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Saturday, June 12, 2010
What is Difficult and What is Not
One of the main things that has probably saved me when it comes to knitting is not thinking anything is hard. I have tackled many a skill that is considered advanced simply because I wanted to do the technique and didn’t realize it was supposed to be hard. My very first finished project was an all-over cables scarf! This has continued, even after I realized why some of this stuff wasn’t as hard for me as it was for others. I’ve tackled hats, mittens, colorwork… none of it too hard, although the colorwork worried me at first.
There are only a few things that I’ve heard of in knitting, the mere mention of which can bring some knitters to tears. One of them is steeking. This is the act of cutting something open in order to form arm holes (or for other purposes, but most of the time I’ve heard it in regards to armhole shaping). It makes me shiver to think of doing all that work on a sweater, only have to cut into it. I know it works or people wouldn’t continue to do it, but the very idea frightens me. I don’t think that has anything to do with my belief that the skill is difficult – I think it has to do with cutting open a goddamn piece of knitting!
The other skill that I have heard mentioned in fear and awe is kitchener stitch. Kitchener is a way of combining two ends or pieces of knitted items without creating a seam. This is useful for things like the tops of mittens or the toes of socks. And that sounds pretty good to me! I had never really had a reason to pursue learning the stitch, as I have made exactly one half of a sock so far (and I did that one toe-up), and the two pairs of mittens I’ve made have both employed the three-needle bind-off at the top so it didn’t really matter at that point either. However, reading other peoples’ account of what they did differently than the pattern recommends on the mittens I’m making, I saw that a few did kitchener stitch to close up the top. Hmm, no seam at the top? These are close-fitting mittens, so not having a seam at my fingertips might be nice. So decided to try it.
Like I do every time I want to learn a new skill, I looked up tutorials. There were several picture-by-picture tutorials, at least one text-only (not helpful in that this needs more visual instruction, I think), and a youtube tutorial. I read the tutorial for kitchener on Knitty, on another site where the person used enormous needles and contrasting yarn to accomplish her photos (which made me giggle), and the youtube video. After reading both, I was thinking, “I don’t get it, why do people think this is so hard? It looks easy to me!” Then I watched the youtube video, and really got confused about the difficulty level. Seriously, I could not figure out how that was supposed to be hard!
Everything I’ve read about kitchener stitch recommends practicing a few times first with easy-to-use (non-slippery) yarn in good lighting with no distractions. I have to be honest: practicing for me is basically doing. So practicing? Out of the question. Besides, I wanted to finish the top of the mitten! So I dove in while watching the youtube video. Through the front as if to knit, then the next as if to purl. Through the back as if to purl, and the next as if to knit. Repeat. I finished just a few seconds after the youtube video ended, and while I did not achieve the most even kitchener stitch, and it looks a little silly if you examine it too closely (I should have waited a few more minutes and found out how to do it in pattern), it looks very clean when not being closely examined and has no seam from the inside! Win/win!
So… I guess the point here is that I don’t understand what’s so hard about it. I think that would make me a terrible teacher, at least for this skill. All-told, though, the most fear that I had associated with doing kitchener stitch was from word-of-mouth, not because it actually looked hard. If I can do a sewn bind-off, I can do kitchener stitch. It might take a few tries until my tension on it becomes more even, but it is that which practice will improve, not my execution of the stitch.
There are a lot of things in life that become a lot easier if the expectation of difficulty is removed. Math, for me, is one of those. The harder I think it’s supposed to be, the more likely I am to have trouble with it. I don’t know if this goes for other people, but it certainly has been true for me. Knitting is one of those things. I’ve jumped right in to do something because I thought it was pretty, only to later find out that what I was supposed to find it difficult based on my skill level. Ignorance in this case is bliss.
When you get down to brass tacks, though, almost everything can be broken down into smaller pieces. Knitting is just a series of knits and purls done in specific formations, twisted around or crossed over one another to make interesting and different patterns and styles. Math breaks down into the four basic operation: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. If you have your basics down pat, then you should be able to tackle the harder stuff. It just might take a little longer. I realize that it’s a gross oversimplification of math to think of it that way, but mentally reducing it to something that is less difficult usually makes it easier to tackle the more difficult portions, at least for me. (And math has always been difficult for me, so I do everything I can to ease that.)
What is difficult seems to be mostly in the mind. And what is not is there, too. My perceived difficulty of something is likely to affect how difficult it is for me to do, and likewise my ignorance of the difficulty level of something affects my ability to accomplish something that I otherwise might have considered difficult. It’s amazing what tricks our minds can play on us.
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