Not Much But I Manage

I'm not a brilliant knitter. Competent, yes - usually, anyway. I can work cables, have actually completed several projects, and can read a chart once I am sure which way is right side up.

But  I have grown resigned to needing three starts on any pattern before I get it right. My sisters and kids would testify that my colour sense should be taken away from me lest I hurt myself. I'm not fast, either. A friend gave me a wonderfully easy hat pattern over Christmas, assuring me that she usually knocked one out in about 90 minutes: it took me 4 hours. But 4 hours to complete an entire project was incredibly fast for me, and my hat was just as cute as hers always are. I managed to complete 3 of them before Christmas morning, too, and enjoyed every moment of the work.

If I have any knitting wisdom to impart, therefore (which is pretty unlikely anyway), it is from the viewpoint of the ordinary knitter. Of whom, I am sure, there are lots and lots. We're not casual knitters - our knitting matters as much to us as the award winners' does to them - but we are the ones who really do have to double-check their list of stitch definitions now and then. The ones who can take a year to finish a sweater. The ones who approach really iconic knitting - socks, or mittens, or cable work - with trepidation and hyperventilation.

None of which matters to the knitting, thank goodness. Yarn is a gracious hostess, and always seems happy with whatever we bring to it.