Wednesday, May 7, 2014

You're Doing It Wrong!



"You're Doing It Wrong!"

Arrggggg! For some reason I've heard one knitter say this to another knitter at least five times in the last month. I'm becoming very irked by this comment. So far I've managed to bite my tongue and stay out of these discussions, unless someone asks for my opinion.

Why does this bother me?

Well it bothers me because there are so many different techniques, traditions, approaches, new un-inventions and cultural things happening in the knitting world that to label anything as wrong is just misguided. (I wanted to say wrong there but I had to avoid that phrase for obvious reasons didn't I?)

I want to tell knitters to try everything out and decide for yourself. Using different techniques can give you different results or equal results or better results. Experts don’t always agree on which techniques are best but it’s clear that there are benefits to each one. 

A student recently told me she thought it was very funny when one of my other teaching friends gasped in horror about something I teach in my classes. My friend is an excellent knitter and teacher but she falls into the school of "one best way" while I am most definitely not in agreement with that approach. I can see merit in it however, especially for novice knitters as it is less confusing for them. 

For my other hated phrase, you can read my post on Row Gauge doesn't Matter here.

If you enjoy reading my blog, I'd really appreciate it if you would tell your knitting friends or share links to your favourite posts online with Twitter, Ravelry or Facebook. Word of mouth is really helping to grow my business as knitters respect the views of other members of our community. Thanks!


3 comments:

  1. I'm with you on this issue Robin. I often tell my students - "There are no knitting police."

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    1. I think it's especially bad when novice knitters are told they are doing it wrong. It interferes with the learning process just when they need the most encouragement.

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  2. Exactly! I shared this on my PDXKnitterati facebook page, and sent it on to my LYS where I teach. Thanks for a great post.

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