More Simple Things

FO: Clapotis

Yarn: Artesano Hummingbird, 300g

Needles: 4mm

For pictures of me wearing it, see the project page

In knitting this Clapotis I also realised something about what guides me in choosing projects. Although knitting is supposedly for my own entertainment only, I still find myself considering expectations and norms.

We all fall for this sometimes -or I at least would like to think that I am not the only one who might borrow the latest prize winner from the library just because it's a prize winner. Or attempt to read a classic because it's a classic. Even though I'm actually in the mood for a re-read of Harry Potter, wouldn't it be so much better if I could say I had read James Joyce and liked it?  A good read with the added bonus of feeling smart! 

Of course I hardly ever manage to find a classic I can honestly say I like and am forced to read what I really want. Which lately has not been very much. Instead I have carried this way of thinking into knitting. One might think the two actions aren't very similar, but in this way at least they certainly are. 

In both knitting and reading much is categorized in terms of difficulty, or the mental strain of the task. "Tv-knitting" is pretty much the equivalent of a "beach read", brainless and easy. An overview of such a project or a review of such a book is usually shorter or more offhand than one of, say, a difficult lace scarf or a Nobel prize winner. 

Because of the lack of difficulty, these tv-projects and easy reads are obviously the most popular ones as well. They are recognised as fulfilling certain functions, using that lonely skein or passing the time, often in-between or after more demanding projects or books.

Just like I sometimes pay too much attention to what highbrow critics say of a novel, I have lately been too conscious of the prestige of certain pattern designers or project types. When doing a four-stitch repeat on a sock, I kept browsing the elaborate designs by Cookie A, even attempted one of the easier ones. I so hoped to be able to say that I had mastered it and liked doing it. But no luck. I also have a beginning of a lace scarf, my pride of which was somewhat lessened once I realised that what I thought of as difficult was tv-knitting to others.

I started Clapotis as a calm-me-down project, on a morning when I was extremely annoyed and angry with the world. I justified it like I would justify a hamburger: a treat I was badly in need for.

And I really did not knit anything else for nearly two weeks. The yarn was soft, the colours pretty, the rhythm right.  As much as I would have wanted to like something more difficult, this simplicity was what I truly did like. I felt somewhat self-conscious when I brought it out in public, but knew that pretending to work on something else simply would result in me doing nothing.

Although nearly running out of yarn and having some trouble dropping the stitches (in sticky alpaca), the finished product was also a success and I wore it at my cousin's wedding this past weekend. 

Perhaps a lace shawl might have made me more proud, but Clapotis had made me happy. 

And warm.