Fearless Knits

Welcome to my friend and guest blogger Cailin!


Knitting, like any craft, takes hard work and perseverance to truly master. I began my exploration of the knitting world last Thanksgiving when I asked my mother to teach me the basics on a lark. Now a little more than one year later I'm taking on Estonian lace for the first time with gleeful enthusiasm. I completely deny all accusations of witchcraft and/or wizardry in achieving this rather modest development and give all the credit to the philosophy of fearlessness.

When applied to my knitting craft, fearlessness is the act of plunging head first into projects of seemingly daunting complexity and difficulty, with tons of new elements to learn such as seam-sewing, cabling, lace, circular knitting and button holes. Each new project is an adventure with new obstacles to overcome, as opposed to exploring the more comfortable regions of garter and stockinette stitch (not that there's anything wrong with that). In each project, there is something to discover and challenge and in that way I've developed a wide range of skills instead of specializing with only a few. Lace items are particularly good for this as they provide a wide variety of challenges and end results so one is unlikely to get bored with it.

Fearless knitting is not without its price, however. My first lace project was about as pleasant as pulling a mule uphill in the mud. I frogged it no less than 8 times. Hours of work ended in bitter frustration and sailor-like vocabulary. I had picked a particularly difficult 16 row lace pattern with different stitches for each row for both the right and wrong sides. For the first few days, this project was a nightmare of frustration. I learned many things though with this first pattern, specifically how lace is supposed to behave and appear during the knitting process and just what yarn overs are. Oh, and of course I also learned the value of life-lines.

Basically, there is a certain excitement in choosing a project that seems intimidating, even impossible at your skill level. Even more appealing still is the sense of accomplishment and triumph in completing something you would not have imagined you could do, and then counting up all the things you learned over the course of the experience. This, my friends, is the true value of fearless knitting. Well that, and being able to show it off of course. So, next time you're thinking of what to knit, try poking around and find something you've never done before, something that uses a different technique, style, material or pattern than you're used to. Something that you'd love to do "if only you knew how". Then dive in, and recruit your local knitting shop or knitter friends to help you along the way, you'll find they're more than likely to be thrilled to help you in your adventure from "if only I knew" to Fearless Knitter Extraordinaire.

-Disco C (catch my knitting adventures on my Ravelry page!)