I was at sock group last month doing one of my usual little odd knitting tricks and started getting stares. Once I explained what I was doing everyone laughed, admitted they were watching this odd thing and thought it was pretty funny. What was it? I was moving a little piece of yarn every row I knit. They thought I was being compulsive. Nope. I was keeping track of when to increase for the gusset.
What I do is - get a small piece of yarn and have it setting next to me on the chair arm if I'm at home or on the table at the group. If the piece is horizontal I knit all around. Once I get to the beginning of the next round I move the yarn to vertical - this marks an increase round. That way I can talk and not worry about keeping track of which row I'm on. I do the same thing when it's a small number of rows for a pattern repeat. If it's a 4-6 row repeat I'll have 4-6 pieces of yarn on the chair arm next to me. As I finish a row I move a piece of yarn to a new spot on the arm. When they're all at the new place, I start over again. I know - it's bizarre but it works for me.
My other odd habit is knitting from my computer. If I'm working on a complex design - overall cable design for example or lace (the mystery shawl 3). I get the pattern in excel or a pdf file that I can save as a jpg. Then I bring up the picture of the graph, enlarge it to where I can see it okay and knit from the laptop sitting on my lap (with a cat sleeping next to it). As I finish each row I highlight the row finished with the graphic program I use to show the graph. The computer screen is at a great angle to look at, if I'm having a tired eye day I just zoom in on the picture.
(I'm stilll stuck with my cell phone pics. The camera will be back tomorrow.)
What are your odd knitting habits?
