I love to knit!

I love to knit!

There!  I said it.  Knitting is what I’d rather do than anything serious.  When I’m at my job, I think about knitting.  This is very distracting when filling in forms.  (I am a professional form-filler-inner in real life.)

Also, recently, the entrepreneur in me was reawakened.  How to make a living with knitting?  My wise friend, Dawn Devine, internationally known author www.davina.us, suggested that selling things that crafters use is the way to go.  You know, like the shopkeepers who sold shovels to the gold miners.  Hmm.  Time to publish those patterns I’ve been working on.  Stay tuned for developments in this area.

A few years ago the steampunk bug hit me and reignited my love of costuming.  For those of you who may not be familiar with steampunk, see the Wikipedia article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk .  The short version is a Victorian/Edwardian era look that celebrates the science and adventure of the time, with lots of imagined machines run on steam.  Gears, clocks, keys, airships, and of course, goggles, are frequent themes and accessories.  And the sepia tones of the costumes evoke the faded photos from the time.  Little top hats and imaginative variations on historical styles are rampant.

Little top hats, you say?  Lara Breese has a delightful pattern for a Miniature Top Hat available for sale at her website darktwist.com and her etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/darktwist .  When I bought her pattern and started making them, it was like eating potato chips.  I couldn’t make just one!  12 hats and several variations later, I sold some of them at Comic-Con International, in San Diego.  www.Comic-con.org  What a kick!  More later on this continuing story.

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.

I am an experienced knitter.

Dropped stitches?  Check.  Bound off too tight?  Check.  Knit unintentionally through the back loop?  Check.  Sleeves way too long and floppy?  Check.  Rewrote the sweater pattern in the round and forgot to account for the sleeves?  Check.

But from these unfortunate boo-boos I learned how to rescue a dropped stitch, even 10 rows down on a lace pattern.  (Hint:  mark it and fake it after the fact!)  Bind off too tight?  Use a bigger needle or a different bind off.  Knitting through the back loop?  I learned to recognize the difference and use it to knit with a tighter space.  When the sleeves aren't right, it's OK to rip them back, even after you've worn the sweater.  You can re-knit them in a shorter, tighter pattern and make them perfect for you.  And I learned steeking, that scary technique, through necessity and time crunch, for the sweater in the round.

There are books to make your knitting life easier.  Amy Chin has one that I like, Knitting Tips and Tricks.  It isn't so much about fixing errors but tips to prevent them.

The title of this entry shows how I live my life.  Sure, school is great, and I enjoy it immensely.  New class is starting next week, in fact.  But doing is more fun, risky, and rewarding.  The occasional error, or "learning experience" is generally worth it.

Who knows?  Maybe you will solve the age-old  problem of "yarn barf" in a way no one else has, or an easier way to "be careful not to twist" when joining in the round.  One way, for socks, is to knit them toe up!  Another is to knit back and forth for a couple of rows, then join.  It will be easier to see what you are doing and you can use the tail to sew up a short seam.

Am I an experienced knitter?  You bet!

It's always best to begin at the beginning

I am an experienced knitter.  I learned to knit from my Grandma, Rose Bourdages, of Montreal, Quebec.  I was probably about 8 or 10 years old.  She was from French Canada and didn't speak a lot of English, but it was enough to get the message across.

She only visited us in the Los Angeles area a few times.  She liked to sit and knit while she talked with my Dad, her son, or kept us company while we watched TV.  Being a kid who grew up near L.A. I didn't see much need for the heavy socks for my brother or the mittens for me.  But I loved to watch her make them.

I'd watch as she'd try them on us, figuring out when to make the turn or start the thumb.  She'd put the thumb stitches on a safety pin and keep on going.

I don't know whose idea it was, but I found myself with double pointed needles, size 4, in my little hands.  She showed me the backward loop cast on and taught me to knit.  I think it was a small scarf, but I don't really remember.

Grandma didn't live nearby us so we didn't see her much.  She was only able to show us how she was special a few times.  She made meat pies, and sugar pie (kind of like pecan pie, minus the nuts.  Delicious!)

And she gave me the gift of knitting.  For that, and many other things, I love her.