Owning your craft #1: Choosing the right knitting project for you.
Have you ever invested hours, weeks or even months on a knitting project just to feel completely unimpressed by the result? If so you‘re definitely not alone, and this can be a hard way of learning there is more to successful knitting than following a well-crafted pattern and achieving the correct tension/gauge (though those too are essential unless you are going completely freestyle).
Every knitter deserves joy and satisfaction from their creations, but sometimes this can instead be a frustrating experience. The joy of casting on can soon dwindle and be replaced by dissatisfaction. This can be due to a number of reasons such as:
you’re unhappy with the finish
the finished item just doesn’t look or feel good on you as it looked in the photo
you just don’t like it how it’s turned out
you suddenly realise you have no personal use for that particular item!
Owning your craft
So how can knitters ensure they achieve the results they desire? Well, there are a number of tips I’ll be sharing below, but in the main, it’s by taking ownership of your craft. There have been a number of discussions about this over recent years (check out Karie Westermann’s blog post on the topic here), but what exactly does that mean and how do you achieve that?
To me, this means you develop knowledge, skills and personal preferences over time. For many of us that is a lifetime, as you travel your personal knitting journey. There are no quick fixes here, and it requires time with the craft so you have an understanding of how knitting works. It also requires you to understand your own needs, preferences and what you hope to get out of your knitting experiences.
It’s also important to embrace imperfection - it’s ok if things don’t work out perfectly, and the most important thing is to enjoy your knitting and the journey it will take you on. If you have any ‘duffers’ all is not lost - you can always find another purpose or home for them, or worst case scenario, unravel and knit something else. This is neither a disaster nor waste of time as you will have learned something in the experience and/or you get to knit the yarn again. More time knitting can’t be a bad thing for a knitter, surely? Unless you are on piecework or a deadline that is!
In this mini blog series we’ll explore ways you can own your craft, and I’ll cover 3 things you should consider before you even cast on that’ll make sure your next project makes you heart sing rather than sigh:
Part 1: Choosing the right knitting project for you
Part 2: Surveying the pattern and plan ahead
Part 3: What adaptations, if any, might you make?
I hope this topic will be of interest and you’ll reflect on how you can be the master of your own knitting. This will improve confidence in your own abilities, creativity and technical decision making. In turn it’ll enhance your personal creative journey and and set you up for successful happy knitting. Also as Karie points out, owning your craft is important for keeping this ancient craft or ours alive and well:
By taking ownership of your craft, you are not only gaining invaluable skills but you also help the craft develop and grow.
(Karie Westermann)
As a practical craft, knitting is often best learned by use of practical examples. With that in mind, as a working example I thought it might be helpful to share with you how I’m approaching a personal knitting project. I’m currently knitting Rowan’s Thirlstane Cardigan by Georgia Farrell .
Photo by Rowan
I’ll share my journey and what decisions I made at the start relating to this topic, and then follow up with how I progress with this and any additional tweaks I can make as I go.
Part 1: Choosing the right knitting project for you
In this first post in the series I focus on how to choose the right knitting project from the outset to set you up for a successful and pleasurable knitting experience.
Know Thyself
Your knitting journey can be as much about your self discovery as it can be of the craft. With time you will inevitably learn about your own preferences and find your own creative voice. That journey will be unique to you, but here are come suggestions for how to approach this.
What knitting floats yer boat?
Take an honest look at what is going to be an enjoyable knit for you. This will be personal to you, but here are a few points to get you started.
What sort of knits do you love the look and feel of? What yarn do you like the feel of in your hands and on your skin? do you like firm and substantial knitted fabric or something more fluid?
What sort of knitting do you really enjoy working on, and more importantly, what type of knitting do you loath? If you don’t enjoy knitting with flooffy lace weight yarns for example, then just don’t go there!
What limitations might you have? For example if you have poor eyesight, a complex lace pattern in fine black yarn might not be your best choice of project.
What do you want to learn?
Another limitation you might think you have is not knowing the techniques needed for the project - but this shouldn’t deter you and is an opportunity for growing your knitting skillset.
In fact this maybe a key motivation for your choice of project and may enable you to try out a new technique you’d like to learn. Perhaps its unusual structure or stitch pattern has piqued your curiosity, or it offers the opportunity to try out a new skill in some way - all good stuff that will enhance your understanding of how knitting actually works, so is never time wasted.
I often hear knitters tell themselves “I cant do …” or “I’m no good at …..” but this is simply not true. Saying these things to ourselves is disempowering and only makes us feel bad about ourselves. The truth is none of us could do X,Y Z before we started learning. I’m a great believer in the mighty power of the word yet Just add this to the end of those “I can’t” statements:
”I can’t do intarsia …yet”
”I’m not great at knitting cables….yet”
Adding that little word can make all the difference to how you feel, don’t you think it?
Be honest with yourself though - when saying “I can’t do”, or “I’m no good” at something, do you you really mean “I don’t like…” or “I don’t want to”- if so that is another issue all together and should be respected. Knitting is supposed to be fun after all, isn’t it?
It’s good to identify any skill gaps at the outset though so you can make an informed choice - give the project a miss or embrace the opportunity to for growth and development. Learning new knitting skills is so easy these days with google or YouTube to look up how-tos, and some patterns may also include tutorials.
Will the project suit you and your needs?
This is really important if if you are actually going to wear the finished project! Consider what colours and styles look and feel good on you. We are all different, so it’s essential to consider your body shape and what kind of fit & silhouette you like and feel good and/or comfortable in.
What looks good on the model in the photo might not be quite your bag, so it’s good to consider this before knitting something you feel like a bag of spanners in! I’d like to stress here though that there is no wrong body shape -
Every flower in the garden is beautiful, and that includes you!
What do you actually want or need in your wardrobe? Already got 5 pink shawls? Then maybe it’s time to choose something different! What are the gaps? Will your prospective knitting project go with other items in your existing wardrobe?
Bring it all together - Thirlstane example
For this project I wanted a relaxed knit I could manage to watch TV with himself to ( at least some of the time) but with some changes of pace to keep my interest. Thirlstane has a good mix of plain knit and stocking (stockinette) stitch for bursts, while the textured border pattern and top down structure provide plenty of interest without being too tricksy.
Warm colours look great with my skin and hair colouring, I love the soft pumpkin shade, but yellowy green is a key colour in my wardrobe that will go with many of my other garments, so I’ll probably go for that instead. I could also really do with another cardigan as the ones I have are now rather ancient and in need of replacement.
I don’t enjoy wearing bulky fabrics as I feel constrained in them, so this will be great as it’s a sportweight knit. For a similar reason, I love 3 quarter length sleeves, and can never bear a full sleeve for more than a few minutes before I find myself pushing them up my forearm, so this design suites me well from that perspective.
I’m a somewhat girthy pear shape - so the project’s boxy shape may not be the best option for me, although as it’s a fairly short length this may be ok. I generally prefer garments with a bit of a gentle A-shape, so I may consider if/how I might adjust this. Before I can make any decisions on that though I’ll need to take a closer look at the pattern for this, and that’s what I’ll be covering next time.
I hope this has been helpful and you’ll join me next time when I’ll be looking at how to survey a pattern to plan ahead. If you want the head’s-up when this is out, sign up to my email list and I’ll keep you posted.