Considering Knitting Process and Story Yarns

By Holly Lisle

I have mentioned (from time to time), that I am incapable of sitting still.

How it started
How it started

Moving fingers prevent me from having to bounce a foot. A moving foot while I read allows me to keep my hands still for a bit.
Part of the bottom of a planned sleeve
Awake, I find myself randomly walking down the hall in the middle of work without any conscious awareness that I needed to move. I just did, so my right brain took over, got me up, and marched me down the hall to the living room.

Starting a side panel
Starting a side panel

It figures once I’m there, I’ll do push-ups to quiet down the fidgets for a bit so I can get back to writing. I had a hell of a time sitting still in school. And I am, even at the age of fifty-seven, a remarkably squirmy human being.

Main body finished

So, in order to keep my hands moving and the rest of me still, I have developed a couple of quiet down-time obsessions. I play video games.

Front neckline and collar I hated
Front neckline and collar I hated

And I knit. Generally only for a few hours a night, but I’m pretty quick, and even though I don’t use patterns (and do a lot of ripping back to change designs as I think of something I’ll like better), I still get a lot done.

Close-up: Design I ripped back
Close-up: Design I ripped back

So here are some pictures of my most recently completed project, and some things that are currently in progress.

The keeper front before I did the collar
The keeper front before I did the collar

One of these days I’ll show you some of the things I finished and kept.

Inside, with half of ends worked in
Inside, with half of ends worked in

I still had some sleeve ends to sew in after I finished steaming the finished sweater (after ripping back and redesigning the front once, the collar half a dozen times, and the sleeves eleven times.

And Sheldon keeping me company while I worked
And Sheldon keeping me company while I worked

Sometimes it takes me a long time to get a design right.

Finished sweated after pinning and steaming
Finished sweated after pinning and steaming

And the following are part of a new sweater I’m putting together.

This is the start of the front.
This is the start of the front.

Again, there is no pattern for this. I simply look at what I’m doing and decide to change colors when I see something I like. A fair amount of ripping back goes into this, too.

This is the back past the halfway point
This is the back past the halfway point

The technique that makes the curves is working in short rows. For this sweater I’m using the loop and turn method.

This is the pinned, steamed back center panel
This is the pinned, steamed back center panel

Yarn, incidentally, is Noro Silk Garden Light. Devilishly expensive, but I love it. So relatives got me gift cards for my birthday back in October, and I bought two different colorways with it, and am making one sweater from each.

Sweaters start as the idea of what I think I want to make. And they get a first draft, and a revision.

Like my fiction. And I do a LOT of story development and plotting while I knit. The process of knitting is pretty amazing for allowing your to connect story ideas into a threaded narrative.

Maybe that’s why stories are called yarns.

Contents © Holly Lisle. https://hollylisle.com All Rights Reserved