slanting stitches and my head starts spinning again.  Are there formulas involved?  Do I need a special calculator?   

7   7)      Design a cable pattern – See ‘Knitting Math’ above…  with the added bonus of graph paper and cable needles!  Can my Scottish heritage be revoked if I screw this one up?

8   8)      Double Knitting  - Another technique for which I’ve already taken a class but you know us old dogs, if you don’t use it you lose it!  (I actually lost it a long time ago)  This technique brings to mind a guy I dated in the 70s that always wore stretchy polyester pants, whom I sometimes now refer to  as the ‘Double-knit Wit.’  I know, that’s not nice and it has nothing to do with knitting, but when you’re an old dog you tend to not care.
 
Wow, isn’t that a great list?!   I can feel myself getting better and smarter by the minute! :-)

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