#heavyknitter speaks

[heavyknitter]

2 - Do you even knit bro

So here I am, with my little test piece and wool my aunt brought me from the store and new knitting needles and a bunch of wool I acquired myself on day 3 of my knitting journey.

So.. we hit September 29th - the day I just went for it.

I figured I had done plenty of practice for just doing something as basic as a scarf, I mean, basically I already made a little animal sized scarf already right so how hard can it be to do this on a larger scale?

Well. Lets start with the fact that while I knew the basic movement of knitting I had not yet learned how to cast on wool to start something new. Because remember, my aunt did that with the test piece and did the first two rows - so over to the auntie we go and we run back into the same issue as before - she can't explain and I can't follow. Hand manipulation became funky business because neither of us realized that when I tried to copy I held the threads wrong and tried to cast on loops with the thread connected to the wool not the other one. It was a bit of a funny back and forth because she looked over my hand movements, saw me pick up the thread and of course it did not work as intended and neither of us cottoned in on what was going wrong here. It might seem silly, but I was very pleased with myself once she retried on her own hand to figure out what I am doing wrong (remember we are both kinaesthetic creatures, she needed to replicate my movements to find out what is wrong but as opposed to me she held the threads - both of them - correctly for this step so she did not realize what went wrong on my end) that it dawned on me that I had thrice looped the threads wrong around my fingers and of course it could not work that way. So I took the thing back from her, wound the threads around my hand again and this time it worked. My first correctly cast on loop. Fuck yeah. The upside of fucking around so much on this basic step and then realizing what went wrong would ensure that this is now second nature ain't no way I am doing this wrong again ever. Good thing too because my aunt was starting to get mildly frustrated because this is easy basic stuff but somehow it is complicated and I get why it frustrated her a bit how clumsy my humble beginnings are but I reminded her gently, that she did this for years, she does not have to think or plan anything for her it is all muscle memory, just like riding a bike. But I have not learned how to ride this particular bike - would she expect me to know how to hold my balance without having it ever done before? Of course not. And any new task that involves your body and movement needs to be hardwired in your brain to make you perform it with the same ease she does it. The older we get, the more we forget how tricky it can be to pick up something new you have never done before and many people get frustrated and stop learning something because they wrongly assume being an adult means you should learn shit in a snap. Nah. Everything we learn kickstarts new neural pathways in our brain, those want to be engaged and nurtured by repetition you can't just go into something new and come out a pro in the same day. 's not how it works. But my aunt is in her late 50s so it's been a while since she got into any new craft. But she understood when I explained and reminded.

So here I am, happily casting on loop after loop and I have no concept on how much to get a good broad scarf so my aunt estimated for me to make like 40 (I am working on another scarf right now and she was absolutely right - 40 is the perfect amount for this particular bulky wool) and I said "I want it huge, really really big you feel me? So she said "make it 45 then". By the time I started counting how many I already had on there I was at 55 but instead of stopping there I figured, ehh extra bulky - and made it 70.

And let me tell you, with absolute no shadow of a doubt, this was both a mistake and overshooting the goal widely and also the best thing ever.

It is soft, it is bulky, it is wide enough that if I get it to the length I wish to achieve I could very likely roll myself up in it. And I mean completely. Like.. drape and wrap it nicely, use some safety pins and bäm. Could make it some sort of eccentric statement piece in the next ballroom. So yeah, Friday the 29th was go-time and I was knitting until like.. what.. 2am happy as a clam. Next morning, Saturday I woke up, grabbed the thing to knit a bit before getting up, count the loops and.. I lost one. No idea were it went, no idea when it went and no idea how to spot were it is. The good thing for me was, that on this very Saturday my mother would drop in to help me with something and if my auntie is an expert in knitting, then my Mother is the master. There was so much crafted stuff in my childhood home and my fondest memories of my mother are her crocheting, knitting, or crafting something. Mostly fancy Easter eggs with fabrics pearls and feathers and stuff. Really fancy shizzle. So of course when she dropped in I was like "Mama! I started to knit! Also I lost a loop and I do not know where it is or how to spot it in this bulky thing help meeeee!" And she gave me a look. You know the one. The one only an exasperated Mom can give you. But eh, she found it. Six or Seven rows below and so she unraveled all those rows, threw everything back on the needle, counted, and then redid the rows with speed I could not comprehend. She also muttered something about this wool being bad, it's too dark too bulky can't see shit with that why would you use that as starting project yadda yadda yadda. (I think she was pleased tho, she tried back then to get both of her children into crafting but my brother was more for gaming and bionicles and I was more art, writing and gaming the spark was not quite there yet)

She gave me a second look when I showed her the wool I had acquired already for future projects because she lowkey thinks I might not stick with it - well, let it be known I am in deep. I might eventually balance it out again with all my other hobbies but for now I just wanna progress and create stuff and I like to have a lil stash on hand. She promised me to show me how to knit with 5 needles to make some legwarmers I am very exited and down the line of talking she told me not to try a blanket because she wanted to do that and was discouraged because its expensive and takes too long. But she also told me that the bulky wool I have going for the scarf she would do away with in 1 hour so I'm like... damn woman if you're so fast and money is no longer an issue you could probably pull this off in record time.

It also gave me a lil kick because this bulky thing? 1 hour??

Now that it a goal to work up to >d

This is the state of the scarf currently by the way, pulled over both of the knitting needles so I can show you just how broad this thing is. The lighter is a normal sized lighter that fits in the palm of your hand. Like I said, 70 loops was both the worst and best decision I made with this. I already had to start a second roll of wool for this. It will take a bit to finish. In fact I already finished something else in the meantime while working on this because just one WIP is not a thing I can do (I have now 5 things I work on truth be told)

But yeahhhh it huge I love this thing I can wear this as fullbody piece eventually I am very pleased. And it is soft. It is so soft. I love it so much.

[heavyknitter]

3 - the 14/10 interlude

Today my body is a lil traitor and I am also kinda going through the motions of emotional processing some stuff so the general mood of the day is aches and anger. My favourite state of being, clearly. So what is a short king to do who's feet do not play along and ache every step because the nerves might lowkey be inflamed again? Fucking knit through it because fuck all that noise if I have to spend most of the time in bed I might as well do myself a triangle shawl yannow? As one does.

This thin yarn is actually meant to be used for socks according to the label. This is one of the yarns I picked up on my first trip to get more hands on material two weeks or so ago and mind, I have no concept on what materials are good for what or what is quality or anything I am new to this after all (I can tell you more accurately which inks are good for drawing and what the difference might be between using drawing inks vs. writing inks and how each behave when you try to use common effect techniques used with watercolours like alcohol, salts or rice and so on but when it comes to yarn I am baby.) and my M.O. currently is "can I touch it, can I stand the feel of it on my skin?" and that is all I am going off. So yah this seems to be intended for a pair of socks and be enough to make said pair of socks so I will figure out soon enough if I can finish the shawl on the one yarn ball I have acquired or if I need to snatch up another and hope it is colour-wise not too different from what I have currently going here.

Here is the shawl right side up. I saw a yt video were a nice old lady showed the two steps you need to make this diagonal shawl work and I figured hey yes 's doable I have some lovely rainbow yarn that will look nice. It is also soothing making this pastel rainbow thing like I am still a bit pissed off and all that jazz because it just is one of those days and tomorrow will be a better one for sure. Also the yarn is very soft and lovely to handle so that does wonders for any frayed nerves today <3

(technically I have a couple more knitting journal entries meant to go out before I am caught up to current events and just liveblog whatever but I wanted to holler my frustrations out to the void so here we are)

[heavyknitter]

1 - How it started.

Two weeks ago I walked up 'n over to my aunt, who lives next door to me and asked her if she had some knitting needles and wool to show me how to do it. When I get the urge to do something, I need to do it right now, it can't wait, I need to ride this wave - thankfully my aunt is very much the same so she took one look at me, got up from her seat and started rifling through her stuff to find what I asked for. She used to be an expert knitter, but her eyesight is poor these days so she doesn't bother with that anymore - she is also, as I figured out quickly, not all that good at explaining shit. But eh, we made it work. We are both very kinaesthetic oriented learners and for her this is easy-peasy muscle memory and I had to remind her I have no context no idea how to loop what and where and more importantly, my hands may have a lot of muscle memory on various tasks but not this, none of that. So she manipulated my hand a bit until I got the idea of how and bäm. Suddenly I was knitting.

Well. I tried my best. It was a learning curve, thankfully a steep one. See, she cast on ten loops for me and did the first two rows to get me started and I jumped in and somehow made that 13 loops. That was fun because she of course asked me how the hell and I had no answer because we were at the bare bones, how to increase was not even a topic yet so idk what I did there.

Next issue, which I was not really surprised by if I am honest, was the fact that I was knitting too tightly. See, as artist I have the issue of gripping my pens too tight, so tight in fact that I sometimes cut off the blood circulation in my fingers while I draw detailed linework. I have compression opera gloves to mitigate that issue a bit and keep my hands and arms protected while I try to unlearn this. I also started embroidery in autumn of 2022 and there I like to pull the thread tight to make the embroidery neat and even, so.. both of these things worked against me a wee bit. But I worked on this little test piece for like three days straight to get the movement into my system. To get my grip under control. To get a rhythm going. (To make sure I will not add any more loops to a row than those 13 because seriously where the fuck did they come from.)

I mostly tried to get even rows but in the beginning I made some waves between tight loops and trying to loosen them again but eventually it clicked with my hands what I wanted them to do in terms of pressure and pull. My aunt is a darling you know? She said, those knitting needles are shit for the wool she had at hand but it will do for now, good enough to learn at least. And then she ran an errand the very next day and gave me some bulky as hell soft wool that has like.. the same feels as those soft synthetic cuddly blankets you can buy almost everywhere, so, perfect for me. And my first own knitting needles to go with that. And I showed her my test piece and how I slowly get a hang of it and she nodded in approval and praised how even my rows are getting and that made my brain go brr.

And one day after I did go into the city and hit up the store next to the train station and went a bit wild on buying wool - which is a theme for the next couple of days to be honest. I bought a lot of wool because I really wanted to have everything in house when I go wild. And thus I started on my first real project. A scarf that is more like a shawl because I really really misjudged how broad the bulky soft wool makes the thing. But more on that later I guess <3

[heavyknitter]

3 - addendum

Still a bit under the weather but I am almost through the yarn and the thing grows nicely.

Idk somehow I am again on yellow for this wip. Manifesting the sunlight in the rainbow flag meanings I guess.

[heavyknitter]

4 - the 25/10 interlude

They live! But they are also still dealing with some health shenanigans so I am too tired to write up the next longer entries. I got it handled and have plenty of WIPs to entertain myself with in the meanwhile. Five.. I think. Maybe. Or was it six? It might become one more either way because it occurred to me it is ace awareness week soooo got the colours lying around because I make some enby scarfs for my friends. So a smoll ace scarf should be no problem >d This is also a pride scarf. Agender flag colours <3 Not as bulky as the huge petrol coloured shawl I work on as well but still very bulky, very soft. Huge. Love it.

[heavyknitter]

Hello new hyperfixation~

The Knitting Journal

Or something along these lines.

Then again I named a whole blog after this new obsession of mine even if I will probably throw anything and everything else I will play around with on here in the future.

But lets start with the knitting.

Here is what you need to know:

Knitting used to be taught in our schools, used to. They did not do that when I rolled up. Oh well.

All the women in my family know how to knit and crochet and boy howdy did I grow up with a lot of that stuff all over their houses

That somehow did not entice me to learn it in my youth. I was too deep into my journey as artist to focus on any other hobby.

I have some sensory issues about fabrics.

You go through a rough time, hit your thirties while in said rough time and one day get the following urge: Mhh I want legwarmers and a huge ass shawl. Time to learn how to make that I guess.

And here we are. I had something in mind that I wanted but did not want to go out on a shopping trip to find it. See, I moved out of the city, I live rural now in a lil village so going shopping involves trains and shit. Too much effort . But when it comes to clothes and apparel on certain things I got to touch to know if I would even use it or if I cannot stand the texture, the material, sometimes weight too (which makes ordering online a gamble) But even this lil village has some sort of mixed shop that offers all sorts of stuff, also crafty stuff, and more importantly, wool. And that's an idea ain't it?

Entries 1 - How it started. 2 - Do you even knit bro. 3 - 14/10 interlude. (and addendum) 4- 25/10 interlude.

[heavyknitter]

Hey there :)

This is my sideblog for all those crafting related stuff that got me in a chokehold because what you need to know about me first is that I am actually an artist and writer and second that just painting and writing is not enough.

Nothing is enough for me. I want everything. So I started to get into embroidery last year somewhen around winter times, can't remember the exact date and it made my jittery brain calm and fulfilled especially in times where I did not have the energy to sit down to paint because embroidery I can do lying down. Mainly I got into more thread related crafts due to a long time of hardship and stress and I am just coming out the other side of 4 years of what the hell. 2023 has been rife with change and me finding back to both the person I used to be and the new person I have become in the aftermath. And apparently that comes with an explosion of exploration. When I say I want everything I am talking embroidery, knitting, crochet, weaving (if I can get my hands on a nice loom), woodburning, maybe crafting, sculpting, making plushies, maybe fuck around with glass because I have been to Murano this year and it sure left an impact. And making teas and raising a nice herb-, fruit-, vegetable garden. Fuck. Maybe beekeeping. Definitely aquascaping. So many things I wish to learn and explore and try and fuck around with. And currently I got into knitting. Hence the sideblog. I was wondering if this punny blogname was still available and lo and behold: Weclome to my blog. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can call me Midas. Knitting Journey Journal (tag: #knitting journal)