365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Sunday, February 11, 2018
The Old Dog
Day 121: Here's living proof that old dogs can learn new tricks if they have the proper motivation. Several days ago, I was browsing YouTube for something knitting-related and stumbled across several tutorials for "woven knitting," a system of preventing the floats common in working Fair Isle. Fair Isle has never been a favourite with me because of the constant need to untangle strands of yarn from skeins or bobbins, and I've always worked it two-handed in a combination of Continental/English (American) styles. I wasn't sure if "woven knitting" would prevent that, so I watched several of the videos until I chanced upon one which was pure Continental. I took a break from making hats for Joppa Flats in order to practice the technique, and when I was finally comfortable with manipulating two strands at the same time on two fingers of my left hand, I drafted a pattern and settled into making a Fair Isle hat. This method permits you to catch every other stitch without creating a yarn nightmare of the strands, and it works up almost as quickly as straight Continental. I think this old dog deserves a treat!
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