I started listing (in my head) the most useful things I have learned about knitting since I started in 2005. Here is some of my list, in no particular order:
- I know how to differentiate between a knit stitch and a purl stitch by the way they lay on the needle. This is immeasurable helpful! (A knit stitch looks like a scarf around a neck; a purl stitch looks like the scarf is on backwards -- isn't that a funny way to remember it?)
- I have learned how to drop a stitch and correct a mistake that is a few rows back. I can make cables twist in the opposite direction (changing the direction from the wrong way to the right way). I can pick up a dropped stitch and knit it up the line. I can correct a missing decrease and add in an increase. Corrections such as this, made in a vertical manner, have saved me endless amounts of tinking and ripping.
- I have learned to count. Count. Count. Count the rows and make sure the counts are correct. Use markers. Use whatever it takes to make sure the number of stitches on the needles is correct.
- I've learned how to read a chart. I love charts.
- I've learned if there is a mistake that is bothering me, it will always bother me. It is best to fix it, even if it means starting over, or unknitting many rows.
- I've learned if there is something I don't know how to do, that someone on the Internet already knows how to do it, and has posted the information, probably with a video. I just need to look for it.
- I've learned how to knit continental style. This awakened my sleeping crochet skills of yarn tensioning -- I knit better continental style, and I knit faster.
- I've learned how to knit cables without a cable needed. Tremendously helpful.
- There are only two stitches, and very little is too hard. It's all just those two stitches and following directions.
- I've learned to remember that knitting is supposed to be fun. If it's not fun, why do it?
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