Knitting, Sighing, and Moving On

I’ve always envied people with busy hands who look calm and own cool scarves, but it wasn’t until my friend Sue suggested we take a class this fall at a local shop that I took up knitting. It’s slow, like my writing, but there is that thing you can see on a lap and possibly drape around your neck. My daughter asked for a Harry Potter scarf, so I sought out Gryffindor colors and got to work. Things seemed pretty good except for the way the scarf curled in, but I didn’t worry much because my teacher said this was normal, and told us ways to block knitting to make the work lay flat when done.

Maybe two months later – ta da! A curly scarf, which I pinned down and sprayed to block as instructed. Twice. It still curled in. It looks normal enough on the table, but not when draped.

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I brought it to the yarn shop, where a lady at the counter took one look and said, “Oh yeah, that happens to everyone. But your stitches look good.”

“I can’t do anything to make it lie flat?”

“No,” came a chorus from the cash register, where a few others had gathered. “But this happens to everyone.”

I stuck the scarf back in my bag. I could see they had yarn to shelve, knitting needles to sort, and, okay, Ron’s mum had her magic, but maybe it even happened to her.

So what’s the moral here? There are some things nobody’s going to tell you until you’re done. You make something, doing the best you can at the time. You let it go. And be grateful for a lovely model.

Happy birthday, Emily!

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