Knitting
Every time I learn a new skill, I get chapped lips. I tend to stick my tongue out when I'm concentrating really hard. I only just realized that today because Lauren taught me how to knit!
I came to knitting in a backwards fashion. First I crocheted and then I learned to LOVE spinning. Now I finally know how to knit which seems to be what usually leads people to spinning.
I really, really love it, which is no surprise. What is a little surprising is just how utterly cool I feel when I'm doing it. It is very much like the feeling I get when I'm driving stick. Even now, a manual car is just a little more fun to drive. (Though I really wouldn't mind cruise control!)
I can practically feel the neurons in my brain firing when I'm knitting...I have to think pretty hard because visual/spacial things have always been REALLY difficult for me. At first, it felt a little like one of those timed math tests or the questions on an IQ test where they show you a picture and then ask you what it would look like turned inside out. Questions like that always made me panic, partly because I was very very concerned with doing well on tests like those when I was a kid. Apparently multiplying two integers in .3 seconds or turning three-dimensional shapes inside out in your head are very important indicators of how intelligent you are and how successful you'll be.
Anyway, I'm really glad to have learned and I'm practicing like mad. The thing that finally got me to do it was that I'd like to (someday) sell some of my yarns and fibers but I have no idea what to tell people when they want to know "how it knits up".
The best part about the whole thing is that I'm knitting with yarn that I dyed and spun myself. It still smells fleetingly of lime and berry blue explosion.
PS I've been working with raw wool and I'm hoping to make a fiber prep post soon, but I'm so effing sick of html right now, I think I'll hold off a bit.
I came to knitting in a backwards fashion. First I crocheted and then I learned to LOVE spinning. Now I finally know how to knit which seems to be what usually leads people to spinning.
I really, really love it, which is no surprise. What is a little surprising is just how utterly cool I feel when I'm doing it. It is very much like the feeling I get when I'm driving stick. Even now, a manual car is just a little more fun to drive. (Though I really wouldn't mind cruise control!)
I can practically feel the neurons in my brain firing when I'm knitting...I have to think pretty hard because visual/spacial things have always been REALLY difficult for me. At first, it felt a little like one of those timed math tests or the questions on an IQ test where they show you a picture and then ask you what it would look like turned inside out. Questions like that always made me panic, partly because I was very very concerned with doing well on tests like those when I was a kid. Apparently multiplying two integers in .3 seconds or turning three-dimensional shapes inside out in your head are very important indicators of how intelligent you are and how successful you'll be.
Anyway, I'm really glad to have learned and I'm practicing like mad. The thing that finally got me to do it was that I'd like to (someday) sell some of my yarns and fibers but I have no idea what to tell people when they want to know "how it knits up".
The best part about the whole thing is that I'm knitting with yarn that I dyed and spun myself. It still smells fleetingly of lime and berry blue explosion.
PS I've been working with raw wool and I'm hoping to make a fiber prep post soon, but I'm so effing sick of html right now, I think I'll hold off a bit.