Knitting in the Real World: PART TWO.

Continued from the post-before-last. In case you missed it, I’m aiming – in my amateurish way – to plug the gaps left by the knitting books.

So, we’ve covered knitting whilst being climbed by toddlers, knitting whilst drunk, and the serious perils of knitting whilst emotionally overwrought. What’s left? Oh yes:-

3. How to knit lying down

Isn’t it ludicrous that knitting books don’t address this important skill? Or am I the only person who postpones turning the light off for “just one more row”, then finally goes to sleep about three hours later?

Really? It’s just me? Oh well.

Trust me, it is entirely possible to knit whilst lying on your back, holding your knitting above your chest, but reading the instructions in this position is damned difficult. So if you’re doing something easy and mindless, you’ll be fine, but otherwise I recommend the thickest, stodgiest pillow you can find to prop you up a bit. I have knitted for hours like this. And hours. And hours. And sincerely regretted it the next day. You have been warned.

4. How to create something useable out of that weird skein of fluffy sparkly clown barf.

Really, what were you thinking when you bought that stuff?

Your options are fairly limited, I’m afraid. Unless there’s someone whose life you’d like to blight with a scarf knitted in this monstrosity (in which case, don’t you think that you and they should sit down and resolve your issues, rather than inflicting passive-aggressive presents on one another?) I can only recommend one course of action: knit something to use in the dark. Bed socks, maybe. Oh, and don’t buy any more clown barf.

5. How to maintain a decent knit-life balance

Um, I’m probably not the best person to advise on this. In fact, I’m open to ideas if anyone’s got any?

Around the time I started knitting, I read that it’s as addictive as crack cocaine. Nah, don’t be silly, I thought. Crack is a hideously addictive narcotic that drives users to unspeakably awful acts of crime, self-sabotage, and violence in its pursuit. Knitting is just sticks ‘n’ string.

How wrong can a girl be? Very wrong, it would appear.

OK so I’ve not yet sunk to violence and crime, but knitting regularly comes before eating, sleeping, and other trivia in my life.

Do you think I should be worried about this?

6. How to evade the knitting police 

You know they’ll be after you if you Do It Wrong, don’t you? If  you drop the yarn you’re not using in fairisle, or if you tie a knot anywhere in your work, or if you hold your crochet hook incorrectly? They’ll know. You can run, but you can’t hide a twisted stitch.

I’ve been on the run from them for months, for crimes against yarn that I daren’t even confess here. I live day-by-day, waiting for that knock on the door, that accusation that I’m a Bad Knitter. If you’re similarly guilty, I can only recommend that you lie low. Change your name. Change your country. Maybe even change your gender.

OR… Keep doing what you’re doing. Then stand three feet away and ask yourself whether it looks how it’s supposed to look. (Someone once recommended five feet, not three, but you don’t want to have to hang out only with myopic knitters, do you?) If it looks right, then hell, maybe it IS right.