Pearls and Cast-Offs

Having moved back to my home after a brief stay with my dad, I'm out of work at the moment. I sit at home surfing through job sites and ads begging me for experience I don't have, bored out of my mind but at the same time feeling as if I'm under a monumental pressure as my bank account continues to dip lower till D Day. In the moments when I fight with my sister, which is too often for me to admit, or feel this pressure I take off some time from the internet and instead, work with my hands. I like to knit. I can't do anything fancy like a million other people who knit, I just like making little 20x20 stitch squares (though to be honest they look more like rectangles).

Throughout my life I've known how to knit and I've made these squares on and off, but recently I've taken it up again. I set a cup of coffee down on my coffee table, turn on an episode of Bones (dark, I know, I'm just like that) and start knitting. Sometimes I make the loops too tight, and it takes forever, sometimes I forget entirely about the knitting for half an episode, but always I make those little tallies in my notebook by my side.1,2,3....20, cast off, done and on to the next patch. I always tell myself I'll make something out of them, like a patchwork blanket or coasters or something, and I'm pretty sure I know I'm lying. I make them just cause, because it's something to do; not too difficult, there's no expectation to get it right and if it doesn't look right or I forget a line I don't particularly care, it's just fun to make. I'm using a blue wool which started dark blue but changed to a royal blue and then an ice blue. I've used about half of the ball now and I've popped out eight little squares the size of my palm, some a singular color with others changing halfway through, I love it.

Sometimes I lose track of time, or I knit when everyone else has gone to bed and I do it for hours, sometimes watching a show, other times it's just me and my music alone in the quiet hours of the early morning before the sun rises. Okay, so I know I have a problem staying up that late but, I can't help it, in those times it's just me and the loops I make on my needles, a definite I can control and count. 1,2,3....20, cast off, done and on to the next patch.

When I was younger, I would hate going to places and activities so much that I would take my knitting with me, whether it was on the train to go see my grandmother, or down the road to a family friend's for a cuppa or a party. If I had a bag, then it was more than likely to have a ball of wool and a book in it. I didn't love it enough to do it everywhere, I used it to subtly invite people to tell me how clever I was to be that young and know how to knit, and it was an activity that allowed me to sit away from others and not engage, which was my main goal.

It all started when my grandmother on my father's side tried to teach me how to knit when I was 10, which didn't so well, but how she put in the effort to teach me and pass on her knowledge made it worthwhile for me. At 12, my maternal grandmother taught me, this time I was old enough to actually take an interest in it and I actually picked it up quickly, enjoying how being able to knit seemed to make my mum not complain about the amount of time I spent by myself if I was knitting.

Years on now (ha, I sound old, I'm only twenty) I still only know two different knitting stitches, and I've moved out of my mum's house into a share with my sister and another family, one of which can knit as well. She uses a strange round loop and just spits out blankets all day long. She makes kids beanies, blankets, scarfs, pretty much everything I can't. That's okay. I have no interest in learning anything new at the moment, though it would be cool to be able to knit a beanie for myself. I'm happy knitting my little squares, a scarf here and there when I feel like it. Not too hard but also something you have to take your time on, something you have to intend to finish or you can't do anything else without the needles.

It's taught me patience in making things with my own hands, that not everything can be done in a day, those scarfs took me a couple of months each and used a whole ball of wool (though to be fair I did make then really wide). I know how to do other things like macramé and little origami boxes (which I have about 100 of stashed in my room) and I've always wanted to try my hand at cross-stitch but I think I'll always just retreat to what I know best.