Starting a pair of gloves
I’ve taken up knitting again. Last year, I had to put it aside after my wrists and hands started hurting. The pain seemed to be related to Lyme disease, which I had last summer and the symptoms lingered long after the doctors shook their heads and said, “Sorry, there’s nothing more Western medicine can do, see an acupunturist.”
My acupuncturist was great, and totally helped with my wrist pain and exhaustion and the other lingering Lyme issues. Go, go, mysterious alternative medicine.
But I still had to lay down my knitting needles for an entire winter.
Picking them up again this fall felt downright naughty. I may have indulged in some obscenely soft silk-wool blended yarn (malabrigo DK, for you knitting geeks) for the occasion.
With it, I made my first pair of gloves. They were fingerless gloves, for a friend. I learned a bunch of new skills to make them, and the end result was a mash-up of three different patterns. They were the most complicated thing I have ever knit.
As soon as I finished them I started a new pair with an even more challenging pattern (knucks). These ones have little half-fingers. If they go well, I’ll probably make some actual full-on gloves-with-fingers for my next trick.
A trick I will execute a little more slowly. I think my wrists can handle knitting this winter, but it’s clear that knitting isn’t exactly making them stronger and better. Meh. I’d hoped the wrist pain was gone for good when it finally cleared up last summer, but alas. Knitting: not the most joint-friendly hobby in the best circumstances.
It still feels great to be doing it again. I realized this fall that I’ve been knitting for almost ten years. I still think of it as my new hobby, but it’s totally not. Which makes it seem a little odd that I’ve never made anything much more complex than a scarf until this year. I learned to knit really easily, in one 15 minute lesson, and then never bothered to get any better for a long, long time.
I’m grateful to be learning more now, to have access to this simple meditation with my hands and to be able to make beautiful warm things. It’s like making love manifest with my fingers. In a totally g-rated way.
I just need to be careful not to overdo it. Duly noted.
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