Fringe is asking about your favourite knit!

So I'm a little tired and lacking inspiration so instead of writing an actual post I was wandering round the internet checking some of my favourite blogs - like the ever inspiring Fringe Association. And today Karen is asking the question - What's the knit you can't you live without? As I posted the photo above last week of my favourite on instagram I thought I would just show it to you. 

I loved reading the comments on Karen's post - there are some fantastic sweater suggestions in there. If you feel like adding to the list of favourite sweaters then head on over and leave a comment on the Fringe post. What a great communal list! (I've turned comments off for this post so I don't steal her post ;)). 

My all-time favourite is Vitamin D by Heidi Kirrmaier and all the Ravelry details can be found here. It was my second try at Vitamin D. The first time I made it I made it with the flaps at the front before realising that I wasn't that kind of girl. Second try was perfect - a generic kinda V-neck cardy with a little detail. I wear it all the time and it is the perfect complement to the 95% blue/grey wardrobe that I have. The 3/4 sleeves make it suitable for 3 seasons here and the yarn  looks like it did the day I made it - I adore this yarn (Old Maiden Aunt Alpaca Silk). It is the combination of the pattern and the yarn that really makes it sing for me. 

I probably have one other which is the first cardigan photo in my post on how to choose a sweater pattern. That cardy rocks! Oh and James. I can't forget James. Or Lila…. who could forget Lila. Actually I wear all four of those all the time!

See you all Friday with an update on the How to get faster at knitting post. 

Felicia

I'm not creative.

I have been lucky over the last month to be asked to talk to some really interesting people - I've taken part in not one (the Woolful podcast I mentioned last week), but two podcasts. The second podcast was released on Saturday and can be found here. I was talking with Helen of Curious Handmade about Stash Less* as part of Helen's Simplify and Declutter month. But before we got to Stash Less, Helen and I talked a little about creativity. I've been thinking about it a lot since we spoke and I don't think I articulated my thinking about it as well as I could have. As creativity is something I've pondered a lot over the years I thought I would have a go at doing it here. A bit of thinking out loud to see where we end up…..

For years and years (like 20 of them) I walked around saying "I'm not creative". Over and over again. There was a mix of reasons. I saw my mum as the creative one in our family - she taught me sewing and quilting and she could draw - drawing seemed to be very creative. I did science and maths at school and for some reason I saw science and maths as being factually based and not at all creative. When I was in high school I saw myself as being a scientific type. I loved the fact that science and maths had facts to back everything up. It wasn't subjective. It seemed logical.**

But there was another reason why I said I wasn't creative. I think I said I wasn't creative because I felt like to say you were creative kind of meant that you were saying you had talent. I felt that the two of them were linked; creative people were talented. The idea of me being creative felt wrong for two reasons. One I didn't feel like I had talent creatively, and two, because creative=talented I felt like if you were saying you were creative it meant you were saying you were good at something (which culturally isn't that done in Australia).

I'm not 15 anymore and I've read many things since. I wrote here about how I don't believe that you need to be talented to make things but I want to take it a little further.  All that reading has lead to a shift and because of that shift I'm about to state the obvious - I believe that everyone is creative. We make a zillion different little creative decisions in our everyday life. How to wear our hair. How to move. How to arrange our table. Putting a towel on a towel rack. Creative thinking is one of the things that makes us human.  

Kids show us this. They are fearless at two and three about how they draw and paint and put things together. They are creative all the time. Their clever little brains are constantly solving problems and learning things along the way. As we get older it's the judgements that get made about our creativity (combined with our individual personalities) that can then lead to us freezing up and starting to view ourselves in a different light. A great example of this is a kid I know well. She loves art. She loves creating things but she totally gets stuck if there is any kind of pressure on her - and often that pressure comes from inside her - to make something that is perfect or realistic. Her judgement that it won't be "right" means that sometimes she won't even try. She won't draw even though she loves it and the pressure seems to be coming from inside her. 

Knowing that this was how I thought, and then seeing the flaws in that thinking and the damage it can cause, is part of the reason I think I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about talent now. I want to distinguish between creativity and talent. Not because I don't think some people are talented. I do! But I don't think you need to be talented to make things and I think that to be talented you need to put in the hard yards.

The idea of talent - that some people have it - those creative people have it - can lead us to feel like it's not worth trying or even to the point where we think/say things like "I'm not creative", when maybe that is not what we mean. 

Talented….well that is just a judgement about creativity. When a group of people judge someone's creativity as good then that's when the "talented" thing comes into play. For the most part it's subjective. I might think someone is talented and you might not see their appeal. Generally someone is only given the moniker of talented upon presenting their work to people. To create the work that gets called talented is generally the end product of a long process.  What we see as talent is often the product of learning+practice+creativity+really hard work. I feel like talent isn't something that someone has but rather something that someone works for

I wrote about the idea of practicing in the gap here and that is what I do. I don't need talent to make what I make. While it makes me feel happy that other people sometimes compliment what I have made, I make for me and I’m the only one (other than my kids) that needs to like it. Again what I need is the creativity (that we all have within us) – and not talent (the external acknowledgement)  - to make something that makes me happy, both while I am engrossed in the creating (flow) and after it is made. 

Which leads to my next question around this topic - is talent the thing we should be holding high in our esteem, or should we be celebrating the work that goes into it. Or maybe it doesn't matter? 

Here is a quote from one of the many many Brain Pickings articles on hard work and talent in writing.

“Cohen approaches his work with extraordinary doggedness reflecting the notion that work ethic supersedes what we call “inspiration” — something articulated by such acclaimed and diverse creators as the celebrated composer Tchaikovsky (“A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood.”), novelist Isabel Allende (“Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.”), painter Chuck Close (Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work.”), beloved author E.B. White (“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.”), Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope (“My belief of book writing is much the same as my belief as to shoemaking. The man who will work the hardest at it, and will work with the most honest purpose, will work the best.”), and designer Massimo Vignelli (“There is no design without discipline.”). ”

— Brain Pickings - Leonard Cohen on Creativity, Hard Work….

I guess the point is that talent isn't this special thing that some people are blessed with. Even those with the talent have to work for it.  (…..writing this I can hear what a contradiction it is…..) And we don't need to be talented to create. 

I want to follow the first quote with a second article - also from Brain Pickings on the Daily Routines of Great Writers. Have a read of this article. In each case a writer who is often held up as being really talented, as a great writer, works incredibly hard at their craft. They have discipline. They show up. They ship. They practice and they write.

UPDATE: This was posted 30 minutes ago but I've woken up and want to have one more go at it. 
When I was younger I confused and interchanged the ideas of creativity and talent. I believed that I made things, but that making things wasn’t the result of a creative process. Rather the making was the result of following or modifying a pattern - which is also true. However, that confusion lead to me denying that I had something that is part of all of us, my creativity. By denying my own creative input into the process – even just choosing fabric for a pattern – something of the joy of making was lost as I was denying my part in the process of making it. 

As I said - I'm talking out loud today - would be great to hear your thoughts and experiences. Do you think of yourself as creative? Have you ever had the thought "I'm not creative" and where does "talented" come into it for you?

Felicia x

* Stash Less now has it's own page which lists each of the posts so far so you can find them more easily than scrolling back through. 

**Obviously this is not what I think now -  scientists clearly need to use their boundless creativity to solve complex problems - and that this how they come up with the aforementioned facts. 

Backtracking

So at the start of the year I decided that I should change when I posted from Tues, Wed, Friday to Mon, Wed, Friday. The aim was that I would spread things out a little and hopefully get to comments. But that decision was one of those totally unthoughtout rookie errors. Posting on a Monday means you are working on the post (if you are a last-minute-Sally like me) on a Sunday night. And Sundays are for family and crafting, rather than writing about crafting. So that was never going to work.

So I'll be back tomorrow with a real post and I'll post as I have been for some time; Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. 

Till tomorrow.

Felicia

How to get faster at knitting!

Let's start with a statement of truth from one of my favourite all-time knitters, the marvelous Elizabeth Zimmermann.

“Speed is not necessary in knitting”

— Elizabeth Zimmermann in her Knitting Workshop DVD

And it’s not. To get the benefits, and the joy of knitting, you just need to be knitting.

My title is slightly misleading; what I really want to talk about is how to improve your output - so we are talking about speed but we also want to talk about output. We are talking about how to get through your knitting faster. This involves two things; how to knit more often and how to knit faster.

I want to stress that this shouldn't be stressful. You all probably know my feelings about knitting by now. Knitting shouldn't be about fear and it shouldn't be about stress. Think meditation and joy! That's what I am on about. 

Personally I believe that my output is mainly because of the stuff I've written about before; making is an everyday habit for me and I have a few tricks to find extra time in my life to knit. I am not a particularly fast knitter but over time I have consciously tried to work on my speed and technique. For me, the biggest efficiencies have come from learning to knit without looking, and making more efficient movements (I'll talk about this more in a minute).  

Speed in knitting doesn't necessarily involve changing your style. One option is that you just look for efficiencies in the style you currently use. But, by being aware of the different styles that are possible, you can look for other ways to improve your speed. 

Where should we start? This post will talk about

1. How to learn to knit without looking.
2. When to make changes to your style.
3. How to work on efficient movement and transitions.
4. What other styles you could look at to improve your speed. 

Time for a second statement of truth. "You can have an awkward-looking slow technique and still be a fantastic knitter". If you have even tension, and know about the technical aspects of knitting, your knitting will be wonderful - even without having "good" technique. Your style is your style. There are no rules about what your style should be! However, improving your technique often makes the process more enjoyable, speeds you up and takes out the awkward.

And a third statement of truth is that "Change to your style will feel awkward! That doesn’t mean you aren’t doing it right or it will stay like that. Push through the pain barrier for a bit to figure out if it is for you". 

You can get faster!

1. LEARN TO KNIT WIThout looking

This doesn't increase your speed, but it does make your knitting output increase. Knitting without looking means you can knit while having a cup of tea with your partner while making them feel like they are your one-and-only focus - this is a key knitter's skill! You can knit while in the car without getting carsick and you can knit at the movies once the lights have gone down. I really believe you can do this. Yes you!

I've been thinking about how to explain how to do this as I often hear people saying "I've tried but I can't". The most important thing to remember is that this is a fingertip experience. Your fingertips do all the work and they just need some training. 

I recommend sitting down a few days in a row to solely focus on this. Sit and concentrate. Start with a yarn that is at least a DK and preferably a round yarn. DK+ makes big individual bumps for you to feel on the needle. Use needles you are comfortable with and a yarn that is stickier (like 100% wool) rather than silky or floppy (like silk or alpaca). The stickiness means that it retains it's shape and isn't trying to slip away while you are learning. And maybe use a swatch to try this on so you aren't worried about making errors. 

Try to do one stitch at a time initially. Then try two. Initially you will really need to concentrate, but eventually it becomes like breathing. 

This is just how I do it - you might do it differently - I'm going to split this up a bit to see if I can give you a process for figuring this out; 

• Load the stitches towards the end of the left hand needle so they are close to the tip with your eyes open. Feel the stitches between your thumb and forefinger to get used to how they feel. Watch yourself flatten out a stitch - by that I mean to push the right hand side of the stitch forward with your thumb - your forefinger is what you are pushing it against so it doesn't slip off. 
• Close your eyes and insert the needle into the first stitch by sliding the right hand needle tip along the top of your thumb, through the stitch and over the top of your forefinger. .Wrap the yarn around and use your left forefinger and thumb to move the stitch off the needle. 
• Then try to feel the individual bumps with your left hand fingers and move another stitch towards the end of the left needle to get it ready and then insert the right. Flatten the stitch out with your thumb and forefinger and do it over again.
   

2.When to make changes to your style

This obviously depends on your personality and how you are feeling. To my mind there are two options - one project at a time, improving little bits as you go, or you could choose a new style and go cold turkey. 

Personally I don’t tackle everything that I want to change in one go – mainly because I need knitting for daily joy, and so to have that joy be stifled by laborious knitting wouldn’t work for me. So I make a change to my technique at the start of a new project – and keep knitting all my other projects with my previous technique. I make a whole garment in the new style before deciding if I want to keep the change.  This is not necessarily ideal. I would probably learn much faster by switching totally and sticking to it. But the way I do it means I get to see if my changes work. By the end of a project I can feel if it makes sense to me and is comfortable.  

Obviously you should do what is best for you, but try not to switch midway through a project as your tension can change dramatically with a different technique.

I make some kind of change to my knitting style about once a year. Just a tweak here and there, or I concentrate on fixing some particular problem.
 

3. Look at improving your efficiency

Efficiencies in movement and transitions are where most of my speed improvements have come. When you knit a stitch you are putting one needle tip into a loop on the other needle. You then wrap the yarn around the needle tip and pull it back through the loop. In that process there are many movements and then transitions between those movements and that is where you can find efficiency. Look at each one of these movements individually and figure out whether there is anything you can do to make it smoother. Can you hold the needle or the yarn differently? Can you change how you tension the yarn - around which fingers? Can you change the angle of the needles so that they are easier to manipulate?

There are four key areas (I can think of!!) to look at when considering what improvements you could make.

1. How you hold the needles, from above or below.
2. How you tension your yarn, around which fingers.
3. How you wrap the yarn around the needle tips - throwing, picking or flicking.
4. The angle with which the needle tips meet - could be almost parallel facing one another, at 90 degrees or heading towards parallel.

Play around with these things and see if there is a way you can make a movement more efficient. How could the arc of your yarn take less time? Could you change the angle of how your needles meet to make getting the completed stitch off quicker? 

Which leads on to an obvious topic….
 

4. Consider changing your style

Alrighty then - let's get to the controversial topic - knitting style and which one is "the best"!! These are just my opinions and you may not agree, so please feel free to disagree vehemently in the comments. I love learning new stuff. 

a. I don't believe there is a right or best way to knit.  Everyone has different hands and arms. Size, mobility and flexibility all affect what is most comfortable for us. Comfortable often = efficient movements and efficient generally = speed. Not always but often.

b. That said, some knitting styles involve movements that lend themselves to speed - for example continental knitting involves scooping the yarn which generally involves one less movement than English throwing and therefore is generally more efficient. 

Investigate the different styles. The four most distinctive style groups I've come across are;

1. English throwing - also known as right handed knitting
2. Continental picking - also known as German, European, left handed
3. Lever - also known as Irish Cottage, pivot knitting, static needle
4. Portuguese 

I made you a little video the other night - that demonstrates the four different main styles - as I couldn't find one that ran (quickly-ish) through all styles so I didn't have to link to a million different videos. It's my first video and I did it with a static camera so please excuse its quirks. I am using a big yarn with 6mm wooden needles so you can see the movements I am making more easily. It does however make my knitting a bit slower and more awkward looking than it would if I was using my normal setup - so please don't let that put you off investigating another style if you see something you like. 

The four main styles of knitting done with varying levels of competence ;)!

The two people I mention in the video are The Yarn Harlot lever knitting - please go and look at this as it is a truly beautiful thing and then follow that up by looking at Eunny Jang and her gorgeous continental knitting. So clever!

Remember that there is nothing wrong with making up your own style or choosing parts of styles. As I said in the video - my current style is a mixture of English flicking (not really throwing) and lever knitting (or Irish cottage knitting). It is quite a big movement but is more efficient for me on the whole than continental knitting. This is because I am yet to master Continental purling. My continental knitting is lovely and fast, but my purling is a dog's breakfast of inefficiency and awkwardness. 

This post is getting too long so I'm going to stop now, but I hope it's given you some ideas for how to work on your speed and your output. As always love to hear your thoughts and happy to answer your questions!

Felicia x

AN UPDATE: There have been so many good questions I've done a followup post - How to Get Faster At Knitting - Part 2! It includes a video on how to learn to knit without looking.

Woolful and a repost about imperfection!

So rather than today's I Made This, I have some news, and a repost!

The news is that I was lucky enough to chat with Ashley Yousling of Woolful for her podcast recently and it went up yesterday! You can listen to it here. I'm featured alongside the lovely Karen from Fringe Association, whose blog I featured way back in the very early days of this blog. Fringe is one of my favourite blogs, always informative and inspiring. And Ashley's podcast is wonderful. If you haven't heard it yet you can get them all from iTunes or from her blog. I feel really lucky to be included in such fine company!

Karen on the left and me on the right.

The repost today is of a post that was originally called Perfection in Imperfection, and I wanted to highlight it because I thought it went along well with the podcast. I Made This will be back next week but in a way this repost is really an old version of I Made This from me (I kicked off the series with this post). There are so many more of you reading now than there were a year and a half ago, so many of you may not have seen it.  

This quilt is one of the things that I am most proud of, and not because it is perfect. Rather it is because of all I learned and also because I love it. Everytime I see it it makes me happy and reminds me that I am able to create stuff I love with really simple techniques.

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So I finished a single bed quilt - it's the sample for the Anatomy of a Quilt class we were running - and after that will live out it's life on my spare bed. It's not perfect. Nor is it what I hoped or thought it would be when I started. But I really really love it!

Which has lead to a very photo heavy post!! Apologies. 

I had this idea when I started it. I had some gorgeous linen from Tessuti* - over two metres of it in fact. It is such a simple beautiful pattern that I didn't want to cut it up - I reckon it would have gone against the laws of nature.

*If you are ever looking for gorgeous linen then check out Tessuti - just stunning!! 

So a whole cloth quilt was the only way forward. I wanted super simple but without too much quilting as I still wanted the linen to be able to move and wrinkle. Nothing better than wrinkled linen. The spare room it was made for is a simple space so i wanted something that would fit. 

I had been practicing my hand quilting by making a few baby quilts for my smallest girl child and I really wanted to try something bigger. That said I didn't have time (and maybe not the courage yet?)  to handquilt the whole thing. So what to do. I haven't come across many quilts that use handquilting and machine quilting in the one quilt but I thought I would give it a try. My idea was some feature quilting in the middle and then machine quilting in off-white around it, so you would see the impression of the quilting lines but they would be played down. I used organic cotton batting which meant I could leave the quilting lines to about 5/6inches apart. Having the quilting lines so far apart meant I got to keep my favourite linen characteristic - wrinkles!!

There are so many issues with this quilt - which is going to make it a great teaching piece - sooo many issues....

But I really want to focus on how much I love it. The fact that it doesn't need to be perfect to be perfect. That it can be beautiful without being perfect. The fact that I learnt so many many things while making it. Things that I actually already knew in theory but I now have tangible proof of. Gotta love some in-your-face mistakes to help you really learn.

It was also a good reminder that even though your initial idea might not work - this looks nothing like what I planned - it can turn out even better. 

Have you had mistakes that turn out better than the original idea?? 

Felicia