Cabled Hearts: 'Go To YouTube.'

Early last October I found myself in the usual planning/buying stage for my upcoming Christmas projects. Socks, scarves and crochet amigurumi rounded out the list for family members and other special people in my life. For my ever supportive boyfriend, I knew the only thing for him would be a handsome Fisherman’s Rib scarf. I remembered seeing such a pattern on my favorite knitting blog, The Purl Bee by Purl Soho: http://www.purlbee.com/the-purl-bee/2010/12/3/whits-knits-fishermans-rib-scarf-and-cowl.html

A banner from www.purlbee.com.

Whit’s Knits are guaranteed to inspire! I fell in love with this scarf’s understated, classic elegance, and I could immediately envision the piece around his neck. It was "his." I decided to skip the matching cowl. He just isn’t the cowl “type.” The search for materials and a little bit of advice from the yarn shop was on!

I had only one small worry going into this project. To make the traditional ribbing, it would be required of me to “knit into the stitch below” (k1b) or (k1d sometimes) for every other stitch for the duration of the project. Knitting into a stitch was so…foreign… to me. Counterintuitive, perhaps. Why would I want to knit into a stitch from a row that is already completed? How would the work ever progress if I kept dipping down to a previous row? And what about the seemingly extra loop on the needle? Did I dare just let it fall? It seemed like a one way ticket to Mistake-Town USA, population Vicki. At the same time I trusted in Whit and The Purl Bee, and their instructions seemed quite clear. To assuage my anxieties, I decided that I would ask about the stitch at the yarn shop.

Diagram from my 1973 copy of The Concise Knitting Book.

***Disclaimer! Before I begin the next half of this story, I will add that I am not naming the yarn shop we visited. All I will say is that it is in the greater Washington D.C. area, which does not leave many hints. ***

Late the next Saturday afternoon, my boyfriend and I met up at the shop for yarn/color selection. While still keeping the nature of my project a secret, I allowed him to choose the color and texture most to his liking. This kind of thing is very exciting to us! He chose a muted forest green by Cascade with striking ease, and it seemed our trip would be much shorter than I anticipated.

Before going to the checkout counter, I approached one of the 3 ladies running the shop. They were weekend staff, and I was not familiar with any of them, but that was ok. Without revealing too much about my project, I asked her if she could watch me do the k1b with some of their test yarn, as I wanted to be sure I was doing it correctly. She told me that of course I was free to test it out, but that she couldn’t help me because she had never heard of that stitch, and maybe it would be best for me to go home and, “go to YouTube.” Go to YouTube?! I felt like I had been told to go to Hell! Five minutes earlier I overheard her bragging about her many sweaters that were supposedly complex beyond imagination. But when I asked her briefly about “knit one below,” she could not even make an educated guess? Shady. What was going on in this store? It was so unlike them. The owner and her assistant are fantastic knitters and people, but they are usually not there on the weekends. Their weekend employees are transient and I have never seen the same person twice. I sum it up to a case of very bad timing, and it does not reshape my opinion of that shop.

Despite this epic 21^st century brush off, I worked out my anxieties over k1b in the test yarn. No need to visit YouTube, at least not on that afternoon.

“Go to YouTube?” my boyfriend repeated in disbelief outside of the shop. We shared a sweet laugh together, and then it was time to go home and get straight to work. It was only two and a half months until Christmas!

If I owned a yarn shop, the words, “Go to YouTube,” would be forbidden! In fact, I would have a large poster in the back room as a constant reminder. Learning to knit is dependent on human contact. The process is interactive and conversational. YouTube certainly does help in a pinch, but it will never be the same as having a guide sitting next to you in real time.

What I would have in mind!

A huge reason that we still have yarn shops in a YouTube and iPhone world is that they provide a sense of community. I could have gotten all of my help and materials online, but I chose not to do that. If a customer is in a yarn shop it’s because they want to purchase and learn personally from that staff. While it’s impossible for mere mortals to have all the answers, putting up a wall is unacceptable. If the customer and the shop employee are both uncertain, why not log on to YouTube together in the store? Not only would it be good customer service, it would be two knitters interacting and learning together: a modern twist on how knitting has been through time!

After I shook off my jitters, I came to enjoy creating the fisherman’s rib. The k1b became rhythmic and second nature. It did not grow slowly or use up too much yarn, as I had worried. Instead it created a luxurious, wide, plushy ribbing that I was beyond proud to wrap up and present on Christmas.

I couldn't help myself!

In the New Year we have found ourselves dealing with temperatures in the teens, harsh winds and the tail of Winter Storm Hercules bringing everyday life to a standstill. Knowing that what I knit for him is making life easier as he shovels his way out into the world is a warm ray of light in this winter gloom. My soft, squishy creation is actually measuring up to the rugged and tough expectations associated with Fisherman’s Rib.