The Power Of Why

Almost all of the women I know who knit use circular needles with interchangeable tips. It makes sense. With circulars, there's a different distribution of weight and projects feel lighter and more balanced in your hands. It's easier on the body and more pleasant to knit.

I have three sets of interchangeable needles - one set that's expensive and was intended as a treat although it turned out to be nice but not my favourite, one set in birch that's perfect for slippery yarns, and one set that's nickel plated and fabulous for sticky yarns. All three sets are organized into a small binder that's carried around in my knitting bag. Before, I'd have needed a suitcase.

Thirty years ago - the last time I knit - we used straights in either longer or shorter lengths. I preferred the shorter lengths because the weight of the project was closer to the body much as with the circular needles. That's probably why I made the change so easily. Back then, circular needles were rigid with stiff cables that twisted and kinked and were generally frustrating to work with. They existed for larger projects like afghans and blankets. I avoided those projects. IMHO afghans were for crochet.

Yesterday, I started reading Amanda Lang's book The Power of Why. Here's part of the blurb - Why are some people able to get so much more done in so much less time than others? Why do some companies flourish in tough times while others fail? Why are some countries more productive than others? Instead of obsessing over working smarter, we ought to focus on the instinctive urge to question that's so natural for young children. As Lang shows, it's possible to reignite that instinct at any age and to become more innovative and productive as well as more fulfilled in our jobs and happier in our relationships. That's the power of why.

In the book, she talks about questioning the status quo and about challenging what has always been done and how it's been done. Amanda writes - How, in our everyday lives, can we press control-alt-delete to erase the assumptions that prevent us from finding a better way forward? Is it really possible to ignore what we "know," wipe the slate clean, turn our backs on the status quo and rethink basic questions about the world and about ourselves. - and then goes on to outline a system for assessing our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats - SWOT.

I'm just starting chapter four. It's a well written book with thought provoking information, a book about innovation, about productivity, about living a fulfilled life. I started thinking about knitting while reading a section on productivity. Apparently, Canada lags behind other first world nations - in particular the United States - in productivity and needs to find ways to do the work faster.

My first thought was about things that I don't believe need to be done faster - like knitting - and about innovations that have made those tasks faster - like knitting machines - that in my opinion have taken away from the joy of sliding one loop through the other and have turned a contemplative, creative, relaxing task into a get it done as fast as you can one. Quilting went that way. Suddenly, everyone was creating quilts in a day and something special was lost - in my opinion.

And then I remembered the sequence of straights to circulars to circulars with interchangeable tips and lightweight flexible cables that don't twist or kink. On these, I certainly knit faster and I enjoy knitting more. How did we (the knitting population) get from circular needles we hated to circular needles we love? Someone, somewhere, asked the question - Why?

I'm working with a turquoise alpaca yarn that's slightly fuzzy and somewhat sticky paired with a thin, self striping, sock yarn. I'm not knitting socks. I'm knitting a sweater. The sock yarn has long runs of each color which creates interesting pooling. Interesting as in the unpredictable, uneven, uncontrollable type of pooling.

The turquoise has been knit once already and reballed. The fabric it created was too loose and stretchy for me. Part of the sock yarn is still in the original skein and part of it has been knit three times already and reballed. I played with it in June while on holidays and tried different scenarios and didn't like any of them. It was paired with another yarn at that time and when I pulled them apart, they stuck together in places and the sock yarn had to be broken. Since it was knit, reballed, knit, reballed, knit, reballed, and broken, it is in nowhere near the same configuration it came off the original skein in which explains the color distribution on the back of the sweater. Where the green reappears above the predominately blue section is where I started with the unknit part of the skein. Before that is the reballed section.

The first sleeve is predominately dark. There's a bit of color in the cuff but the rest is one long pooled section of the turquoise mixed with the dark blue part of the sock yarn. It's pretty but it's not variegated. Since I was knitting in-between reading, I started thinking about how I used to create with a focus on productivity and on the finished piece and on perfection and about how I now create with a focus on the process and on exploring creative options.

At one time, I would have knit socks with sock yarn. Using sock yarn for something else is growth. In fact, combining two yarns is growth. Before, I'd have been upset about the pooling and I'd have tried to manipulate the sock yarn to create identical matching pieces - two sleeves that looked the same - two fronts that looked the same - a bottom edge the ran completely around the project and matched at the side seams. I'm not that person anymore. I looked at the pooling and decided to knit each piece, see what happens, arrange them in the best configuration, sew them together, and add details to blend. If you knew the old - one right answer - me, you'd know how clearly that illustrates what Amanda is teaching in her book. It's not too late to develop innovation, curiosity, and a questioning of the status quo. YES YES!

And I don't have enough turquoise yarn. That will be another question to answer.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - new perspectives