I was at a conference this weekend and, knowing there would be some amount of sitting around listening, I took knitting. One of the other participants, who for reasons I will get to momentarily obviously does no sort of needlework, commented on my project. It’s a dumbed-down feather and fan scarf that takes no thought to do. I am pattern-impaired when it comes to knitting and incapable of memorizing anything but the most simple of designs. If I have to count to more than four in any particular sequence, I will lose it. I use tons of stitch markers too. So while it is indeed a lace pattern, it is a most totally stupid-simple one.
Later at dinner I ended up sitting next to him and he noted that he was surprised that I was paying attention to the sessions while I was knitting. He assumed it took all my concentration. But somehow at various points I managed to say something completely intelligent and relevant.
I haven’t been taking this project to the office, although now that I’ve gotten past the re-used part of the yarn I should. It was taking quite some effort to fix the amount of twist in the yarn due to my weird knitting habits. But there are several people at work who knit in meetings, enough that people have figured out that it is possible to knit and pay attention at the same time. That is nice. I have a bunch of meetings this week, too.
Leave a Reply