Knitting is magic

In most areas of my life, I like things to make sense. I want to know the reasons behind things, I'm happier that way. At work, I can be a cog, I can do my little bit, but I like to know the big picture, I like to understand how what I do is part of what everyone else does, how it fits together, how it all works. I'm like the little kid* who won't stop asking why; I don't always ask it, but when I learn a 'why', there's that 'ahhh' moment of great satisfaction.

*That's not the only way I'm like a kid: for some reason, seeing a train go by makes me smile, and often even say "choo-choo train", and if that's not baring my soul to the web-world I don't know what is. I don't know what it is about trains...

Only in knitting is this different. In knitting, I don't seem to need to understand how something works. It's okay. The answer can be 'magic' and I'm perfectly fine with that. I don't know why that is: the meditative quality of the needles moving together? Something about it removes my 'why' gene, and I watch what happens and think 'how neat' instead of 'how is that working?'

At Represent, Melissa (sadly blogless) showed me how to knit a tube on two straight needles. The idea is that it could be the toe of a sock, knit toe-up of course, though I don't know (yet) what to do next, for the heel and so on. I'm still too entranced to care. Looky!

It looks much like plain, flat knitting:


But if you pull it off the needles and look closer:


It's got an inside! Two-sided! Is that the coolest thing ever? For some reason it's making me think of a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, where Calvin is showing Hobbes the toaster: you put bread inside, wait a minute, and look what comes out: toast! "Where does the bread go?" asks Hobbes. "Beats me. Isn't that weird?" says Calvin.

It's really simple, and I'm sure it's nothing earth-shattering; there's nothing new in knitting, it's just new to me. You knit one, then slip one as if to purl, all the way across, every row (you have to cast on in multiples of two, so that on the second row, you're knitting the slipped stitches from the previous row). That's it. I haven't the slightest idea how it works. It seems like you're using less yarn, because you're slipping half the stitches, not knitting them. But what you end up with should have used twice as much yarn, because it has two pieces. Totally illogical. It's like when I picked up a stitch on my first sock, and it left a hole. It would make more sense to me if a hole was where you dropped a stitch, not picked one up. Magic. Gnomes!

The only trouble I had was slipping as if to purl, but not purling. I did in fact purl two stitches, which is why the photo doesn't show the tube open all the way across: I messed it up a little. But that's okay, I was only trying it out. I'm not surprised, given how often I stopped myself from purling, that I did in fact purl a couple. I'm kind of surprised I only purled two out of all of them. In any case, this whatever-you-call-it is certainly something to add to the repertoire. Fun!

I finished the Ruffles scarf for the auction at work, if by finished you mean knit until the deadline and declared it to be done. It's a respectable length, anyway, and they were happy to have it, so all's well, etc.


The auction starts next week; I'll let you know how it goes with my contributions (I'm sure you're going to be on tenterhooks).

Now I can move on to other things. Still socking along:

The second, heel photo is much better for showing the true color of the yarn, as well as how cute the heel is. The first photo shows the whole sock and also demonstrates how little I understand and control my camera!

And I have some of the soy yarn left from Represent, I'm wondering if there's enough for a baby hat? Maybe if I try one from the top down, this time, so I don't run out before the top... It's what I used to make the tube, above, though of course I'll frog that. It is a little splitty to work with, though it's so soft I'm apt to be forgiving. I wasn't so happy to find a knot: that's where it went from the pink to brown a little abruptly. Still, more positive than negative.

In conclusion, some gratuitous photos. My cousins' cat, showing amazing feline powers of balance:


And a nice landscape shot this morning:


The day cleared and became beautiful ("perfick wevver"), but it was misty this morning.