Knitting Can Only Get Better

For several years, at least since 2019, I’ve had ‘get better at knitting’ on my goals list for the year.

So far I have not got better at knitting. Because ‘get better at knitting’ is too big, too unspecific. So I never even got started on getting better. I was just doing the occasional stockinette stitch project with no real purpose. My knitting is so basic, and in the past I have done it so infrequently, that I even have to look up how to cast off whenever I do finish a knitted project. Imagine me rolling my eyes. :-D

There is room for improvement!

For the past couple of months I have been planning for the week between Christmas and New Year to be devoted to learning some more knitting techniques. I hilariously thought that I’d be able to master both cables AND colour work but that obviously didn’t happen, that’s too much.

So I just focused on cables and it is going pretty well! I think I have nailed the cables themselves, now I need to work on travelling stitches.

Learning something new is both fun and interesting but also somewhat infuriating. Because there are stumbling blocks! Things I don’t understand! I’m trying to approach it with an open mind, expecting to stumble and not understand things and having to unravel things. Sometimes I almost have a physical reaction of resistance because I don’t want to do this thing that I don’t quite get. But of course this is a good place, this is where I know that I am learning something. Even if I get frustrated.

So far I have made a couple of cable swatches, which I will keep along with other swatches, to track my progress. And as actual physical manifestations of what I am learning. Because I suspect I will be doing a fair bit of unravelling through the coming year. And that is okay! But I’ll make swatches and maybe put them together in a textile book or something as a reminder.

I haven’t quite decided which techniques I want to learn, although cables and colour work are top of the list. I’m probably going to dedicate each month to one technique at a time. And some of the time will definitely be spent getting better at basic techniques. Like casting off, or what the heck you do if you drop a stitch and things like that.

Hopefully, in a year’s time I will be able to share at least a couple of projects I have knitted. My pie in the sky project is a cardigan but we’ll see…