Fibers

Knitters have their own language.

When I first started going to the knitting group meetings at work, I understood about 75% of what they were talking about regarding knitting. There were plenty of new terms: increase, decrease, hank, tinking, frogging and blocking were just a few. I learned what increasing and decreasing were, because somehow I managed to do both on the baby blanket. My coworkers were amazed I possessed such talent. Especially when the pattern did not call for either increasing or decreasing. What can I say? I'm gifted. To this day if I were making something that called for either, I'd have to look online or actually read one of my knitting books.

I learned what a hank was (it's a way the yarn can come - either a skein, ball or hank) when my friend told me she bought a hank of yarn. "A 'hank'?!", I questioned. I thought she just didn't know the jargon yet, poor thing. It was me, though. Perhaps if I actually would read one of the knitting books I bought I would have known better? But who wants to read about knitting when you can actually knit. I realize saying this that I will probably not have any readers of this new blog. Um, oops!

Tinking is knitting backwards. It's undoing what you've done, because you messed up somewhere along the line. I'm altogether too familiar with tinking at this point. Frogging, is when you rip out a bunch of knitting you've already done and start from scratch. I had to do that on the hubby's scarf at the point where I changed the yarn. It was terrifying! I made it through to the other side, though, and I'm telling you that you need to look at your work often to ensure you don't have to frog it. Starting over sucks, dude.

Blocking is... ok, I'm still learning about blocking. All I know about blocking I've read on My Crazy Aunt Purl dot com. She is a hilarious writer, who is now a published author! Check her out at http://mycrazyauntpurl.com. Her scarves magically grow after doing this blocking stuff. But the growth depends on the fiber used.

Fiber. Yeah, that's another one. You don't call it yarn. I'm not sure why. Is it some politically correct thing that's rearing its head in the knitting/crocheting world? Is yarn a bad word? The term fiber does make it sound fancy, let's face it.

And I talked about the stash last time. Everyone wants an impressive stash of fiber. My coworker has a stash at home and at work. I have a tiny stash at work. I haven't bought my fibers with specific projects in mind, but I feel the peer pressure of the other knitting addicts to grow my stash (as opposed to growing my 'stache) and don't want to be left behind. It's totally keeping up with the knitwits. I'm a follower when it comes to this stuff. I admit it.

Time to finish that scarf! Keep on knittin'!