The Knitting Way (A Guide to Spiritual Self-Discovery) by Linda Skolnik and Janice MacDaniels was published in 2005 and appears as currently in print. When I first picked it up, I immediately thought that this would be a book that I could easily discard – then I started reading. At first glance, the lack of full color pages were a turn off. I was ready to chastise the publishers for being too cheap to spring for four-color printing. In the end, I found that it really wasn’t the important part of this insightful volume.
To be fair to my readers, I must admit that I knew Linda Skolnik in my previous career. I much admired her interest in the knitting world. Her interest came from a deep place that wasn’t just about making money. She was (and I assume still is) truly vested in knitting. As I started to read her book, my instincts were confirmed.
I haven’t gotten very far in reading The Knitting Way. It’s not the kind of book that you can speed read. In the Preface I learned more about Linda and her co-author Janice. Reading this explains a lot about why they wrote this book. Chapter 1 is called Knitting into Awareness – basically soul searching that ends of in knitting. Each chapter ends with a pattern that relates to the chapter. This chapter ends with a colorful cube that when felted turns into a ball. That’s pretty simple, but later chapters have projects that are a bit trickier.
One could spend forever reading and understanding Chapter 2 Science, Mystery and Knitting. It was slow going. I was a bit lost in reading about Einstein, Electromagnetic force, Theory of Everything (wasn’t that just a movie), the Golden Ratio (phi), quantum mechanics and other major scientific theories. Science was never my strong subject, but I must say that it becomes more interesting when it relates to knitting.
I’ve been intrigued by knitting a circular moebius since I purchased a kit from Candace Eisner Strick. I was truly stumped by the technique. I actually did a small one last winter in trying to solve this mystery. I’m going to put this project on my very long “to-do” list and see if I really understand the technique.
I’ve moved on the Chapter 3, but more on this chapter in an upcoming blog!