Remember the knitting when loosing weight: Volume 2

A few of you might remember my original post “Remember the knitting when loosing weight.

Last week I finished my sweater “Zora” and I have been prancing around showing it off; last night at Weight Watchers was no exception. I showed it off and bragged about how all the stitches represented the many (MANY) changes I’ve made in the last 10 months to loose 82lbs.

With the completion of that sweater, I am starting a new project, and with this project I am learning a new skill: continental kntting.

“Continental knitters hold the yarn in their left hand, which allows the knitter to simply scoop, or “pick”, the yarn with the right needle. The primary challenge with the Continental style is its corresponding purl stitch, which requires agility and practice to execute comfortably.”

The benefits of this, as opposed to my old method of “English” knitting is that it is a faster method of knitting.

My good friends JJ (check out her yarn touring business The Traveling Ewe (with the logo that I made for her!) and Suzie (who is simply awesome but doesn’t have a business to brag about) have been coaching me through this learning curve and I have just one thing to say: THIS STINKS!

It’s fiddly and hard. It’s difficult and pointless. I already know how to knit! Why am I relearning?

As I’m sitting on the couch, tongue between my teeth, cursing whatever urge caused me to learn this (I mean, so what if it takes a year to finish a sweater. It got done, didn’t it?) it occurred to me that this feeling is familiar. It’s the same feeling that happens whenever I have to develop some new weight loss skill (slicing an apple instead of snarfing a chocolate bar for an example.)

So as I’ve been plugging away on my project, I’ve been telling myself it’s for the long term good. DAMMIT!

The other day I though things might be getting a little easier. I’m still not sure it’s faster yet, but things seemed to be coming along. Then I had to start purling. What was working before stopped working, so I had to develop even more new skills. Frankly, I’m still working on this skill and hope I get a version soon. I’m sure I’ll get better… just as I got better about eating breakfast and have had to adjust that routine three times and counting.

So it seems that knitting has more to teach me and remains a metaphor for the weight loss journey I’m not even halfway through.

And I thought that sweater took a long time…