Back in Illinois, DestiKNITers, and oh, do I have yarns to tell about my adventures in New York City. Wait until you hear about one of my knitting bags being "confiscated" by a major network television show! Ah, but you'll have to stay tuned for that one. We need to pay our Galaxy Scarf some long overdue attention.
If you were as big a fan of puns as I am, you might say today's episode is all about "homeland security." Yes, I heard your groan, but stay with me. As I see it, a huge percentage of knitting mistakes come from one source: we overestimate our abilities to keep stuff straight. Knitting comes so naturally to those of us who’ve been at the craft a long time that we are reluctant to think we can’t keep things in order. After all, we're "veterans." Trouble is, it's dangerous to rely too much on our already-taxed brains. Much like the to-do lists and homework planning workbooks I beg my children to keep--trying to help them understand that they simply can’t hold all that stuf in their heads, no matter how smart they think they are. And boy, do they think they're smart.
Yeah, well, maybe we should chat about how smart I think I am. We won’t discuss the number of times I’ve botched a pattern...ahem...this pattern because I’ve lost my place.
Until I wised up and used one of the most basic (and perhaps unlikely) tools: the post-it note. Waltz the aisles of any knitting show, and you’ll see several nifty gadgets designed to do what the post-it note does simply and elegantly: keep your place on the pattern page. Line the thing up with the row in your chart you need to be following, and you’re all set. Realign it when you advance to another row, jot a note down such as “watch the marker after that k2tog” should you need to, and you’re all set. I own a bunch of magnetic strip thingies that are lovely to look at, but I must say they don’t do the job nearly as well as the humble post-it note.
That sticky savior deserves our respect, don't you think?
2 comments:
I love that you've given me another use for my beloved post-it notes!
For that very reason I've long thought that they should make long skinny post-it notes with the "sticky" on one of the long sides.
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