Alike

On first glance, Knut and I are pretty different.  I’m roughly half his weight.  He’s an outdoor athlete, I’m a crafter/homebody.  Opposites?  Perhaps.  He loves to ski so much.  I love to knit.  Well, Knut and I may be opposite on a lot of things, but I think you’d be surprised how alike skiing and knitting are.  Let me demonstrate.

Both of us have to work on and develop our technique.  Both of us love looking at blogs, researching and reading about how other people develop their crafts, and improve. Both of our sports (that’s not a stretch, is it?) have connected us with the most amazing people. 

Both of us have very colorful consumable equipment with a wide range of quality.  I have yarn, he has wax.  Comparing these two really helps us understand each other.  For instance, when a friend of mine sent me some Malabrigo wool/silk yarn as a gift, Knut just shrugged his shoulders as I jumped up and down.  All I had to say was, “Knut, do you remember when your friend, Wynn, gave you some really fast glide wax for the first time you did the Birke race?”

To which he said “Do you mean the flouro wax?”

“Yep.  My friend just sent me the yarn version of that.”

“Sweet!  That’s so awesome!”  He understood then. He could then fully appreciate the gift that I got.

Likewise, Knut can oogle over wax in a ski shop with me as I have a polite bored look on my face, and he can say, “I want to save up for some of this.  This would be for something special.”  That’s when I would give him a confused look, because how can wax make a ski outing “special”  and he could say: “Like when you saved that yarn for that special taking home from the hospital outfit for Solveig.”  Then I get it.  That yarn completely made the outfit worthy of that day.

Then there’s the non-consumable equipment.

Both are designed for speed. His is made with high tech engineering to allow for the correct amount of stiffness to support his body and propel him forward.  O, and skiing has long pointy sticks too.

I wonder if you could knit with those…

Mine are made with steel, which is slicker and faster than bamboo or plastic.  The faster you go, the more control you need.  Kinda like skiing.

Sure, skiing and knitting do have their differences.  If you really look for them, I guess.  Personally, I think they’re pretty alike.