One year of knitting

Jan 2, 2021

This month marks my one-year anniversary of learning to knit, and it’s exciting to look back and see how far I’ve come. I love having hobbies, but knitting has definitely been one of the harder ones. It has a steep learning curve, so it’s easy to get discouraged and give up early on (or…at any point, really). It was even harder to learn to knit at home without any in-person instruction, which would have, I think, changed everything. That said, with enough trial and error, willingness to start over, and good old-fashioned practice (annoying, I know!), I’ve been able to finish several projects and can now confidently call myself a competent knitter.

Here’s everything I used to learn to knit, the projects I completed this year, my favorite tools, some tips I wish I’d known sooner, and my knitting goals for 2022.

How I learned to knit

My girlfriend and I both wanted to learn to knit, and she went first, with me a week or so behind her. We both used my friend Alanna’s book, How to Knit a Hat (also on Bookshop, but currently sold out), plus YouTube videos (which is something Alanna suggests doing in the book). Because my gf started before I did, I was able to get help from her, whereas she fully taught herself without anyone else to show her.

We both finished the hat and then moved on to other projects.

Completed knitting projects 2021

Novice sweater

Knitting a whole-ass sweater felt like a huge step up after just doing a hat, and yet…it was the perfect step up! On my first attempt, I misread a step fairly early on in the pattern (it involved the increases at the yoke, and where you should start measuring the overall length) and didn’t really see a way to undo it. So I just started over! I remember being super bummed at the time, but it taught me an important lesson: that it’s often way easier to just start over, and that projects almost always look considerably better the second time around, even if it’s just redoing a cast-on or a cuff.

I don’t remember everything I worked on right after this one, but I know I attempted a Wool & the Gang sweater (the pattern is definitely not that hard, but I think I had problems because my yarn wasn’t quite the right weight and I was going off script in other ways, which was a bad idea); at least one hat; and a second novice sweater holding three strands of yarn in three different colors. None of these worked out, which was honestly fine! I’ve found I’m more of a “knitting is a journey, not a destination” knitter, and it was helpful to just practice, to get better at reading patterns (one of the hardest parts of knitting tbh), and to get practice buying yarn and needles and making sense of how they felt in my hands.

Lucky dog sweater

The next project I (technically) completed was a dog sweater from Purl Soho. It was way, way harder than I expected, or than a dog sweater has any right to be. It involved a ton of short rows using the wrap-and-turn technique, which is annoying…but it turned out to be great, in a way, because it was a small project and the instructions were well-written compared to most patterns that utilize short rows. I also really liked the Lion Brand Yarn Wool-Ease Thick and Quick yarn; this color is Coney Island, but I also bought it in Dreamcatcher, which I used on a bunch of the projects I didn’t finish around this time. It’s fairly inexpensive but feels nice in your hands, is super easy to knit with, and always a lot better than I expect it to.

I worked so hard on this sweater and all its fiddly little short rows, only to put it on Chuck and realize it didn’t fit quite right (it was too long in the neck). He made it very clear how much he hated wearing it, so I didn’t bother to fix it/redo it.

Junior novice sweater

After a longish break (vaccinated summer was…not the knitting zone), we got back into knitting again in August. I had a couple projects going around this time, but this is the first one I finished. And this one convinced me that the way to get better at knitting and actually finish projects (which helps you stay motivated) is to knit items for babies/children. This sweater, which I knit for my friend Julia’s daughter’s first birthday in October, utilizes literally the exact same techniques as the adult novice sweater, but it went so much faster. As part of the birthday gift, my gf knit the adult version for Julia so they had matching ones.

We used Berocco Ultra Alpaca Chunky yarn for both of these, a brand/weight that has become one of my favorites.

I actually knit this one from beginning to end twice! The first version, which I was thinking of as a prototype since I wasn’t going to be able to try it on the baby first, didn’t fit — the neck was too tight, and that wasn’t really something I could fix. So I just redid it and, again, didn’t regret that at all; it looked better the second time, and it was a quick enough project that I didn’t feel too precious about it, or like I’d wasted a ton of time.

This is the first project I knit swatches for; I learned that I knit very tight and need to make adjustments to patterns accordingly. It’s also the first project that I blocked, a step that I now love and swear by.

Bulky dog turtleneck sweater

This is another dog sweater that calls for a very fussy technique; in this case, it was the i-cord cast-on that took like a year off my life, and for no good reason — he’s a dog, he doesn’t need a fancy cast-on! But I’d prefer to learn on a dog sweater than a human sweater.

(BTW, this is that Lion Brand Wool Ease yarn again; this time, the color is Fairy.)

This entire sweater is supposed to be ribbed, but I decided to just do the neck ribbing and then knit the rest, and I’m glad I did. He doesn’t love the finished sweater, and ribbing the whole thing just…would not have been worth the extra time it would have taken.

Aftenstocking

At the beginning of 2021, my girlfriend and I made one resolution: To be able to knit these stockings by Christmastime. At the time, it felt impossible. Come fall, it felt….very doable, but then it turned out to be kind of a pain in the ass! I think it was because of how the pattern is written, the fact that you need very small circular needles to start, and the fact that using short rows to make a heel is just…an endeavor.

It took me so long to figure out the heel turn (I redid it at least four times, probably more?) and when I finally got it right and then finished the whole stocking, it looked…bad. Why was the toe SO STUMPY???

I still don’t know!! But through the miracle of blocking and then felting — which happened at midnight on Christmas Eve lolsob — the stocking actually ended up looking pretty good.

And with that, my first year of knitting came to an end! There was one more big sweater that I started in September that I thought I’d be able to finish by the end of the year. In the end, I got slowed down because I had to learn new techniques (like sewing on sleeves) and because of some annoying/avoidable mistakes (e.g., using the wrong size needles on the sleeves, which meant they were too small). I finally made it to the home stretch, but I’m having a terrible time picking up the stitches for the neckline, so I’ve set it aside and will go back to it later. I was sick of it and needed a break.

Tools

There are so, so many tools for knitters and it’s impossible to list all my favorites (and it’s so personal anyway), but there are a few that really made a difference this year:

Bags within bags

I swear by my Baggu baby bag + smaller individual zipper bags. Also, you won’t regret having tiny scissors and a tiny tape measure in your bag.

Plastic stitch markers

I think my girlfriend bought this case of colorful plastic stitch markers ($8.99 from Amazon) very early on in our knitting journey, and they are one of our most-used and most-loved items. I’ve tried some others in the time since, and honestly, the hot Cocoknits brass ones have nothing on these plastic ones. Truly an MVP.

A stitch counter

I finally bought myself a knitting counter this fall, and I don’t know what took me so long! (I was marking down a tally with a pencil and paper this whole time.) I really like the $9 metal one I have, and my girlfriend loves the $9 Clover one. (Hers makes the most satisfying sound every time she advances it.) I’ve also been experimenting with counting apps; sometimes you need to have two counters going at once, and an app is really helpful for that. I downloaded a bunch of different ones to try, and Count That Now is my favorite.

A knitting notebook

Another major “What took me so long?” addition to my life. More here.

A few tips I swear by

IG: @kiyanaknits

In no particular order, here are some of the things I wish I’d known/really understood as a beginner.

• You have to like the yarn you’re using! You definitely don’t need fancy yarn, especially when you’re starting out, but you should really like looking at it (because you’re going to be stuck with it for a while). If you’ve done a few rows and are asking yourself the whole time if you really like the color or are already regretting choosing it, just stop and start over with a different color.

• I have really never regretted starting something over when I realized I’ve made a mistake or something is looking loose/bad/etc. Pretty much everything looks better on a second pass. 

• If something isn’t looking good and you’re stressed about it, put it away for a while and come back to it. Most things look better with fresh eyes/once you’ve zoomed out and are looking at the entire project. And if they still look bad, well, see above tip about starting over.

• A lot of surface mistakes can be “fixed in post” — aka when you’re all done. For example, blocking solves a huge amount of problems (e.g., you’ve got some stitches that are looking a little funky), and underarm holes can easily be sewn together when you’re done.

• Knitting slower and reading the patterns slower would have solved like 75% of my knitting problems in the past year.

• My girlfriend and I store all of our knitting patterns in a shared Google Drive folder so we can easily find them/re-print them later. We both always work from a printed pattern, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to pull up the pattern on your phone when you’re in a store, or look up a specific instruction on your phone if the pattern is kind of out of reach.

• Most local knitting stores have some form of IRL classes/office hours/etc. where you can get personalized help and ask questions about your projects. (So, for example, if it had been safe to go IRL in December, I would have definitely done that for the stocking heel trouble I was having.)

• If you find a YouTube tutorial you really like, save it to a playlist! You’ll probably need to reference it again in the future, and not all YouTube tutorials are created equal.

• Take more notes than you think you’ll need to; you won’t remember things as well as you think you will, not even the things that are giving you a ton of grief.

• Yarn is a great souvenir! During the trips my girlfriend and I took this fall, we found yarn stores and picked out yarn as a special souvenir from the trip.

2022 knitting goals

IG: @kiyanaknits

Heading into the new year, here are my big knitting goals:

Learn to knit continental. I think this style of knitting will allow me to knit a lot faster and more comfortably. I’ve actually already started learning and it turned out to be…a lot easier than I expected? I think it’s also helping me adjust my tension/make up for the fact that I’m knitting too tight, which is something I really needed to correct, so I’m thrilled.

Knit with blocks of color. This is this year’s stocking goal, aka a goal my girlfriend and I both want to do. This might look like intarsia or a Fair Isle…we’ll see! For me, this is very much a Q4 goal.

Knit an object of some sort. I recently discovered the big world of knit animals, and realized there are tons of other non-clothing items one can knit (like Christmas decorations or vegetables). I think this is going to be something I really enjoy — it has the “you can complete a whole project faster” effect you get with kids’ clothes, but is more immediately useful to me personally. I actually impulse-knit a bird today, so technically I can already cross this goal off already, but I want to properly invest in it and get good enough at it to be able gift things (or at least decorate my Christmas tree).

Annnd that’s a wrap on my first year of knitting! I was going to say something here about how it’s been really good for my mental health, a nice alternative to looking my phone and a good thing to do when you’re feeling anxious… but the reality is that I regularly declare that I hate it, and my girlfriend and I reference this TikTok all the time when we’re knitting. So ya know… it has its moments. 🧶

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My knitting notebook

One of the more useful things I did in the latter half of my first year of knitting was get a small notebook to dedicate to knitting projects. Knitting involves way more math and counting than I’d like it to, and I often found myself tallying counts on the printed pattern itself — which is fine, I guess, but not ideal, especially because my patterns tend to get really tattered while I’m working so they don’t serve as a great record of a project. I also wanted to better record details like the specific yarn and needles I was using and how long each project was taking me. So I finally got a little Rollbahn spiral notebook to keep in my knitting bag, and it’s changed my life.

I set up a table of contents on the first page, and have added page numbers to each subsequent page. Each project gets its own page (back and front). At the top of each project page, I write this:

Started:
Completed:
Yarn

Skeins:

Needles:

Below that, I write Notes: and then use the rest of the page to jot down anything that feels relevant; it might be the date I started a specific component (like a sleeve) or it might be a simple mistake or big source of frustration that I want to remember in case I redo the project later. (I’ve learned the hard way that I…will not remember these things as well as I think I will.) I’ve also been trying to note when I learn a new skill or technique — basically, instead of celebrating the total number of projects I do, I want to highlight all of the things I’m learning, even when I do a project that I don’t end up finishing or really liking.

It’s such a small, obvious thing but it’s been so helpful! 🧶

More journaling content that might be of interest: Starting a house journal, how to start and keep a journal during a pandemic (or any time of major upheaval), the Hobonichi Techo planner, and my book!

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Bags within bags!

Today I’m here to sing the praises of an organizational system I creatively refer to as “bags within bags,” which I’ve been using to keep several aspects of my life organized for the past few months.

I don’t normally carry a very big bag (if I carry one at all), but when I do carry a tote for whatever reason, I really hate having all my stuff just...floating around in it. I don’t want to have to root around for something, wondering the whole time if I remembered to bring it with me; I want to be able to find it quickly and easily so I can move on with my life! This became a problem over the summer, when we started going to the beach regularly. I wanted to be able to easily grab things like chapstick, car keys, hand sanitizer, etc. and not worry about anything spilling or getting lost. So I decided I’d just buy a couple of small mesh travel pouches…but the thing that made the most sense at the time turned out to be a set of 18 (!!!) zipper mesh bags of varying sizes that cost $12.99 on Amazon.

This turned out to be an incredible purchase, which I didn’t really expect. The smaller pouches did exactly what I needed them to do, and the larger sizes (which are really quite sizable) meant I could put bigger bottles of sunscreen or bug spray in their own bag as well. Great! My beach bag problem was perfectly solved! But the mesh bags really began to shine when I picked up knitting again. 

After a few weeks of working on a couple of different knitting projects at once, I realized I needed a better way to corral all my stuff and not have half-knitted sweaters perched on every flat surface. This led me to the baby Baggu bag ($10 from Baggu or Amazon) which is the perfect size for 1–2 knitting projects. (It’s smaller than your standard canvas tote, but bigger than a brown paper lunch bag.) The baby Baggu made it easier to just keep the needles, yarn, and instructions I needed close at hand, and to easily move everything from, say, the bedroom to the living room or up to the roof, or wherever I felt like knitting on a given day.

But I still had the problem of a lot of small loose items (a measuring tape, knitting markers, tiny scissors, crochet hook, etc.) floating around the bottom of the bag. So I pulled out some of the extra mesh bags I had and organized everything in the baby Baggu. The size 9 and 10 needles of varying lengths I was using for one project went into one mesh bag, while the size 4 and 6 needles I needed for another project went in their own — so I no longer had to sort through all my needles to find just the size 9 40 cm circular needles. I put my needle stoppers (which I’ve found are weirdly hard to keep track of) in a small bag of their own, and put my remaining tools in their own bag.

This new system was nothing short of life-changing. 

When my girlfriend and I drove up to Maine last week, we used more of the mesh bags (because, remember, the set came with 18 bags) for all of our toiletries/products, as well as things we wanted to have handy at all times (like phone chargers, contacts, and bandaids). I took the Fjallraven Kanken backpack I bought for the trip with me everywhere, and being able to throw the appropriate mini bags into it depending on where we were going/what we needed was so helpful. And on the couple of occasions when I wanted to take my knitting out with me, I just put the single project I was focusing on into the Fjallraven, and then added the small mesh bag with all of my tools in case of a knitting emergency. 

Being far from home/driving for 10+ hours/out all day in a national park for the first time was mildly nerve-wracking, and it was a huge relief to not be stressed about where my car keys, eye drops, and granola bars were. But even when I’m just knitting at home, it’s just been so nice to know where all my shit is.

Get the mesh bags from Amazon for $12.99 and the baby Baggu bag for $10 from Baggu or Amazon. 🎒

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A case for having activities instead of hobbies

Friends! Today we have a post from Terri Pous, who was my first hire at BuzzFeed, and whose work I had the pleasure of editing every day for three years. Like me, she lives by the mantra ABR (always be recommending). —Rachel ✨

Image: Amit Gupta / Flickr Creative Commons

One of my least favorite questions is, “So, what do you for fun?” I always imagine people expect me to talk about a stamp collection, or a passion for knitting, or some other kind of hobby that conveniently fills time and gives you something to show for it. But I’m not a hobby person; I much prefer activities.

And, I get it: depending on your definition of “hobby,” activities could easily count as the same thing. To me, though, all hobbies are activities, but not all activities are hobbies. Lying on the grass in the park on a nice day? Activity! Going to the park every weekend with your Nat Geo field guide to identify the birds chirping loudly overhead? Hobby!

I like that activities have almost no barrier to entry. It’s daunting to begin a hobby — the time, skill, or effort involved can be enough to stop you before you even buy that calligraphy set. A hobby is something you craft and pursue and, if you’re lucky, perfect over time. It’s often insular, something you could parlay into a side hustle (though you don’t have to). And unless you know something I don’t (and if you do, please @ me), you can’t really make a side hustle out of planning trips to the botanical gardens with friends.

But activities! God, I love them. If Doing Things is a personality trait, then I have it. It’s probably because I live in New York, concrete jungle wet dream tomato AND home of so. many. ‘tivities. You can just pick up and do almost any activity whenever you want to do it, and a lot of them cost zero money. That’s not to say you can’t try refining them the way you would a hobby, but you don’t have to to get enjoyment out of them. They’re no-maintenance and low-stress. So much of life is about staying on brand or doing things with purpose, but activities exist just for sheer enjoyment, whatever that means for you. Love being outside? There’s an activity for that! Can’t get enough of shoveling foodstuffs into your piehole? You can make an activity out of that, too! Activities are so easy to collect and return to again and again, which is a big reason why I’ll always prefer them over hobbies.

Here are some of my personal faves, ones that even a committed extrovert like me doesn’t mind doing alone:

• Trying new restaurants (and then providing copious suggestions when people ask for recommendations).

  I’ve started logging all of my restaurant visits into a Google spreadsheet, so you could argue that I’m hobb-ifying this activity.
  

• Going to Broadway shows.

  Once I realized you don’t have to pay $100+ to enjoy arguably the best activity New York City has to offer, I started going to a lot more shows. I use TodayTix, Stubhub, TDF, and the IRL TKTS booth. And when I do decide to pay full price, I go to the box office in person to avoid those $14 “convenience” fees.
  

• Visiting museums.

  Thanks to the NYC ID, I can get into a lot of museums and cultural institutions for free. But I’d willingly spend weekday afternoons at museums even if I had to pay full price. A few of my faves: The Met, the Transit Museum, the Natural History Museum, the New-York Historical Society, the Museum of the City of New York, the Guggenheim, the Cooper Hewitt. I need to go the Frick. I have lots of time to do it now!
  

• Attending live podcast recordings.

  I’m a maje podcast junkie, and luckily, a lot of them sometimes set up shop at venues like The Bell House, Caveat, and Union Hall to do it live. I’ve seen Who? Weekly, WTF with Marc Maron, Ask Me Another (I was a contestant on that one, too), Why Your Train is F*cked, and several more in person.
  

• Playing bar trivia.

  I’m a big ‘ole nerd, which is why this is probably my fave ‘tivity. I try to play every week at Gael Pub on the Upper East Side (where I used to host), and even when we don’t win, I love ~ learning new things ~. It sounds cheesy, but this activity has taught me so much about playing with a team and meeting new people! Win win!
  

• Reading, especially non-fiction books.

  Again, I’m a well-established nerd, so it’s no surprise that I love hunkering down with a good biography of Theodore Roosevelt. It’s not a revolutionary activity, but it is a good way to pack some new tidbits into my spaghetti brain and then regurgitate them to anyone within a 10-foot radius.
  

• Doing jigsaw puzzles.

  Some people are intimidated by puzzles and would probably place them squarely into the “hobbies” category, but I disagree! They’re an activity for me, one best done while watching Catastrophe or Instant Hotel in the background. If you’re freaked out at the prospect of a 1,000-piecer, try a 250 and tell me it wasn’t fun, low-key, and something you want to do over and over again for no reason other than sheer enjoyment.
  

• Hosting (and/or coordinating) group hangouts.

  I’m talking game nights, dinner parties, potlucks, recipe clubs, you name it. I love getting people together with a purpose (I’m as fun as I sound), especially if there’s food involved.
  

• Playing board games.

  See above. I recently went to a board game cafe with a friend, and while we failed miserably at learning a new game and instead played Guess Who? and Candyland, it was still a ton of fun and a reminder of how great board games are. Some of my favorites are Codenames and Ticket to Ride, and I’m eager to learn backgammon, Settlers of Catan, and Mahjong.
  

• Watching documentaries.
  I’m not a huge movie or TV person, but if there’s a good documentary, I’ll eat it up (and then proselytize about it to everyone I know). Some good ones I’ve seen: Seeing Allred, 20 Feet from Stardom, Three Identical Strangers, Icarus, Going Clear.
  

• Just strollin’.
  A big advantage of living in New York (and suddenly having lots of free time) is being able to walk outside and see where your feet take you. Even though we’re currently in the midst of a fool’s spring, I’ll still pick a destination or neighborhood or errand, and just stroll around at a leisurely pace to get there. It’s a perfect way to listen to a podcast, catch up with someone on the phone, or just take out the earbuds and take in your surroundings. It’s not exactly nature, but it’s as close as New York gets, so I’ll take it. ✨
  

Terri Pous is a writer, editor, two-day Jeopardy! champ, and an Aries. She loves abbrevs, reality TV, obscure facts about the US presidents, and the 🥴 emoji. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @terripous, and on sidewalks @ petting every dog.

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Don't sleep on friendship bracelets as a hobby

After I attended The Compact summer camp last summer, I got very into making friendship bracelets. Using this Honestly WTF tutorial along with an $8 pattern I downloaded from Purl Soho, I’d put my phone in airplane mode, put on an episode of Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America's Best Idea *, and braid until my brain didn’t feel on fire anymore.

If you’re looking for a new hobby or activity, making friendship bracelets is a good one! Here are a bunch of reasons I enjoy it so much:

• The action itself — the braiding/knotting/etc. — is very soothing and meditative.

• You don’t have to be creative or crafty to be good at it.

• It’s cheap! You can make several bracelets for under $10, and possibly under $5.

• The fact that it’s so inexpensive / that embroidery floss is so plentiful means there’s a lot less pressure to make every bracelet perfect, or to even finish. More than a few times now, I’ve started a bracelet and then messed it up, or got halfway done and decided I didn’t like the colors and I just...abandoned ship. I’ve also finished bracelets and not done anything with them afterward. You don’t have to give it to a friend or wear it yourself. Knowing this makes it easier to just sit down and do it, particularly if you’re a uhhhh….slightly-uptight perfectionist who hates being bad at things.

• But also: friendship bracelets are honestly pretty cute, especially if you choose a more ~sophisticated~ color palette.

• It’s a very portable hobby and the supplies don’t take up a lot of space.

• You can do it outside! I’ve spent a few truly lovely afternoons sitting outside on a patio, chatting with good people while working on a friendship bracelet.

• It’s a great travel hobby/activity. If you’re planning, say, a weekend at a cabin or some kind of family trip and need some fun and light activities to do by a fireplace or on a front porch, or for ~ family-friendly ~ things to do, this is a good one. You can stock up on a bunch of embroidery floss and a grab a pack of safety pins before you go and you’re...pretty much set. (You may also want to pack a small pair of scissors.) I like it for trips because you can do it alone (while, say, everyone else is reading or playing a game) or a bunch of people can do it as a group. In my experience, it’s something that most people haven’t done since they were young, so they don’t realize how fun it can be...but once they get going, they find themselves really enjoying it and/or easily being able to execute complicated patterns they mastered when they were tweens.

• It’s a great way to not be on your phone. If you want to stop scrolling through Instagram or Twitter, you can pick up a friendship bracelet in progress and work on that for a little while.

Get the tutorials: DIY Friendship Bracelet, Honestly WTF and Classic Friendship Bracelet Pattern, $8 from Purl Soho. Also, I haven’t mastered this yet, but it’s lovely: Monochrome Friendship Bracelets, Purl Soho.

PS If you want to make your bracelets a little sturdier / less likely to fade, you can use knotting cord instead of embroidery floss.

*I definitely need to write a separate post on why Ken Burns documentaries are good shit. ✨

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