Using those long needles to scratch my own back

Yeah, I’m equally obsessed with knitting and playing the World of Warcraft. So you know that when I stumbled upon Knit Wars! my inner geek squeaked!

Turns out, Knit Wars! isn’t another game, but a really nifty pat-on-the-back, validating thing. I’m a fairly good representation of the average knitter, with multiple projects cast on, intermediate skill level, a respectable stash in the closet, dabbled in spinning, and I’m forever having to explain my fiber obsession to those not-in-the-know.

So I’ll bet that stash in my closet that you sometimes feel like I do: all this enthusiasm for knitting and I haven’t gotten a damned thing done with it this week. I’m a knitting dud. If ya read knitting magazines and listen to the podcasts, that inadequate feeling can get painful. Know this – that’s not the right measuring stick for your knitting worthiness!

Now some folks over on the Knit Wars! site have embraced it as a motivator. That kinda goes along those lines of feeling like you’re in the same ballpark as your fellow knitters. That works for them. But I’m getting something different out of it.

It validates that I am too worthy of the craft, lol. I have too gotten lots done this week. When I go through the list of knitting tasks, to pick the ones I can claim as having done, it’s downright surprising just how much I’ve really done after all. Ya know, with this site, we’re quite literally giving ourselves credit for our efforts. The rest of the world isn’t going to ooh and aah when you wind a hank into a ball, and odds are you won’t either. This site reminds you to do just that.

I’ve been re-reading The Knitting Way by Linda Skolnik and Janice MacDaniels, and this time I’m taking a hi-liter to the really good quotes – and it’s loaded with ‘em. In it I found two that relate to this, and they’re only a page apart from each other. The first one by the authors said, “Knitting is your experience. Your experience belongs to you. Knit as though you have nothing to prove.” And they then quoted Basho the Zen poet, “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought.”

Yeah, what they said.