In Which the Pirate Improves.

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.

It’s a strange question for me, because while I can definitely get behind the idea of learning as a road, I don’t think of it as a journey with a destination. I’ve been knitting for seven years, spinning for four years, and crocheting for one, and in general I can do the things I set out to do.

There are most certainly new techniques and skills that I’d like to learn. I want to make a sweater that fits properly, I want to design more patterns. But then I’m comfortable with what I do know, and could probably be happy cranking out armwarmers, washcloths, and plain socks like the one here for a really long time. I don’t generally try new things just for the sake of trying them; they have to be attached to the desire for a specific project.

Spinning is a little different. My default yarn, the stuff that just comes out of my hands most naturally, is a fine single. I want to be able to spin deliberately, to pull off a beautiful woollen long-draw or to get the rhythm of chain-plying down. When I’m knitting, I can choose the yarn and needle size for the project I’m making. Spinning seems like something different altogether. I don’t have any kind of learning plan in place, but I am going to take part in this year’s Tour de Fleece and see what I learn from spinning every day for three weeks.

As for deadlines, I try not to bring them into my hobby. Every time I have, I start resenting the project. It’s not a matter of bravery for me, but of being relaxed and enjoying working with yarn for its own sake.

To read what other people are writing for today’s prompt in Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, search Google for 3KCBWDAY6or click here.