Dear Yarn Boy,

Thanks for any wisdom you could impart,
A Confused Caedan L

Dear Confused Caedan L,

Best left to “the gays”? Now that is a knee-slapper. Is she afraid that knitting is going to turn her into a lesbian? Oh wait, I see she said that knitting is “too girlie.” So when she says “gays” she means “male homosexuals” and when she says “girlie” she means “too feminine.” You don’t say what her age is, but judging from her vocabulary and usage, I’d guess that she’s a teenager. Or Ann Coulter.

But your question isn’t really about her, of course. It’s really about you. Your conversion rate is impressive, to say the least. 200% higher than mine, in fact. Even the people who have asked me to teach them don’t actually knit regularly. But that’s their loss, and unlike Christianity, knitting is not an evangelistic tradition.

Which is a long way of saying that the best way to bring your friend back to the needles is to lay off the pressure. Keep knitting in her presence, but stop the conversion attempts. If she really misses knitting, she’ll come back to it on her own. Most teenagers give up activities they were into before adolescence set in, and they often come back to those things later when they realize that the enjoyment of those activities outweighs what anyone else thinks about them (in my case, it was singing along with Jesus Christ Superstar).

But if she’s Ann Coulter, it’s a lost cause.

Dear Yarn Boy,

For what it’s worth, I knit English style; always have in spite of numerous attempts to learn Continental. My left pinky finger has a permanent injury, making it nearly impossible to hold in the standard form, and it gets annoying on my ring finger after a while–or really I’m probably just lazy! At any rate, even though I knit English style, my right hand never leaves the needle. I have the “consistent” gauge you refer to in your response to the original question. My question is this: is it odd for English-style knitters to keep their hands on their work? I can’t imagine letting go for every stitch…sounds crazy to me!

-Knitophile

Dear Knitophile,

It might sound crazy to you, but the answer to your question is: yes.

Dear Yarn Boy

I have been writing my own patterns for a couple of years, with mixed results! If I want to share patterns though I need to provide them in a range of sizes. I can just about work out how to do that using the CYC sizing charts, but how can I be sure I’ve got it right without knitting every size? And how on earth do you work out how much yarn each size needs? Help!

-Rachel

Dear Rachel,

You’ve stumbled on the two biggest variables in almost every knitting design that has sizes. No designer who needs to eat/sleep/use the bathroom/pet his cat has the time to knit every single size of the sweater he’s just mapped out, so he does what you did: finds a reliable sizing chart and does the math.

Now, most reputable sources of knitting patterns have editors, and those editors comb over designs for mathematical errors. If your pattern is accepted, it will be vetted for glaring mistakes. You should still do your best to work out the numbers for the sizes that you didn’t knit, but you can cut yourself some slack knowing that a second (or third) pair of eyes will be going over your work.

As for the yardage, well, that’s a little more difficult. For my designs, I just take an educated guess. For example, when I knit Avast for myself, I had almost a entire skein left over. It’s pretty likely that the next size up is going to use up that skein, and the size after that will use one more.

But you know what? All knitters buy more yarn than they need, precisely to head off the situation that you’re trying to avoid. Few knitters mind having extra yarn in their stash, and the ones that do can return the unused skeins to their local yarn shop. Which is a long way of saying; don’t worry about the skein count.

Good luck!

Dear Yarn Boy,

I have been knitting for 8 years and I want to knit socks! Trouble is, I am afraid. So many sock patterns, so many needles, so scary! How can I find an easy beginner sock pattern and not poke an eye out with 4 needles going at once?

-Kim L.

Dear Ms. L.

Fear of socks is a common affliction among knitters of all stages, and the only way to cure it is to go ahead and knit one. What’s the worst thing that can happen? You’re not going to get an eye poked out. When you were a kid, how many times did you get admonished by grownups to stop horsing around because “someone’s going to get an eye poked out”? And how many of those eyes actually got poked out? That’s right.

The big secret that every fan of double-pointed needles knows is that, even though you have needles sticking out all over the place, you’re only using two needles at a time. In that sense, it’s no different than regular knitting. You do have to fumble a bit to stop the ends of the needles from bumping into each other while you knit, but that gets worked out after about five rounds, and then you never have to figure it out again. Like riding a bicycle. And no one ever got an eye poked out from riding a bike, did they? That’s right.

But I am not a fan of double-pointed needles myself, mostly because they’re too easy to lose, so I’m going to recommend that you learn to knit socks from this simple and fabulous book. It has great patterns for you to learn on, and with no needles sticking out all over the place, it’s even less likely that your first pair of socks will cost you an eye.