3KCBWDAY6: Improving Your Skillset
How far down the road to learning your craft do you believe yourself to be? Are you comfortable with what you know or are you always striving to learn new skills and add to your knowledge base? Take a look at a few knitting or crochet books and have a look at some of the skills mentioned in the patterns. Can you start your amigurumi pieces with a magic circle, have you ever tried double knitting, how’s your intarsia? If you are feeling brave, make a list of some of the skills which you have not yet tried but would like to have a go at, and perhaps even set yourself a deadline of when you’d like to have tried them by.
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Wondering how far down the crafting road I am made me pause and wonder at which craft. And by which standard, I in theory have the skills to make most if not all hand knits given time. Making them well would be an entire different story. I am sure I could make a Norwegian sweater; it does not mean it would be more than a lump of colors and yarn. Does that make me Advanced? Intermediate? Or a beginner?
Part of this is due to my analytical background. I want quantifiable statements, and definitions. Is a beginner some one who can knit and purl but does not know their way around a YO? Where do cables fall? Colorwork? Do you have some ability at all types of knitting or be a master at just a few. There is no faster way for me to put down a pattern or book then for it to say this is for xx knitter and not explain what that means. I much rather it say, this is for xx knitter you should know how to purl, yo, cable, cast on in the middle of a row etc… Or really just mention those things that you need to do. I could double knit before I could read a lace pattern correctly.
I tend to choose a project to learn a new skill and may frog said project dozens of times and curse ever having that idea, or maybe after three or four time frogging actually make progress and have something I can happily show for my work. Even if it is an uneven lump that must be frogged once again because the newer rows, after putting the project down for six months are so much better than the ones before. Or so much worse.
I have an entire shelf dedicated to pattern books, and stitch dictionaries. Which says little to all the things in my Ravelry library, and YouTube videos I have bookmarked and have watched regularly.
I’ve always been a learning personality and rather than working to some scale I’m more likely to say something along the lines of I want to knit lace. 11 shawls in 2011 sounds like a good idea. And by the end I will have at least some shawls. And i should have learned something at least. I decided I wanted to learn how to spin and signed up for a class, the same with designing lace.
So what have I done?
- Lace
- Cables
- Double Knitting
- Spinning Bulky/Worsted
- Spinning single/2ply
What do I want to get done?
- Spinning lace/fingering
- Spinning 3ply/4ply
- Spinning multi ply worsted
- Color Work Intarsia and Fair Isle
I sure there are plenty more for both lists but those are the ones that come to mind now.
