Planning to be Spontaneous

When I was rather small, Grandma P. tried to teach me how to knit. She cast twenty stitches onto the needle, and asked me to count them.

I counted them.

"I think there's twenty..."

"You think?"

And that was that. I knew that there were twenty stitches there... but if all I could say was "I think," then Grandma would have nothing more to do with my attempts at knitting. We spent the afternoon sewing little pillows together instead.

Eventually she did teach me how to knit, but I really didn't see a whole lot of point to it. There was just way too much structure for my liking. If you cast on twenty stitches, you'd better knit twenty stitches, and any changes have to be set up in advance. Everything's planned ahead, foreordained by the pattern.

Crocheting was ever so much more interesting. The horizons were limitless. You could do whatever you wanted, make it whatever shape you pleased. Each stitch was a new decision, you could put it wherever you liked. The freedom was intoxicating...

Until I realized that there are actually only so many places to put that next stitch. Lots of freedom in the next step, but there are only so many final outcomes. Bored with simple patterns, I wanted to crochet lovely images into things. After much searching, and much experimentation, I came to the conclusion that my options were pretty much limited to filet. And filet is all well and good... but a bit forced and unnatural. More of a novelty than anything else. For all its initial freedom, crocheting really wants to stay predictable.

Then a little knitting shop showed up down the street from Andy's work, and he brought home a few knitting magazines that they were discarding. Image after image of breathtaking works of art. Elegant, classy, funky, and even downright strange. Somehow with that dreadfully predictable method you can go places that the delightfully spontaneous meandering stitches of crochet can't take you.

So I've taken up knitting. I hate that you have to begin with the end in mind, that you can't just make it up as you go... but oh the places you can go. As the stitches roll off my needles in neat, orderly rows, so contrary to the habits of my soul, I feel myself ripening into the sort of person Grandma was. The sort of person who could --and did!--rearrange the furniture every few days, because everything was so tidy and organized.

Maybe while I'm at it I'll buy myself a daily planner.