…one purl one plain at a time.


There’s a new knitting book out for the Xmas season titiled “Conscious knitting” or something equally Zen-invoking.

It made me wonder, was this knitting as therapy, meditation, an organic free-range hobby (y’know, with natural and naturally-dyed yarn and chill sheep on whole food, GM-free diets)? Or perhaps a wild, avant garde collection of patterns guaranteed to keep the most jaded, Nordic-cum-cable knitting god/dess awake and on their toes — that would be the type of person who can most likely knit, drive and speak on the cellphone simultaneously.

Of course, it turns out it’s just another beautifully photographed book of a mere ten patterns. The zen-like quality lies in the perfectly styled balles of wool, artfully arranged needles and blood pressure reducing backgrounds of field of lavender, Provence-like rustic villas and rolling antipodean hillsides with happy frolicking sheep.

A pop psychologist might quip that the modern knitter is grasping at, well, yarn, in an attempt to bring some order and control into their personal universe. Is this hobby for the obsessive compulsive? For control freaks?

Of course I’d beg to differ. I can attest to the relaxing benefits of the exercise, plus I can attest to the fact that order is not always the end product! Like all creative ventures, the outcome may not always fir the expectations!

But one thing that is shared among my friends who are also fellow knitters, is that it is an artform that rewards patience, and that, to me in today’s instant gratification world, is a worthwhile experience.

Every knitter has their projects, at various states of progress. They may take hours, weeks or years. (The winner here is my mom, who, some six or so years later, is still knitting a sweater for my brother. The last time she embarked on a sweater for him when he was a student, he had outgrown it by the time it was done!)

So where am I on my erratic knitting hobby?
Completed: one capelet (happily worn frequently these recent weeks)
65%: one baby sweater, a Christmas gift for a soon-to-be-born babe
1%: one kid’s sweater
I’ve discovered something marvellous about knitting for small people — the progress part happens faster!

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