I recently posted to my personal blog Owlknits about the projects I am actually working on now.  When I stood back and looked at what I had posted, it occurred to me that what I was working on was very much related to my on-going desire for a learning curve.  Knitting, for me, is not about static repetition of the same pattern, it is about the joy and excitement of trying something new.

Whenever I start a new project or try something new, I have the automatic expectation that I will restart whatever it is at least three times, if I’m lucky.  Sandi Wiseman of Knitting Daily recently wrote about fearless knitting, and in “Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot’s Bag of Knitting Tricks, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee also ends with the comforting thought that making a mistake in your knitting never killed or injured anyone.

An important step for me was learning to look at my knitting: learning to recognize where the stitches went and what they should look like.  This was incredibly important when I started to knit lace last year as a ‘Slow Bee’ in the Mystery Shawl 3 (now Swan Lake Shawl) Knit-along.  Because now I am knitting a lot of lace: Ice Queen from Knitty; the Melon Shawl from Victorian Lace Today” for display at Fabric Place in Woburn, MA; Long Rectangular Shawl, also from VLT, for me; and Lucy Neatby’s Faroese Shawl for a friend, which was supposed to be a Christmas present but is still OTN.

Knitting lace requires undivided attention and concentration, which may be why some knitters have problems with lace – there are too many distractions in our lives. 

Then there is the Aran sweater, which I designed and which has gone through several design adjustments.  I’ve finished the back and half of both front panels.  The first sweater that I remember finishing was a fisherman’s sweater for my brother.  I still remember the sense of satisfaction that I got when I finally worked out how to handle the different stitch patterns involved.

Years later, I still find the flow and challenge of cables very satisfying.

I am definitely a process knitter, I enjoy knitting.  It doesn’t matter what I’m knitting, I like doing it.

Most projects are not finished as soon as you’d like them to be.  I have come to realize that most knitting projects take time, usually more time than I think they are going to take.  This, I believe, is related to the inherent optimism that allows us to be knitters.  If we didn’t think we could finish something, why would we start it?  This optimism does become a problem around the holidays, when our gift list of knitted objects exceeds the time available to complete them all. 

I also love the finished object.  I feel an immense sense of pride and accomplishment when I have beaten the odds and complete something, especially since I have more unfinished objects than I care to admit (on Ravelry, check out the True Confessions Group).

I do need an occasional quick fix of “completion satisfaction,” which is one reason why I really like knitting dishcloths.  They are quick.  They are nice to use, and make good gifts, especially if paired with a nice bar or two of handmade soap.

So, care to share about your feelings about how or what you knit?

So remember, “There’s more to knitting then what’s on the needles.”