The Huntington- Galleries (3 of 3)

Learning to Knit  (1 of 4)

When I think of knitting, I think of my grandmother who taught me this skill. It seemed to me that she always had a project going. 

Looking back now, I can see that there was a rhythm in her home. After taking care of the household duties, she would retire to her chair in the sitting room and knit until it was time for the next meal or the next round of chores. She kept her knitting needles and other supplies in the bottom drawer of, what seemed to me at the time, a very large old desk. And when she needed a new set of needles, or a cable hook, or another tool, she would ask me to get it from that big desk. I think we can infer that, if I wasn’t literally right at her knee when I visited, I was definitely always in the vicinity. Perhaps I was nagging her to put her project aside to teach me to knit. Eventually, I got just what I probably really wanted: her attention. And I'm grateful she patiently took the time to share this activity.

I don’t remember what my first project was, but by high school I had graduated to making myself sweaters. It wasn't long before I moved on to cables and more complicated patterns. What I really like about knitting is that there is very little waste of materials. If you wanted to, you could actually pull apart a knitted item and reuse the yarn for a new project. When you find a mistake, the work can be pulled out and the pattern can be picked up again; the only thing lost is your time. The more you go through this process, the easier the pattern becomes and the better you get at troubleshooting when you hit a bump in the road.

Knitting Tip: I like to use the tiny rubber bands from kids' braces to pair up my knitting needles. It saves having to search for matching needles when starting a new project.