Nevers

Have you ever caught yourself starting a firm statement with the words “I would never”?

I would never live in the country/city.

I will never have pets.

I will never pick up expensive hobbies.

I will never let my children _____.

I tend to wear a naive floppy sun hat along with my rose-colored glasses, so I default easily into valuing an idealized version of life where things stay calm, predictable, and well-ordered, according to my own preferences and plans, of course.

In this utterly fictional world, it’s easy to make ridiculous statements like “I would never,” because I’m operating under the delusion that I’m in control of everything and it’s all humming along swimmingly. All my ducks are in a row, everyone is healthy, wealthy, and wise, and nothing ever breaks or malfunctions.

It’s a very good thing I’m not in charge. Aside from the enormous arrogance required for me to live and think that way, it sounds kind of boring, doesn’t it? Thankfully, life doesn’t work according to anyone’s attitudinal fashion accessories.

So, what “nevers” got flipped recently? Here are a few:

Never #1: Camping

We stayed in a lovely lodge in Colorado recently. It had multiple bedrooms, a couple shared bathrooms, a shared kitchen and a shared common eating space. It wasn’t designed for luxury by any means, but it was comfortable and exactly perfect for what our family needed. At one point, I looked at Greg and said, “This is as close to camping as I ever want to get.”

God must have been laughing, because we just finished setting up an RV near his hometown to have a home base nearer his parents. My sister-in-law asked if I was enjoying the camper and if I’d always wanted one. Yes, I’m enjoying the novelty and (most of) the learning of it, and no! This was on the never list!

It will open up lots of possibilities in the future, we hope, but it was certainly not in the plans!

Never #2: The Chickens

Confession time: I love animals. I do. Mostly from a safe distance. When I was little and walked to and from school, I had to pass a few yards with very scary dogs in them. They made an impression! I’m allergic to cats. The only pets I grew up with were the occasional fish. So I didn’t spend a lot of idyllic time around animals growing up and in my earlier adult years and didn’t plan to do so later.

I learned to love a most excellent black Lab, Daisy, who is currently chasing squirrels pain-free wherever Official Good Girls go after their time here on Earth. I’ve been adopted by Zoey and Maewyn, two more excellent Official Good Girls who were part of the package deal I got with Greg.

I love them. I just can’t forget that they’re animals, and every once in a while, they act like animals rather than the sensitive, deep-thinking, rational creatures they present themselves to be. If my sweet Zoey and Maewyn can get a wild hair during a random full moon and go off on each other like an agent from the Evil Zombie Squirrel Apocalypse Squad told each one the other was a spy, how much less can I trust the sanity of any other creature?

Especially…a broody chicken sitting on an egg I need to gather.

Listen, I understand that a chicken is small and looks harmless. I get that “chicken” doesn’t usually top the list of traditionally frightening animals. But when it starts hissing at you and jabbing pointy parts aggressively in the direction of your exposed flesh, you might come around to my way of thinking.

I texted my sister-in-law, who has chickens, for advice. I called the IT desk (my mother-in-law), a certified country girl, who took pity on the town girl and tactfully encouraged me to basically borrow a nearby spine if I needed one and show the chicken who was boss.

I got the blessed egg.

I sent a picture to my sister-in-law to show her my victory. She was encouraging and supportive, as always. My stinky little brother nabbed the picture, labeled it “Rookie” and put it by a picture of my sister-in-law labelled “Veteran” just to tweak me. Because that’s what stinky little brothers do. He may be a wonderful human being with a lovely family who does good work and serves people seven days a week, but he was and always will be my stinky little brother and feel obligated to tweak me at every opportunity.

I’ve gotten several more eggs since. I’m now a substitute farm chore girl when needed, feeding donkeys and cats as well as the chickens. And you know what else? I really like the chickens. There’s something oddly soothing about them, even Miss Broody Britches.

I’m afraid flipping this “never” may have long-term effects. Having chickens may have gone from “never” to “goal.”

Never #3: Pattern Notes

After reporting a general lack of knitting progress last week, I was able to make some good headway on the Amaryllis sweater this week. I’ve got one sleeve done and all the decreasing done on the second sleeve. So there’s a bit more on that second sleeve to go, and then the buttonless button band that will keep the whole business from rolling in like it’s doing in the picture below.

When I was a younger knitter, I was meticulous about documenting every single round of anything that had decreases. I wanted to be sure I followed the directions precisely, especially if I needed to knit two matching pieces, like sleeves. The world’s foundations might crumble, I feared, if I knit an extra plain round between decrease rounds.

My printed patterns were therefore covered with checkmarks and hashmarks, and generally looked like a dog’s breakfast by the time I was done with them. More significantly, I was tied tightly to a printed pattern and the notes I scribbled on it.

Nowadays, my practicality wars with my perfectionistic tendencies. Does it really make a huge difference to have an accidental extra plain row, especially when the yarn weight is small? No. If you’re knitting for the State Fair, by all means, take notes, be obsessively careful, and strive for perfection. If you’re knitting primarily for utility, then that extra row is not going to hurt anyone.

I’ve wanted to move away from a system that required printing out every pattern I use. At the same time, I’ve tried to lighten my load when it comes to how many notions I lug around. I am sure I own approximately eleventy hundred stitch markers. I can lay my hands on about five at any given time. If I can figure out a way to knit without needing them, you can bet I’ll do it.

For these sleeves, I ignored my “never lose track of where you are in a pattern” rule in favor of being more free of paper, pen, and stitch markers.

The Tail Marker Method for Knitting in the Round

When I attached the yarn to start the sleeve, I intentionally left a long tail. The tail is my round marker. I usually use the magic loop method to knit in the round, and my tail marker method also works well to mark the beginning of rounds when using the magic loop. (Traditional markers have a tendency to slip off the end at the beginning/end of the round. You can solve this by putting the marker after the first stitch of the round rather than before the first stitch, but the tail marker method works, too, and you don’t have to move it every round unless you want to.)

I lay the tail so it comes out to hang on the right side of the garment between the last stitch of the old round and the first stitch of the new round. For the sweater sleeve, I left it in place until after I completed the first decrease round, and then I pulled it back through the garment (through the space it came through) and then laid it between the last stitch of the decrease round and the first stitch of the plain round.

Then I knit plain rounds until I had the correct number of “ladders” above the tail marker, corresponding to the number of plain knit rounds called for in the pattern. I did the next decrease round, moved the tail marker, and then continued with the process, counting “ladders” above the tail marker.

This allowed me to skip making hash marks for every plain round. This simple stockinette sleeve made it easy to count decrease rounds, as well, so I really didn’t have to do any marking on a paper pattern at all.

It’s a good method for me to balance perfectionism with practicality, and another “never” to wave on its way.

Have you changed your mind about a “never” recently? I’d love to hear about it!

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J