Baffled by Sticks, Knots, and Loops in Barnegat

B is for Baffled...                                      

I dabbled a little with knitting when I was pregnant with my first child thirty some years ago.  Circumstances led me back to it about two years ago.

We were visiting my son and his family in Sarasota, Florida.  We wandered into an antique shop and were very surprised to see that one half of the shop was actually a yarn store called Picasso Moon Yarn. A group of women were sitting around in old rockers in one corner of the shop.  They were cocooned amongst bins of wonderful, soft, pettable yarns of yummy colors.

I was drawn to the seemingly calm, peaceful, and warmth of the place.  The owner approached me and asked if I needed help.  I told her that I would like to start knitting and wanted to know if she could recommend a starter pattern.

Not only did she recommend a pattern, but she had me sit in one of the rockers, handed me a pair of circular needles, a skein of raspberry wool  and proceeded to teach me a long tail cast on.

"You are going to make a felted bag," she said.   "I, am?" I replied.

She said, "Look, you just keep going around and around until this gets to be about 15 inches.  Then come back and I'll show you how to finish it off."  I was totally baffled.

I said okay and did what I was told.  As I was knitting around and around, I couldn't figure out how this thing was going to turn into a felted purse.  And even after I finished it and it actually did turn into a purse, I was still baffled.

You see I am a Left brain knitter.  That means that I knit using the verbal analytic side of my brain.

I have to assume that Right brain knitters can look at a Rhododendron bush in full bloom and visualize a sweater pattern in those exact colors.

Me?  Nope.  I can't do that.

When I decided I needed a challenge and tried a sock pattern for the first time, I was baffled and amazed   that by following the step by step instructions I would wind up with something to keep my feet warm.

  I had and still have no concept of how this:

 turns into that.

Yes, I am using two different skeins of yarn.  That's the only way I can figure out "the knitting two socks  on two circulars needles" thing.  And yes, I know it kinda defeats the purpose of winding up with two socks that are the same and not having that one sock syndrome...but, it's that Left Brain thing again.


Wash cloths I can kinda get.  I have been knitting those lately.  As I follow the pattern along I sorta understand how the purl bumps make the design.  I'm still working on figuring out those yarn over things.

I thought that maybe if I attempted to create a wash cloth design of my own, I would have a better understanding of how it all works.

I spent hours drawing the most simple of shapes.  I chose a heart and the letter G.  Then I spent another few hours trying to figure out the center of the cloth.  After many iterations of my design

 (and I use that term loosely) I wound up with this.

There were more hours of writing out the instructions, because, of that verbal, analyitical thing.

After I completed the cloth, I was disappointed that the letter G didn't come out exactly the way my Left brain had visualized it.  I need to work on that.  Actually, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

You see, I still am baffled by how loops, and knots on sticks, turn bumps and v's into letters and hearts.

But, during the process, I felt that somehow, my Left Brain and my Right Brain were finally talking to one another.