Thirtysomething

Knitting

Can you believe that I'm entitling a post "knitting". The next thing you know I'll be joining Stitch n' Bitches, knitting rings and be on a first name basis with the people at specialty yarn stores. No? Okay, maybe not.

But I am knitting. Sort of. My wonderfully fabulous friend Christy is a knitting goddess and is teaching me how to knit. What I really need is for her to sit with me each time I'm knitting to fix my mistakes. She lent me a really good book called "Stitch N' Bitch" and the author is wonderfully funny, which is very helpful, because I can imagine that knitting books could otherwise be quite dull. I taught myself to cast on, which I think I'm doing pretty well, for a beginner. But my Nana taught me to knit as a little girl, and I think my fingers remembered the motion of casting on. Last night I tried to teach myself to purl. I'm not sure that I'm doing it right.

Have I mentioned that I think I'm dyslexic? I think I am. Just a little bit. Is it possible to have just a touch of dyslexia? Anyway, I'm a pretty avid reader, so words aren't a problem. Numbers are. I really, really have to concentrate on numbers for them to make sense. Like if you rattle off a phone number to me to write down, you'd have to repeat it 3 or 4 times for me to get it. I listen to voicemail messages a million times trying to write down people's phone numbers. Adding and subtracting in my head? Can't do it. Even for simple numbers. Like itty, bitty one digit numbers. It's like I can't translate the numbers in my head. I forget what they look like when they're in my head. I need to write them down. I think this explains my notoriously explosive relationship with mathmatics courses in school.

Anyway, I think I'm a little dyslexic when it comes to knitting. First off, I hold the needle in my left hand upside down. You know, so that all the rows I have knit are on top of the row I'm about to knit. I keep correcting myself, but when I'm not thinking about it, I knit upside down. Secondly, (and this is where purling comes in) all the stitches look the same to me. I think I'm purling. I'm definitely doing something different, coming at the stitch a different way. I did three rows of purling (or maybe not) last night. And to me, they don't look any different from the knit stitches. I know they must be different and according to the book some stitches should look like they have nooses and some like they have scarves, but they all look like nooses to me. Even the knitted ones! Oy! Christy, I hope reading this isn't making your head hurt. Next time we get together, we'll have to go over purling.

Because I have knitting dyslexia.

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 8:06 AM