My Life In Stitches: Scared-y Cat Knitter, pt 1

Last week, I had an interesting conversation with my eleven-year-old son. He was told how one night he was so tired that he went to bed without finishing his prayers. I asked him what normally prayed about, and to my surprise, I found out that he has an extensive prayer list. His list is so long because he’s scared of a lot of things and his overactive imagination doesn’t help. I talked him through some of his fears (“Baby, there are no cobras in Maryland so I don’t think one is going to come out of the toilet.”) and we were able to remove some of those things from his prayer list.

As I thought about our talk, I thought it might be good to do a little confessing myself. I had ridiculous fears of certain knitting techniques. I used to be a scardy-cat knitter. And sadly, the more I knit, the more I realize how ridiculous those fears are. Here are the first three things on my list of things I used to be scared of:

Take It Or Leaf It Cowl

Lace. I love lace knitting now, but at first, I was terrified to try it. I kept putting lace patterns in my favorites on Ravelry, but I never believed that I could do it. Lace seemed to complicated, mainly because I didn’t understand it. Once I tried it, I was hooked. I think I like knitting lace the best. Project(s) that broke my fears: Take It or Leaf It Cowl by Marilyn Porter and Lace Leaf Hat by Laura Todd.

Lace Leaf Hat

Anything other than shawls. My husband, who knits also, had made two sweaters before I attempted my first. When I read sweater patterns, they seemed so complicated. I decided to try a sweater KAL with my knitting group, Bridget by Courtney Kelley, and quickly bailed. I ended up trying the Shalom sweater and found it wasn’t as complicated as I thought. Project that broke my fears: Shalom Sweater by Meghan McFarlane.

Knitting in the round. Two things scared me about knitting in the round: not being about to count the rounds and twisting the cast on as I joined the round. The latter turned out to be my real problem, which is easily solved by laying the cast on flat and joining. Once I faced my fears, it didn’t take me long to master and fall in love with knitting in the round. Project that broke my fears: Infinitude Scarf by Jeni Chase.

I have more scared-y cat knitting to share next post and a few things I'm still scared of. What knitting techniques are you afraid of? Come, confess. It's good for the soul.