How To Keep Knitting Exciting
Questions pop into my inbox from knitters. They sometimes ask me to suggest patterns that won’t bore or confuse them. They ask for yarn and needle recommendations. But the ones most often in my inbox, or in DMs sound more like:
How do I keep from getting burned out?
How do I find the perfect cast on?
What do I do to keep knitting exciting?"
Today we dig in to those questions on the podcast. Simply click the link below to hear more.
Already given the episode a listen? Then let’s dive in a bit deeper together!
EXPLORE, EXPERIMENT, ENGAGE, AND CELEBRATE YOUR KNITTING
(I want to invite you to dig deep into your rich vocabulary and find a 4th E that could be substituted for Celebrate. Add it to the comments below when inspiration strikes and I will be so much the wiser for it! Now that you’ve taught me a new word, let’s dig into the first E)
EXPLORE YOUR KNITTING
I remember a wonderful professor from uni telling us “Explore, explore, and then explore even more.” It was funny to me at the time, as we were rehearsing a very specific ballet, with very specific steps and timing, connected to very specific feelings we were to share through our performance. How and where was there room for exploration?
And still, the quote stuck in my head.
As I learned to knit, over 20-something years ago, I began with making squares, later these would be called swatches, but for me, they were interesting squares where I was supposed to practice my tension and develop my stitches to become more even. Instead of making me feel constrained, operating within a certain number of stitches creating a 6-inch square, I felt as if I was a great explorer heading out to learn all I could about this unknown yarn, this new place of “Garrrrrterrrr stitch” and this objective to end each row with the same number I began it with…which was a monumental task.
In this situation, applying the idea of exploration was to see the work I was doing, and evaluate what I was creating. Knitting was new, and so my response to it was to gather all the insight possible, to learn, and improve, all the while striving to become a “Capital K” Knitter.
Once the second skein of Red Heart acrylic yarn in sky blue had been exhausted, my adventuresome heart would have surely digested all the ways to explore the knit stitch. Not the case at all. As I had somehow invented dropped stitches, random holes, and interesting edges (which appeared when I forgot to knit the first stitch, and simply slid it from one needle to the next). My inventions, as they were to me, for I hadn’t figured out I was messing up, rather I thought I had been imbued with creative prowess and was really inventing new things…these inventions gave me permission to explore a ton of “what ifs” and “if this then that..”
It was a glorious time to be a knitter.
I was 7 years old again and waking to T-ball practice alone. It was empowerment. (I remember that day, walking to T-ball practice, even more vividly than I remember walking across the stage to receive my diploma. It remains one of my memories of pride and being trusted. It is a magical memory moment. Do you have one?)
When I apply the idea to explore in my knitting today it takes the shape of yarn substitution. And by “substitution” I mean off the map, off the paved road, dig out your mosquito repellent and machete because I am headed into the thick overgrown spaces I haven’t yet romped around. My explore can look like the lovely sweater in worsted weight merino wool being replaced with a fingering weight linen. What incredible possibilities will I find in this?
It can also look like knitting the same sweater with the prettiest colorwork yoke that I just finished AGAIN but this time substituting a series of seed stitches, or some other texture, rather than another color. It can be the craziest mess you have ever seen, but what if it goes terribly RIGHT?
My explore can also be grabbing a massive pile of scrap yarns of various colors, fibers, and lengths, and combining them into a “single ply” creating a mega ball, to knit the easiest garter stitch triangle. I can explore how the colors work together politely, or scream at each other in confusion, and in the end, they come together and get the project done, teaching me all their secrets along the way.
The joy I find in exploration is allowing an idea to have a moment in my hands, and with my needles and yarn. I try to give it space to do its thing, even if that means a sweater with the most ridiculous gauge created from needles so big, and yarn so small. It is thrilling to give myself, and my knitting permission, to make a mess, a crazy, unwearable, even unrecognizable, beautiful mess. Within that permitted space of exploration, I find excitement and freshness. I discover successes tucked within failures. I find my knitting inspires me to knit. It teaches me a new way to get it wrong and to get it right. It makes me 7 years old again walking 4 blocks in the city, feeling like I am the first human on the surface of the moon.
Exploration is empowerment, and my friend, it feeds the soul.
“Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes..”
If you want to really dig into EXPLORATION in knitting, be sure you are on my email list. Email subscribers are the first knitters invited to creative activities I host. There are some good ones on the calendar coming your way soon, so click the link below and be included!
