A big part of my knitting life is my Wednesday night Stitch and Bitch. At least once a week, we get together and share our knitting. A few weeks back my friend Laura gave Grace, a Sunrise Circle jacket she had made. Grace was thrilled with the gift. Later she told me that receiving the gift had made her realize something about herself. She was a "project" knitter.
Here is my lovely friend grace, modeling her latest project.
I am not sure who coined the two schools of knitters "Project and Process", but in case you have been living under a rock, here is the theory behind both.
A project, sometimes called product knitter, is a person that sees a finished object and knows that they want it. They are goal oriented. They know which colors look good on them. If they learn something while they are knitting a project, that's wonderful but not really important.
"I made this sweater because I knew the style would accentuate my bust line, and detract from my hips."
A process knitter is someone who chooses to knit something based on what they might pick up along the way. They like challenge of learning a new technique. They will pick patterns based on the challenge of the project.
"I made this sweater because I really wanted to try my hand at intarsia."
Project knitters have lots of FO's, process knitters know lots of different types of cast ons. Most of us are a combination of both, myself included. There are some styles of knitting, like intarsia and entralac that I think are really fun to look at but I know I won't wear, so I don't bother learning. Then there are other styles of knitting, that I absolutely I can't help but make like lace shawls, even though they don't really fit into my every day life.
If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you know that my taste in knitting are somewhat "pop culture bubble gum." I have made two clapotis, the February Lady sweater, a flower basket shawl, and the kaylees. My taste in both yarn and patterns is very trendy. I say this unapologetically. Sometimes, I will try a yarn out, like kid silk haze, just because all the other kids are using it, and if 2500 knitters to date have made monkey socks, I will make them just to see what the fuss is.
As for the argument of project versus process, I am somewhere in between, but in a brief moment of clarity last week, I realized that more often than not, what's shapes my knitting the most are my mistakes.
Although, I wear a lot of my handknits, I am not really that attached to them. I tend to be most in love with a project while I am knitting it. Once it's finished, I like Don Juan, I am on to the next conquest. In knitting memory it's not the yarn or the pattern that shapes how I feel about a finished project, it's how I f--ked up, and then how I averted disaster and saved said project.
When I made my second clapotis, I kept knitting and knitting at it got wider and wider. I ended up having to rip back an entire skein. That was not the amazing part, the amazing part was I had unraveled the dropped stitches to see how wide the clapotis was (it was about 2 feet wide), so in addition to having to rip back, I ended up picking up 10 dropped stitches from 50 rows back. A lot of other knitters in this position, would of frogged the whole thing and started over. Not me, refused to let the Clapotis get the best of me. It can be done!
When I made the kaylees, I was knitting on two circulars. I was at the doctor's office, and one of the needles broke. With only one needle to work with, I immediately learned magic loop. Now, I magic loop everything.
With the secret of the stole, I used crochet thread for life lines. Here is the kicker, the crochet thread was thicker than the laceweight yarn I was using so it created a run in the fabric. It blocked out, but since that time I have had a dire fear of lifelines.
With almost every project I have loved, there is a story involved. Sure there are a couple of F.O.'s in my closet where they got knitted up without a glitch, but I don't recall much about the process of knitting them. They are nameless one night stands.
My latest conquest are the lacy socks. Several weeks back I posted a lovely picture of one of the completed socks. As I said, after the kaylee fiasco, I tend to be a magic loop kind of girl, but for the most part I am still not quite coordinated enough to knit two socks on one needle. The yarn gets tangled up, I pick up from the other ball and knit the socks together, I forget where I am in the pattern, uggh.
To compensate for this lack of skill, I usually magic loop one sock on one needle and magic loop another sock on another needle. I will trade off from time to time, so they get finished within hours of each other. For the last few years, I have been knitting toe up. When I made the lacy sock, I broke with all these rules.
Many knitters that I know and love, knit top down, on DP's and one sock at a time. About three hours into knitting my first sock, I traded in my dp's for a circular but I stayed with the one sock rule. I finished to sock in record time, and cast on the second sock. Let me get honest here, my first sock was a little wonky. He was baggy around the heel and I had shortened the toe length so that he would stretch out when I was wearing him and fit correctly. On the foot, he looked fine. Off the foot, the sock looked like a stocking for an elf.
I worked on the second sock, but noticed that skein was disappearing at an alarming rate. I looked at the project page on Ravelry and read what other knitters had to say about the socks. Most finished with one skein. I had my friend Eve look at my vanishing skein, she seemed to think there was enough. I worked another day on the socks, all along knowing that sooner or later, I would end up unraveling the first sock and shortening the calf length.
To do this, I would also have to rip back the heel and about 10 rows on the second sock. It took me about 3 days to make the decision to rip back. When I finally ripped back, I also discovered I had made a mistake about 3 inches into knitting the leg of the first sock, so I ended up having to rip back an additional 3 inches of knitting. This project, that three days before had been an afterthought project now was consuming all my knitting time. It was the weekend so there was a lot of it.
I worked both socks until the heel turn on size ones. As I mentioned earlier, the first sock had been a little bag around the ankle, so I shortened the heel, and I also decided to work the remainder of the foot on size O's. Once both heels were turned I immediately put both socks onto one long circular.
Three months for now, if you ask me about this project, here is what I will say:
"Oh yah, that's the project were I learned to ALWAYS DIVIDE MY YARN, AND WORK BOTH SOCKS AT THE SAME TIME. I also learned that to use size o's for the foot, and size ones for the calf.
And I that I am "Mistake knitter" it's my mistakes that shape me.
Here is a picture of my latest knitting disaster project.
For some reason, it's a lot harder to try on socks top down, two at a time on magic loop, but you get the idea. Unless, something bad happens (like I run out of yarn), they will be done soon.
And here are my next pair of socks, carefully divided, so the next time the urge to cast on happens I will be ready.
