Monday, April 9, 2018

A to Z Challenge -The Letter H - I Am A Knitting Hoarder

I am participating in the “April Blogging From A to Z Challenge” for 2018.  Except for Sundays, but starting with Sunday April 1, I will be writing a post each day in April.  Working through the alphabet, by the end of the challenge I will have posted 26 writings.  




Hoarding

I am an avid knitter.   Okay, to be more precise I am an obsessive knitter.  I knit every day.
But I am not here on H day to write about knitting.  Because, you know K day is coming up soon and I don’t want to waste good K material on H day.
But there is a correlation between my H word and knitting.

For those of you who are not obsessives, you might not understand what I am about to tell you.   But trust me, I would say this topic, this H topic, can apply to anyone who is obsessive about their passion, or passionate about their obsession.  It works either way.

For I believe it to be a fact that most obsessions require stuff.   You know I’m right.   You not only have to have the right gadgets and tools, you absolutely need to have more than one of each.

I will admit that over the years of my life I’ve had more than one obsession.  For instance there was the tennis phase.  And of course, how can one play tennis without a racket and a spare racket and covers for the rackets. You need the right bag, proper tennis shoes and let’s not get started on the outfits.

But today I want to tell you about the stuff my current obsession, which happens to be knitting, requires.

But let me back up, just a bit.  When I first re-discovered my love of knitting I would shop for my stuff at the big box stores.  I started out with one skien of yarn and a pair of knitting needles.  But I quickly realized that I also needed a pair of scissors, a darning needle and something called stitch markers.  If I wanted to do the cable stitch, I needed cable stitch holder.  If I wanted to make something larger than a scarf, I needed needles with a wire connected to them so they could hold more stitches. Then I realized that I needed a bag to hold all of the stuff.
As a beginner I would work on one project at a time.  So all of my stuff would fit nicely and neatly into one bag.
One day as I was browsing around the internet for a pattern to knit a hat, I came across a site called *Ravelry. That’s when my little knitting corner exploded wide open to the WWK.  The Wide World Of Knitting.


*Ravelry has 7,810,192 registered users from countries from all over the world.  929,442 Ravelers have been active during the last 30 days.

That’s a large community!  A community with new ideas, new patterns, new yarns,  new bags, and just lots of new stuff. 

Actually, when I started my blog, the first followers of my blog were knitters. 

Ravelry led me to the makers of ETSY who create all of the stuff one obsessive knitter can possibly need and absolutely must have! 

And finally my journey along the WWK led me to audio and video knitting podcasts where the hosts of these shows enable we obsessives by showing off the latest yarn they acquired, the newest pattern they are knitting, the best knitting needles they have discovered and the cutest project bags they are using to hold all of their new stuff. 

The one knitting bag I started off with has grown to a dozen bags.  Five of those bags hold “in progress” projects.   I have a closet with bins of yarn and boxes filled with needles and gadgets.

My name is Lynda and I am a Knitting Hoarder!




6 comments:

  1. You really don't need a cable needle for cabling. I've been knitting cables without a cable needle for several years now. It makes it go that much quicker. (That being said, I do have three cable needles as well as countless double pointed needles that can do the job in a pinch.)

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    2. I don’t have a lot of experience with cabling. But I’ll have to check out how to do it without a cable needle. I would imagine dpn’s would work just as well.

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  2. A fun poat! I've gone through 2 knitting phases, which corresponded with kiddies being born and several years of very cold winters so friends and family members needs scarves.

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    1. Thank you! I started knitting when I was pregnant with my first also. I have found it to be a giving craft.

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  3. I have never had the pleasure of a closet like yours, but I had a lot of "stuff" for knitting until we decided to sell the house and move. I hope you never have to move or pay to store all your stash, haha. Love Ravelry too!
    http://shirleyjdietz.com/2018/04/23/a-to-z-selling-our-house-letter-t

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