The Knit-Geek Questionnaire (unrelated to any swaps or secret pal exchanges)

1. What's your worst habit relating to your knitting?

Startitis. Totally. I see a pattern in a book or magazine and I HAVE to make it. NOW. Then I end up with about a zillion ufo's laying around, and yarn and needles for 11ty billion more and not enough time or energy to do anything more than knit on my traveling sock.

2. In what specific ways does your knitting make you a better person?

I focus more. I'm able to apply more care to details since learning to knit. I've also taken up a long dead interest in math.

3. How might you or your life be different if you were suddenly unable to knit?

I've thought about this. I work in insurance claims. I hear of cases all the time where people are permanently disabled. If for some reason I had to stop playing with fiber because I was physically unable to do it I'd probably slowly go insane. Then I'd rediscover that the library has books that AREN'T fiber related and have a joygasm with reading all over again.

4. If money were no object, what one yarn, and what one tool or gadget would you run out and buy first?

The Yarn. Hand Maiden Sea Silk. I am intrigued and delighted by the idea of yarn from the sea. Especially one that will make me ache less. That is technology in action right there. I also love to support Nova Scotia in any way possible. I had the luxury of making a good friend from Nova Scotia who took me on several tours of the province. If I had to pick 2 dream place to live in the world, they would be Moab UT, or Nova Scotia. There is no beauty like these places.

Gadget?? Definitely a new spinning wheel. I've been drooling over an Ashford, but if money were truly no object, it would definitely be a Golding. Probably either the Habetrot or the Flock of the Shepherdess.

5. What knitting technique or project type are you most afraid of (if any)? What, specifically, do you fear will happen when you try it?

Lace. I fear lace. I am trying to conquer it, but it kicks my arse up one block and down the other. I don't know why, but I will follow the chart to utter perfection, and somewhere, somehow, I always either gain or lose a stitch somewhere.

6. Who is/are your knitting hero(es), and why?

Stephanie Pearl McPhee. Anyone who can have this much fun with yarn, and still make the same mistakes as the rest of us, and make fun of herself, and still have such a passion is nothing short of a Goddess.

7. Do you consider knitting, for you personally, a mostly social activity, or a mostly solitary activity?

I like to knit socially, but I seem to be short on social occasions in which to knit. I really need to get a really casual SnB started somewhere around here that is not at the LYS and not the once a month Library thing.

8. Is there a particular regional tradition in knitting that you feel strongly drawn toward (e.g., Fair Isle, Scandinavian, Celtic, Orenburg lace)? Any theories as to why it calls to you?

Celtic. I love Arans and Ganseys. I can trace my ancestry there, but then, I can also trace ancestry to even more interesting places. I don't have any sound theories, but it may have something to do with masses of graceful arching cables twining and dancing across vast expanses of moss stitch being quite possibly the most lovely thing I've ever seen.

9. If you were a yarn, which yarn would you be?

A funky thick n thin crazy colored, to die for soft handspun. Think Handpainted Yarns Lettuce Violet colorway. It's lovely. Nice to work with, soft on your hands but it has some crazy character.

10. Some statistics:

(a) How many years have passed since you FIRST learned to knit?

Less than one. I learned to knit last October.

(b) How many total years have you been actively, regularly knitting (i.e., they don't have to have been in a row)?

See above

(c) how many people have you taught to knit?

4. Both of my kids. and two of the kids my hubby works with. I've had adults ask for lessons, but none of them have come through.

(d) Roughly what percentage of your FOs do you give away (to anyone besides yourself, i.e., including your immediate family)

so far? 50%. I see things going downhill soon though.

11. How often do you KIP (knit in public)? i.e., once a week, once a month, etc. Where do you do it?

Daily. I keep a sock with me at all times for the inevitable waits in lines that seem to take up the majority of my life.

12. If a genie granted you one hour to stitch-n-bitch with any one knitter, living or dead, who would you choose and why?

Stephanie Pearl McPhee. Why? See Above. I'd even bring the beer.

13. What aspect or task in knitting makes you most impatient?

seaming and weaving in ends. For reasons that I feel are completely obvious.

14. What is it about knitting that never lets you get bored with it?

Creation. I love to make things. Beautiful and useful things are even better.

15. Describe how and where you most often do your knitting - where do you sit, what is going on around you, what tools do you use and how are they (dis)organized?

fave place is on the couch. I keep the tools for that project on my little sofa table. There is usually a movie or a cd on in the background. My family is around me bugging me (hmmmm I think maybe I just figured out my lace issues).

16. Which one person is the recipient of more of your knitting than any other?

So far... me. Everyone else has gotten something fairly equally though. Hey. it's my hobby.

17. What's the oddest thing about your knitting, or yourself as a knitter?

Knitting skipped a generation for me. My grandmother was a knitter. My mother had no interest at all. I had no real knitting influences in my life. I just knew I needed to do it.

18. What do you see yourself knitting - if anything - twenty years from now?

Probably the same aran sweater that I started for hubby months ago.

19. If you were stranded on a deserted island and could have only ONE SKEIN of yarn, which yarn would it be and what would you do with it?

Some Zephyr laceweight and the Peacock Feathers shawl pattern. If I'm on a deserted island, I'd have nothing better to do than work out my lace issues. Sure the yarn would get ratty after all the times it would be frogged, but who is going to comment? The palm trees?


20. If you were allowed to own only one knitting-related book, which would it be? (you'd be free to browse others, but you couldn't keep them)

Ann Budd's Handy Book of Knitting Patterns. It has just about all the basics covered including sweaters. That and some creativity would keep me knitting happily for years.

21. Is knitting the new yoga? Why or why not?

Ewwwww. No. That's like that saying "pink is the new black". No. Just No. Pink is pink. Black is black. Yoga makes me very very sore. Knitting is knitting.

22. What important thing are you trying to put off doing whenever you knit?

The laundry.