Five of My Knitting Rules

I’ve always been a private person. I never spoke out in class, I hid when a camera was near, and I never, ever kept a diary or journal. To be honest, I’ve never liked being the center of attention. So nobody is more surprised than I am that I decided to write a blog. But here I am, stretching beyond my comfort zone and putting myself out in cyberspace to talk about my many relationships with yarn and needles and what I’ve learned along the way.

To begin, I want to share five of my top knitting rules.

1. Do not leave projects involving double-pointed needles on the floor if you might walk across that floor in the dark. One of Murphy’s Laws of Knitting states that you will put at least one of said needles through your foot, which is exactly what I did when knitting the sleeve of this Norwegian sweater for my father. The knitting gods were smiling on me, though, and there was very little blood and none of it stained the sweater.

2. Always carry spare needle if knitting with bamboo needles on trans-Atlantic flights. Another of Murphy’s Laws guarantees that you’ll break one shortly after take-off and have to spend six hours reading and re-reading the in-flight magazine.

3. Keep at least one of your early knitting projects. This will keep you humble. My first project, a pair of baby of baby booties that would have fit a basketball player, went missing decades ago, but I still have the second—a hobby horse made out of a sock. I’m glad to report that my tension is tighter now.

4. If your stash makes you guilty, hide it (the stash as well as the guilt).

5. Sock yarn is not considered stash. Buy a ball at every knitting shop you visit and you’ll never need to wonder what to knit next.