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If you've been hiding under a rock for the last five years or so you may have missed the newsflash that knitting is all the rage. Kids knit. Teens knit. Punk rock girls knit. Grown up women who really do have better things to do knit. All the cool kids are doing it. And knitters are cool. They speak in code using words like "steek." They have their own swear word too: frog. For example, "I had a 'growing problem' with an acrylic yarn recently. I made a cardigan out of 'fitted knits', and it was fitting nicely, gauge was on. Then I washed it, and the whole sweater just, grew. Now it is much too big and I think I may have to frog it."
Yet, no matter how cool knitting may be, I shall never be a knitter.
I have a confession to make. I was one of the last students in my grade to learn how to tie my shoes. And it wasn't just because I came of shoe-tying age at the dawn of Velcro(tm) sneakers. I was just plain no good at tying shoes. I am still not very good at it. In fact, I only own one pair of shoes that requires tying, my hiking boots. My knot tying inability is not congenital. My brother is a knot tying fiend. Name a knot, he can tie it. My aunt and a cousin are both sailors and use knots for things for which the rest of us would break out the duct tape.
So when my cool knitting friends offer to teach me to knit I explain that I can barely tie my shoes, therefore I don't think I can make clothing out of knots. To which our favorite, nay, our only reader, Gentle Reader, a.k.a. Thalia, the purveyor of the fabulous blog Dogs and Laughter replied, "Actually, knitting is making clothes out of loops, not knots." Which instantly and completely BLEW MY MIND!
To illustrate what a rockstar knit mistress Gentle Reader is, I present to you the yoga sock. She heard my cries of, "My feet are SO cold during yoga class, but woolly socks on my toes are too slippery." Her response: she designed and executed these gorgeous yoga socks. Sun salutations in a Maryland direction! Thank you, Thalia!
still standing
1 year ago
3 comments:
Well gosh, now that I feel like a total rockstar for making a pair of yoga socks, I guess you're going to need more knitted gifts to blog about!
Because who doesn't love that "surprise! you're a rock star!" feeling?
:)
and p.s. I didn't believe that that knitting slang comment was real, until I followed the link. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Soon knitters will use gang signs to indicate if they knit Continental, or English, or Combined.
p.p.s. Do you know the I'm-so-cool-I-knit source for the term "frogging" something?
Because when you have to "rip it" (and it does look like you are ripping your knitting sometimes, or at least ripping out that one piece of yarn from all those loops), it sounds like "ribbit" - thus, frogging. Some knitters have a "frog pond" where they keep their FOs (finished objects) or WIPs (works in progress) that they intend to rip.
I shall now go hide in embarrassment for my knowledge of knitting slang.
Awesome! A knitting etymologist! Genius, I say, that Thalia is a genius!
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