Surprise Recruitment

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Yesterday a business associate (and previous co-worker and office mate) and I were talking regarding a new client and as we finished up the "work" stuff she exclaimed, "Hey, you knit!" and proceeded to ask if I could help her with her first project. Could I?? Whoa, how fun! So she brought her knitting over last night. Her mother-in-law is actually teaching her to knit and had given her homework: she was to finish 8 more rows on a baby blanket she's making for her up and coming babe. The problem: a hole. It was an easy fix, a dropped stitch which she had carefully marked with a paper clip, and once fixed we settled on the couch to knit and talk.

We talked and caught up and laughed and had fun. I realized she had learned to increase unintentionally which was causing some wacked out stitches to show up (knitting an M1 in the front of the stitch instead of the back). It seems whenever she couldn't decide whether a stitch had been dropped or not she would just pick up and knit whatever was hanging there.* I was just cracking up! And she wondered why she kept having extra stitches at the end of a row! Too funny. So I taught her to decrease and tried to help the best I could. New knitters confuse me because I second guess the advice I'm giving. She kept saying what a pro I was and an expert and just giving me a lot of guff - this in between her cursing at her knitting, calling it a wanker and exclaiming "pisser!" when she messed something up. I've missed that (she left our office about a year and a half ago for a new job but we still work together for one project.)

Anyway, expert schmexpert. We fixed all of her mistakes but I realized belatedly that I had really screwed up my own knitting! I forgot to start the cables on the back of the sock after the heel so I tried picking up that row but got frustrated so I pulled my needles out. Yes, I pulled my needles out, thinking if I had them out of the way it would be easier to pick up the row. Uh-huh. But I was still frustrated so I frogged back. *groans* Frogged back to the row, on Size 0 needles, thinking I could pick them back up without dropping stitches 1 or 2 or 3 rows lower. Fuck, I am an idiot. The sock declined to be photographed in it's current mangled state.

Expert. Pshaw.

*It does not help that she's using some sort of soft, fluffy, boucle-type yarn for the blanket. Her first project, did I mention that? *I* can't even tell which are knits and purls!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, spreading the knitterly love. I have yet to teach anyone how to knit, but that's probably for the best...I'm not sure I'd be a very good teacher.

I'm sure your mangled sock will recover. Remember - it's not the knitting that makes us experts, it's recovering from boo-boos. :) Or, at least, I like to think so. I never felt like much of a "real" knitter until I figured out how to fix things without starting over.

Anonymous said...

I have a new knitter friend and her first project is the SnB Big Bad Baby Blanket in koigu. Way to dive right in, no?

Thanks for your tip on the sock - I wish I'd read it before I frogged!!

 
TNB