Mary-Helen asks: “How hard is knitting, really?” I agree with a lot of what she says, even as someone who teaches the occasional knitting class. When I teach, one of the biggest messages I try to get across to my students is This is easy. You can do this. It seems that a lot of women* I meet don’t rate themselves very highly. They think that because I’m knitting socks, I must be cleverer or more talented than they are. This is bullshit. It’s all in the level of self-confidence. For better or worse, when I try to pick up a new skill, I usually start with the expectation that I’m going to be good at it. Otherwise why bother? And people were knitting long before there were knitting books and podcasts and Ravelry and all that other junk. It’s just sticks and string. How hard can that be? If you can follow directions and pay attention for more than ten minutes at a time, you can learn it.
* Possibly Sexist Digression: Sadly, it really does seem to be mostly women that have this attitude. I’ve never once heard a guy – whether a knitter or not – express a belief that knitting is hard. They may think it’s girly or beneath them, but they’d never say they weren’t smart enough to do it. Guys seem to figure that if other people have worked it out, they can too. WOMEN NEED TO ADOPT THIS ATTITUDE.
Tricia
August 25, 2007 — 12:57 am
I also think, however, that there’s something about how people learn involved in all of this. I have a really hard time learning something new from a book. I need someone to talk me through it and show me how to do something, and then I need to try it and ask a million questions. I’ve bought books about knitting and crocheting and gotten nothing out of them; it was like trying to read a foreign language. So I took an intro knitting class and picked things up right away. I don’t think that knitting is hard, I never had a lack of self confidence about my ability to knit, and I consider myself a pretty smart person, but knitting is something I couldn’t easily up pick up from a book. (I also never progressed past hats and scarves and plan on taking another class to remember how to do this and get to the next level).
Ruth
August 25, 2007 — 7:49 am
Hi I’m from NZ, a learner knitter and I have the opposite problem. I’m quite happy to attempt everything and get good or bad results, but the ladies at my local knitting store think I shouldn’t attempt certain things. Oh and they think getting knitting patterns off the net is a crime. So i haven’t gone back since we had that little chat.
Kris
August 25, 2007 — 7:57 am
I’m glad, Ruth! The first yarn store I went to had the same attitude, that I needed to somehow “earn my stripes” before they’d afford me any respect as a knitter. I took my business elsewhere.
M-H
August 25, 2007 — 9:14 am
Maybe it’s the paying attention for ten minutes that’s the problem for some people… 🙂 And you go Ruth! (that’s an expat kiwi speaking!)
Manda
August 26, 2007 — 7:29 pm
It helps if you have a definite goal too. Many knitters only take up the hobby because there is a specific knit item they want that can’t be bought. For me it was a Harry Potter scarf. I didn’t have an LYS or know anyone who knitted, but I persevered, working my way through library book after library book until I had it figured out.
the other andrew
August 27, 2007 — 4:04 pm
My take on it, as one of the aforementioned guy knitters, is that it isn’t hard. I think though that absolutley one of the first things that anyone should teach is “this is how you drop a stitch” and then “this is how you fix it”. I think a lot of the nervousness comes from the thought that “oh my gawd I’m about to screw this up any moment” and if you have the confidence to fix any mistake then much of the nervousness disappears. I still have to hold my breath and have a mini freakout if I make a mistake, because as a fairly new knitter I’m still not confident at analysing and fixing mistakes. I’m getting there, but not 100% confident.