Double-Stick Time!

Knitting was a skill that eluded me for years.

Trained as a little girl in crochet by my mother and her mother, I found comfort in working with a hook and a ball of yarn. From little chains to scarves, hats, and afghans I whiled away hours.

Progressing to knitting was a difficult task. Working with two straight sticks instead of a hook was an alien concept to me. No matter how many times I tried to learn to knit I just could not get the hang of it. Every other stitch fell off the needle and frustrated me to no end. And so I avoided that mess for years, feeding my craft habit instead with a steady diet of crochet and paper crafts.

Then one day in college a bunch of people gathered in the dorm’s rec room to work on pieces for Linus blankets and to teach each other to knit and crochet. I joined in and tried to show a few people how to hold a hook and make a simple chain. Since I was there I watched some people knit and thought, “What the hey, I’ll give it another shot.” I picked up a set of needles, watched a few people click their sticks and gave it a try, then proceeded to fumble the needles all over the place. After a bit of aggravation I somehow managed to knit a row, without dropping a stitch! I was amazed, a little gratified, but still felt horribly awkward. I stumbled through a couple more rows, feeling a little more confident with one row, all thumbs the next. When I’d finished a few inches of knitting I couldn’t understand why my piece was so bumpy, when other people had such smooth pieces. I hadn’t dropped a stitch and had managed to knit from one needle then the other without breaking anything but my piece looked strange. With homework calling I put away the needles and put the problem from mind.

A while later the topic of knitting resurfaced (a bad weed – it always returns!). I thought back to that day in the rec room and dug out my needles, proudly showing off what bit I had accomplished. I told my friend about how awkward it had felt, wondering why it was so hard to knit back and forth. She asked what I meant, so I demonstrated – I knit off the left needle, then off the right. I paused at her puzzled look, and asked why knitting was so awkward. She started to laugh, and told me it was because I was awkward, “You’re supposed to turn the knitting at the end of every row and work off the same needle each time.”

I just stared at her. “...You mean, you aren’t supposed to knit from left to right, then right to left!?” She showed me how to turn the knitting around, and said to purl the other side – that would make it flat. Purl, something I had heard and never knew what I was supposed to do. I tried that, but it still felt awkward, so away the needles went again.

For a couple years my thoughts would occasionally stray to the needles stuffed in a box somewhere, but I rarely brought them out. The few times I did I figured out how to hold the needles and work with them so the motions were not so awkward, and I even knit a few rows. When I was home I watched my mom knit, tried to imitate, and was again stumped. We talked about what was going on and lo! Holding the needles as she did was awkward, and we realized why – she knits right-handed and I was trying to knit left.

Not seeing the problem? I’m a righty. And knitting left-handed felt natural. No wonder I was so awkward when it came to knitting.

That was several years ago. Last autumn, I asked my mom to show me how to knit once again, promising not to swear or yell when I got frustrated. Not entirely convinced, I’m sure, she sat down and we worked on the basics. We started with casting-on then practiced holding the yarn and knitting – and this time I held the needles right-handed. After several minutes of muttered insults at the needles, I started to get the hang of it. Next step was learning to purl. This was a little bit more complicated, but we talked through it and I sat there with my tongue sticking out and fought with my thumbs, and purled a whole row. I kept trying, and the next time I saw my mom I proudly presented her with a square of fairly even stitching. I mentioned wanting to learn to make socks and she presented me with my first set of circular needles – sock size. I went back home and found a basic pattern. For the next couple weeks I drove my husband crazy with casting-on, dropping stitches, and frequent swearing that my yarn should cooperate with me (and me with it). Eventually the struggle paid off.

My socks

When I went home for Thanksgiving I showed my mother my sock, knitted from my own yarn. Finally, after years of trying to learn the basics, I had finished my first real piece. It wasn’t perfect – I had a spot of trouble interpreting the directions – but it was finished. I had finally accomplished something with the needles and, darn it, I was proud. The minute I had bound-off that sock I cast-on for its mate. By the middle of December I finished my first pair of socks. They don’t fit perfectly and I learned the importance of determining gauge, but I think I might be getting the hang of these pointy sticks.

 

J's socks