but it is not that complicated....no, really it isn't.
The Senior Cat was watching a friend of ours yesterday. She had come for lunch and afterwards the two of us sat and knitted for a while. It was a good break, one I really needed. The Senior Cat had gone for a postprandial nap and then returned.
"How....?"
He really does want to know. Knitting fascinates him although he has no desire to try and do it again. (My late godmother tried to teach him when he was in hospital recovering from an appendectomy.)
"But how do you know...?"
He has, I think, come to the conclusion that it is a little bit like playing a musical instrument. Your fingers know what to do. That would at least be true of the actual making of the stitch. The pattern is another matter. It is as if you know "this is Middle C" but the skill is in how you play it and on what instrument. The pattern might be just a scale or it might be an entire orchestral score.
If I think of it in those terms then W... was knitting scales (ribbing) and I was perhaps knitting a simple folk song. I have an orchestral score on the go - for the times when I can concentrate completely on that and nothing else. W... has a similar piece at home for the same reason.
It's the way we knit. We need to keep up the scales and the folk songs in order to play the orchestral pieces.
I thought of this after W... had gone home. I want to try some new knitting patterns. They will be like folk songs in a foreign language - Japanese this time. I am fortunate enough to own a book of these patterns and I will add them to something like hats or fingerless mitts so that I can learn to use them. The borders and the palms will be like the scales and the tune will come into the rest.
And perhaps I might try knitting some actual music at some point?
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Have you seen this one? https://conventandchapelwool.com/collections/books/products/japanese-knitting-stitch-bible-by-hitomi-shida. It is currently sold out at Convent and Chapel, but I have seen it elsewhere. Translated. Petterns look lovely. I have not bought it, but it looks wonderful. The shop is good and Margot and Gemma are helpful and efficient.
Yes, there is more than one book by Hitomi Shida actually - amazing work. And the lovely thing about the Japanese is that they are so organised and consistent in their pattern writing.
Your fingers know what to do - How true. Last year I spent time in hospital with a cannula inserted in the vein in my right elbow crook. It caused intense pain, but they refused to allow me to have it moved elsewhere. I was laft with pins and needles in my right fingertips, and still have significant loss of sensation, making me fumbly with a lot of hand operations, but knitting is still fine - and I thank my lucky stars that I have been at it long enough that I can still do everything I need to from muscle memory. I suppose it is like they always used to say - you never forget how to ride a bike ...
Sending you a "yowl" of sympathy Jean - they should have been able to move that!
They certainly could and should have moved that needle, but they didn't listen when I said it hurt and was making my fingers numb. I asked more than once but they just couldn't be bothered. What makes me md is that the doctors are supposed to take an oath which goes "First, do no harm" My supportive GP says sorry, it probably won't recover now. He is very sympathetic - his wife is a needlewoman.
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