Saturday, January 05, 2008

Knitting stage fright

I have knitting stage fright. When I'm around other knitters, even in a casual and comfortable setting, I often find myself too self-conscious to knit. This is not, however, the case when I'm around non-knitters. Then I feel perfectly comfortable knitting away. Weird, isn't it?

Today I had the pleasure of getting together with a few folks that I met through my LYS. Now that I've phased my hours out, I hardly ever see them anymore and it makes me sad. So they invited me to a Saturday afternoon "Knit and Knosh" to hang for a while. There was some yummy pear cake involved, and I visited with the initimable Knitty D, Purl MiaLoggia and some really cool blogless folks, too.

My schedule has been so unpredictable lately, that I haven't been able to see Anne Marie and her ragtag band of fugitive knitters at the Wednesday night SnB for a long time. So this was my first group knitting experience in a while, since maybe Stitches?

So I knit a few rows on a sock and then just petted the closest cat, which for a time, was Hobo here:



Not that petting Hobo was a hardship, mind you....

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"My schedule has been so unpredictable lately, that I haven't been able to see Anne Marie and her ragtag band of fugitive knitters at the Wednesday night SnB for a long time."

yeah, we know. not that we haven't missed you, cause we have. but the kids and the spouse and charcoal come first; we understand.

"When I'm around other knitters, even in a casual and comfortable setting, I often find myself too self-conscious to knit."

why? we don't bite, you know that. if ya wanna come and not knit, s'ok by us. hell, sometimes the conversation is so good amongst the members I only get one row done on a current project. but who cares? IT'S GIRLS NIGHT OUT! "girls just wanna have fun!"

hopefully you can make it this coming wednesday (pretty please)?

Carrie said...

Hmmm, knitting stage fright. That's too bad. But at least you can bring works in progress and show them off! Plus, you could be the one to refill the coffee... =) Seriously, knitters are the nicest people. It's interesting that knitting in front of them makes you nervous.

Bridget said...

If I am with other knitters, I just need to make sure I have the world's simplest pattern to work, since I get distracted by everyone's comments, what they are knitting, anything shiny, etc.

But if I have something easy, I love to be around others who are also knitting!

(Don't feel bad that you didn't let me know you were around. No, don't feel bad at all ... )

Carol said...

Yes, it makes no sense at all. I don't have any conscious explanation for why I feel awkward. I do have a relatively unusual way to knit but nothing way-out: I hold the yarn in the left hand but sort of throw. Occasionally people comment on it, so maybe that's what got me feeling self-conscious. And believe me, I loves me my knitters. I love hanging out with them. Weird.

Anonymous said...

When I was down in Raleigh, my staff used to meet regularly to knit. On the occasions when I would join them, I never got much done, because I was watching everyone else, like a anthropological experiment, and soaking up the conversation.

However, if I am in a meeting, and the only one knitting, the rows whiz by, possibly because of the concentration flow, or possibly because, as the only one that is knitting, I must have something to prove.

But I would easily get distracted by any cat -- though Hobo looks like quite a charmer.

Linda

Anonymous said...

I develop that sort of knitter's stage fright whenever I am asked to demonstrate what I am doing. All of a sudden, knitting is quite an awkward task for me. I have work to overcome this, and have improved markedly. Where I have the real trouble would be spinner's stage fright. I am not really able to spin around other spinners. My hands sweat, and you know how that affects the fiber and the ability to spin.

Lisa said...

It was great to see you on Saturday...it had been ages! I was secretly trying to see if I could get Hobo to hop into my knitting bag and steal her away.

Any consolation...I didn't make too much progress on my knitting. I was gabbing and stuffing "puppy chow" in my mouth :)

Anonymous said...

I just showed Hobo her photo on your blog -- it's her first blog appearance! She's really quite pleased to join Charcoal in the blogosphere.

I got like 3 rows done on my socks, too -- there's too much to yak about!

AEK
p.s. I can't believe that that's Elvis!!