Let's face it. Knitting is boring.
No, no, not starting a project, that is great fun. Planning what it will look like, casting on, getting the pattern of stitches established. Love it!
But once it is on the needles and established, it is boring. Same stitch patterns over and over and over and... you get the point. So, why do we do it? We do we knit?
I can't speak for all of us ( some of you out there may be crazy - I know I am suspect...) as for me, I knit because my Grandmother knit.
When I was a girl I would watch her knit (she knitted all the time, I mean ALL of the time - well when ever she was not cooking - boy, could she cook) she would knit cables & lace & "from the back loop", her fingers would just fly. And then when she had finished what she was knitting, she would rip it all out, wind up the ball of yarn and start knitting again. This time a different pattern with different cables and lace and yarn overs and... OK, obviously she was not knitting to make items for the family and herself. She was knitting for another reason. Something else kept those needles in her hands.
There is something about knitting, the rhythm of the needles, the feel of the yarn as it slides through your fingers. It is all intoxicating. But the real reason I knit - I knit because of my grandmother. When I am knitting, I am conjuring up that old woman and she sits beside me, just as she did when I was a small girl. I can feel her watching my stitches as she did back then. "a little tight, try to loosen up the stitches a bit, that's it. They look just right now."
Back then, all I could knit was "purl" and "knit". Now, I can knit almost any kind of stitch and every now and then I will watch my hands make a maneuver that will be just like my grandmother's. Slip-stitch knit, slip-stitch knit. It takes my breath away.
So why do we knit? Maybe it is the rhythm, maybe it is the feel of the yarn. I don't know why my grandmother knit. As for me, I knit because she knit.
