STOCK MARKET WATCH - Friday, 3 February 2012

[Tansy_Gold]

66. The Zen of Knitting

This is the advice of one Tansy Gold and is qualified with the ever Zen-like admonition from Po'd Mainiac -- YMMV.

Buy three or four skeins of inexpensive worsted weight yarn and a pair of single-pointed knitting needles of some medium size between 6 and 8.

Cast on about 25 stitches.

Knit in garter stitch (knitting each row, no purling) until you finish the skein. If you screw up and have to rip it out and start all over, do so. Check frequently that you still have 25 stitches per row, not more, not less. Check that your edges are even, your rows the same width, no stitches dropped or split or added. Do not move on to any other stitches or projects until you can comfortably and automatically knit a full skein to the end.

Learn to purl. To practice the purl stitch to Zen, take another skein of yarn and cast on 22, 26, 30 stitches -- a multiple of four, plus 2. Proceed in 2 x 2 ribbing -- k2, p2, k2, p2, ending with the same you started with; then reverse the next row, p2, k2, p2, k2, etc. -- until you can comfortably and automatically and Zennishly complete an entire skein in 2 x 2 ribbing.

Knitting and purling are the two stitches, and when you have reached Zen mastery of them, then you can go on to the finer and fancier points, such as adding, decreasing, YO, cabling, etc.

These two exercises give mastery of the two basic stitches -- all others are just variations on these two -- as well as confidence in being able to maintain a pattern.

After that, the Zen just flows, back and forth, from yarn to fingers to soul and back again.