The Knitter of Oz

I've written before about my crochet hobby which I've been pursuing for quite a while now (though I did take a several-year-hiatus over college), having learned from my mother in my teens. She never picked up knitting, however, so I never learned it either.

Until this past week, when I learned from a friend here in Melbourne! I've often wondered how the two compared, since I had friends who knitted and it always seemed so complex to me, even as they told me how crochet was more complicated. Now that I've learned both, I can say that knitting feels simultaneously simpler and more complex than crochet. It's simpler in that there are mostly just two stitches compared to…uh, “several” in crochet. It's also more complex in that it uses two implements instead of one. It's also more nerve-wracking, at least at this stage, since it always feels like you're about to lose an entire row of stitches all at once in parallel, whereas in crochet you can only lose stitches serially.

Ultimately, I'm really enjoying it! There's a weird feeling of cachet that accompanies being able to whip out my knitting needles on the train or wherever (even if I'm as likely to be undoing errors as making progress at this point; I'm still somehow adding stitches in without meaning to). Maybe it has something to do with people almost invariably asking me what I was knitting while I was doing crochet in the past, and it'll be nice to finally not have to correct them. Whatever it is, I'll be sure to take photos once I have something worth showing! A hui hou!