I took a stab at crossing something off my to do list and bought a pair of knitting needles and some yarn on the way home on Monday. Because it was just to practice on I bought really cheap acrylic yarn, which in hindsight was a mistake. Its dark purple colour made it a bit hard to see what I was doing in anything other than really strong light, and it had a tendancy to kind of lose its twist a bit, creating other sorts of frustration.
I persevered though and despite that it wasn't long before I was doing something approximating knitting. It's kind of like riding a bike, you might be a bit slow and wibbly wobbly at first but the old skills don't take too long to come back, even after about 30 years. It's messy, and I unravelled it a bunch of times and started again, but refamiliarising myself with the process was fun. I think I'll plug away at it when I have any quiet nights at home and see what happens.
Regardless of whether I take it up seriously as a hobby, it's nice to have something to do on those nights in front of the tv. Am I alone in this feeling of needing to multi-task rather than just staring at the idiot box? What hobbies do you guys have?
13 comments:
Er. knitting. What else do I need? I do most of mine in front of the The Box. I even have several projects of differring levels of difficulty, which I select from depending on how tired I am and how engrossing The Box is that evening.
I had a feeling your hobby of choice would be knitting... I mean, it's not like you're called "Witty Aircraft Modeller" or "Witty Whittler" now.
Although, how cool is the sound of Witty Whittler?!
I thought you needed a special government permission to knit before you've reached the age of 63? Cos before then you're supposed to have a life? Or is 'knitting' code for some new underground activity that can only be performed in front of the box?
Hah! Knitting is cool again, and those might be fighting words 'round these parts. There's a few young knitters that read this blog.
Wait until you can knit one, perl one, knit one, perl one - while watching the idiotbox and the needles get hot on account of the friction.
Sounds almost vaguely sordid...
Andrew, you should just get rid of the tv completely.
Burn it some kind of a lurid pagan ceremony.
I'm serious. That stuff'll rot your brain.
I'm so much more of a netnerd now, I only watch Time Team and the Wednesday night funnies. and y'know, it's hard to multi-task playing Warcrack. I've tried... it ain't easy ;-)
I only watch educational programs anyway, like "Dancing With The Stars" for example. Well, it IS educational, I now know all there is to know about heel leads and soft ball action.
I know a few places where saying "soft ball action" will get you into trouble...
Yeah, like here for example.
I started knitting a few years ago. I picked it up pretty quickly, but not to any level of skills. I was dropping stitches everywhere, and my scarf was entirely diagonal. I did enjoy it, although my fingers were sore after hours of piano playing and then my tight grip on the needle.
If I resort to watching TV (and not a movie), I'll usually take the laptop with me and chat to someone on IM or do some browsing.
Those are definitely fighting words, Bella! Tomorrow night there'll be, like, twelve knitters at our local Stitch and Bitch, and I bet the median age will be 30. You'd be surprised. Knitting's not for grannies anymore.
(Which reminds me - we'd love to have you along at the SnB, Andrew, if you feel comfortable! We're 5-7 on Thursday nights in my shop.)
Oh! But I should answer the question. Yeah, I've completely lost the ability to simply watch television anymore. I have to be doing something with my hands, and these days it's mostly knitting.
Multi-tasking while watching tv used to be the norm for me, whether it be embroidery, illumination or knitting. I suppose I still do multitask but feeding the boy isn't exactly in the same category as the craft work.
Knitting is brilliant. I'm in awe of the people who can do it without looking. And who says it's a old person's hobby! You have to do it before you get too old and your fingers stop working.
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