You know you're getting on a bit when you sit down to watch a tv programme and wake up to find that you've slept through most of it. Thank heaven for the I Player, although watching day time tv remains my dirty little secret! So, I've taken to knitting while watching tv, using the theory that, you can't fall asleep while your hands are busy. It may be that science will want to undertake an important investigation of this in due course, but meanwhile, I can report my own results. It's not true. I can and do fall asleep while knitting, Indeed, it can happen mid stitch, until roused by some loud background music to illustrate splitting the atom etc, when I awake and carry on as if nothing had happened! Something had to be done, but what?
I saw an advert from Interweave press for a email newsletter called Knitting Daily . This is really just to get you to subscribe to various magazines or buy products they are advertising, but there are some free patterns and some really useful hints and tips. One of their recent emails was all about "Old Nowegian Cast On"! Until recently, I thought there was only one way to cast on stitches, but that was before I became a Knitter rather than just someone who knitted! There were diagrams, but even standing on one leg and closing one eye, they seemed impossible to follow, and then there was the video! Wow, having watched it several times, and tried to follow it with yarn and needles at the ready. I just couldn't do it! How could I ever go along to Thursday knit night at Baaramewe when I was so ignorant and inept!
Although it is possible to spend hours watching knitting videos on You Tube, some of which are so bad that you end up rocking with laughter, there is no substitute for practise. So that's what I did., and now after a week of screaming frustration, I can do Old Norwegian cast on, longtail cast on, contintental knitting, [knit and purl including yarnovers etc], cable cast on and magic loop knitting!!! All this in just one week!
Would this solve my problem? I decided to put it to the test. So last night we started watching dear Jim Al-Khalili telling us all about man-made elements and the Periodic Table and I made use of the newly acquired talent and cast on for a sock with a result any Old Norwegian would have been proud of and guess what? Yep, woke up to find I'd slept through most of the programme!
Anyway, at least now I don't feel quite as inadequate in the knitting department. I just wish I wasn't sleeping through so many tv programmes about important scientific discoveries. I wonder if there are any videos I could watch on Youtube? How to make your own nuclear bomb for instance!!! I wonder what the Old Norwegian method for doing that is!
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