Monday 12 February 2007

Knitting History

I saw this post over at Amy Lane's site (yarning to write, see sidebar). One thing, Amy haven't ordered from Amazon yet so haven't read your book yet. It sounds different than most of what I've read (not the romance part, more the vampire part) so I'm pretty sure I'll like it. I'll let you know when I do read it k?

I learned to knit from my mom. My mom is an awesome knitter and for as long as I can remember I've had hand made stuff. Grade 1 we were studying dinosaurs and she whipped me up a blue sweater with an orange stegosaurus on it. I don't remember much from early childhood but amazingly enough I remember clothing. That may be pictures helping but whatever. So my mom - she's always had needles and yarn going. Still does. And I learned from her. Consequently I knit different than most other people I know. I knit with one of the needles under my arm. It is way more stable that way and I knit faster. My mom is a fast knitter, people say that I knit fast but that is just because they don't know who I learned from. Mom is fast. Mom says she isn't fast because she learned from her Aunt Lisa who is even faster. To me it is just that mom is Mach 1 and Lisa is about a Mach 3. Both are fast, just in different degrees. Hey, can anyone tell that I love my mom and love to talk about her. Here I am blathering on about her. My mom is awesome. In terms of things I'd change - I wish that I'd stuck with knitting earlier. I must have tried to learn 5+ times but only recently did it stick (about two years ago max). Motivation, well I don't know what it was. It looked like fun? Now I love it and knit for relaxation and process and product. I like it because I feel connected to my mom. Maybe one day I'll scan a bunch of pictures of her knitting just to show off and have a record of it.

No pictures today, am at school and should be marking (sounds like something from Amy's blog eh everyone? laugh). So perhaps that is what I'll do now.

CP

ETA: OK, didn't do that marking stuff, will now, honest. But I have a second resolution for this year:



In the year 2007 I resolve to:
Be on cops.



Get your resolution here.

5 comments:

Amy Lane said...

I wanna be on COPs!!! (like I said--don't sweat the book...no worries!) I like your story--I'm sure, give it 5 years or so, and you'll be at Mach 1, and mom can move up to Mach 3:-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info, I enjoyed it, and hats off to Mom! Where I grew up (NE Ohio farm country with lots of Amish/Mennonite), I saw the under-the-arm knitting fairly often, and you're right, it was FAST. It's probably a variation on N European knitting sticks or knitting pads, where they'd anchor one needle and work with the other.

And WOW, is it fast. Did I mention that part? I bet you're pretty darn fast too, even if not at Mach 3 yet.

-Julie, still hating blogger.

Bells said...

ok what does Mach 3 mean? I've never heard of that!

Catie said...

mach is the speed of an object relative to sound. So mach 3 is three times the speed of sound in the same medium. What I was going for here was that my mom is fast and my aunt is freakin fast.

Maggie Tipping said...

It took me a couple of shots before it stuck too. I have an interesting theory though as to why it takes a lot of people a couple of times before it sticks.

have you heard of motor learning? Motor learning is the process of learning a skill that is physically and mentally challenging, like dribbling a basketball, or knitting. Well they have done studies which show that when we learn a new motor skill, we improve at that skill even when we are NOT doing it! So if you teach someone to knit one day, and then they put away their needles and pick them up the next day, they will be BETTER the next day, even without practice.

Neat huh?

That's my theory as to why it took me a couple years to get the knack of things. My brain just needed some time to think about it.