Life With Wool
Other Games of Wool
Greetings from Maine!
Lately everyone’s been talking about the new British reality competition show Game of Wool. In it, ten knitters compete to be named “Britain’s Best Knitter” while judges Di Gilpin and Sheila Greenwell look on and host Tom Daley reminds everyone how much time they have left.
I saw just enough of the show to know that it wasn’t for me. In general, I’m not into high-stakes competition shows where people frantically race around trying to achieve the impossible while a stranger points a camera in their face.
But especially where knitting is concerned, I find little entertainment value in watching knitters be pitted against one another. In many ways, this feels like the antithesis of what we’re about.
Knitting is not a race and it is not a competition. Even those few competitions that we do have—and I’m thinking specifically about sheep-to-shawl contests—are collaborative.
But it did get me thinking about what my own Game of Wool might be. For I certainly do play enough games with wool, and I suspect you do too.
For example, who doesn’t enjoy a good round of How Many Wool Items Can I Wear At Once? A few days ago, I bested my previous score when I successfully wore 14 items and remained perfectly comfortable despite a windchill in the negative double digits.
Victorious while wearing 14 clothing items with wool in them
I’m also very skilled at the Will Anyone But Me Notice? game. I play this when I discover a mistake so far back in the project that it would require unraveling at least half my work. Really. Will anyone but me notice? Probably not.
But this leads directly to the follow-up challenge: Can I Wear This Around Another Knitter Without Pointing It Out to Them? My success rate on that one is abysmal.
Another contest in which most of us are already at the Olympic level: Where Was I? You know this one, when you pick up a sweater once a year and try to figure out where you were in the pattern. We usually succeed after a few clunky starts, only to get distracted and set it down. Again. For another year.
And who hasn’t played at least one round of That’ll Block Out.
Yes, but will it?
Since it’s December, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the Holiday Giving slalom. We usually come out of the chute strong and optimistic, confident that we’ll finish a full slate of gifts that, with each swerve between poles, gets shorter and shorter until the end, when we’re left with one hat and a pair of fingerless mitts whose ends we still have to weave in.
I haven’t been lucky enough to play this next game, but I do know plenty of balls of yarn that have. It’s the 125-foot Dash Down the Airplane Aisle During Take-Off. Will it make it all the way to the back row before someone sticks out their foot to stop it?
There’s the Great Gauge Gallop, in which the results of a 100-yard swatch dash convince us we can knit a 100-mile ultramarathon at the same pace. And what about How Do I Mend This Hole? with separate categories for Most Invisible and Most Gloriously Visible mend?
Candidate for Most Visible Mend
I haven’t mentioned perhaps our most popular game of all, Yarn Chicken. I bet you’ve played this one recently? Protocol dictates that winners post photos of their miracle, and losers advance to the Yarn Hunt level, where we must use all resources at our disposal to locate that one skein of discontinued yarn we need, in a specific colorway and dye lot.
Knitters are really good at finding the un-findable. In fact, the intelligence community should do itself a favor and hire more knitters to locate missing people. We’ll track down anything, anywhere in the world, if you tell us there’s yarn involved.
All of these have been single-player games. But if I had to put a bunch of knitters in a room and make them compete, it would go something like this: We’re given a pattern—a mitten, perhaps.
We all sit in a circle, and we knit and talk for a while. Maybe an hour? Someone says, “Stop!” We put down our needles and go around the room showing how far we got. We compare notes and talk about the process, what we learned, what was a challenge, and then we vote anonymously on which mitten and process we found most interesting—and then we head off for tea and cake.
While Game of Wool is all about trying to make contestants think they can knit a perfectly finished, seamed, and blocked sweater in 12 hours or less (hint: they can’t), I much prefer the games that value slowness. For example, the How Long Can I Take to Complete This Round? game. Or the How Long Can I Take to Finish This Project, with bonus points for projects that have been left unfinished for two generations or more.
For the Oldest UFO, I present this unfinished sweater bequeathed to me by my grandmother.
Ours is one of the few communities that doesn’t prioritize competition. Sure, as humans we’re always checking ourselves against those around us. But knitting is not a race and it’s definitely not a competition sport.
There is no such thing as The Best Knitter. If you love the feel of yarn and needles in your hands, you’re a knitter, you belong, and you’ve already won. That’s certainly worth celebrating, no?
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I like your games much better! I’ve played most of them, except the airplane dash. I have done airplane fishing, when the yarn or dpn falls under the seat. Usually behind me. I gave up on the holiday knitting slalom this year.
I wouldn’t win the generational game, but I do have some yarn that was my grandmother’s. I made a fringed granny triangle shawl using some of it for my daughter when she was younger.
Agree!
I will sign up for Clara’s game!
Engaging collaborative games that involve scavenger hunts, story sharing a coffee Pause? Yes! … and faculty meeting w the dropped metal dpn in the sloping auditorium has to be somewhere in the card deck of “chance”. Enjoyed this post. Leveling up means herding sheep.
Love your suggestions for games! I once dropped a metal dpn onto a concrete floor from row 40 of the bleachers during a district teachers meeting. I can still hear each bounce, and remember with gratitude the colleague who climbed under said bleachers to retrieve the troublemaker…
Yarn Chicken? I’ve been known to rip it out and reknit it one size smaller.
I’m currently playing How Many Test Knits Can I Do At Once and Still Make Deadline?
And then my personal favorite, Why Am I Knitting This? which includes, but is not limited to, baby sweaters for non-existent babies, hats that I will never wear, Lopi sweaters that are too warm, etc.
Oh man. KellyR stopped me from the baby blanket for nonexistent people treadmill.
Í couldn’t have said it better! Thanks for the smiles
Find the dropped DPN/stitch marker is a favorite at our house. There must be a cozy community of them inside my couch.
YES. Stitch markers. In (not on) the rugs.
Where the resident baby is usually the one who finds it/them.
The Game of Wool is such a disappointment, it could have been so good, I can’t believe they got it so wrong and I can think of a dozen ways it could have been so much better.
I actually feel quite sorry for the contestants, some of whom are obviously good knitters looking at the garments they are wearing. They often look like they can’t believe what they are being asked to do.
The only good thing is Simon’s kindness and the friendship between the knitters.
I loved this! We are all winners in the knitting games. Clara, the yarn and unfinished knitted by Gramma sweater are beautiful. I’m going to see if I can find that yarn- let the game begin♥️
Loved this column! Before-breakfast laughs are the best.
Loved this…thank you for a laugh this morning! I’d also add the group game, “Can you fix this for me,” where your fellow knitting circle member gets frustrated over an unintended increase, dropped stitch, or yarn ball tangle and drops her project into your lap. Because there are beverages and snacks involved, and no competition, no one minds. 🙂
Magnificent
I agree with you. I joined a sock challenge one year, my LYS’ version of sock madness, and it was so stressful, I didn’t knit socks for months afterwards. Knitting should be at your own pace and relaxing, most of the time.
I so agree with you – it’s not a speed activity and l will probably bequeath several PHDs to my children
Let me see: 2 finger puppets, 1 beaded finger ring, 2 mittens, 1 hat 1 cowl, 1 scarf, 1 pullover, 1 cardigan, 2 leg-warmers, 2 socks (that makes 14)…and a partri-i-idge in a pear tree. As someone who spent hours every winter waiting for a way-overdue school bus in 30-degree weather, this is not an unlikely scenario. You are my favorite breakfast read-along today, Clara. Thanks for a fun and thoughtful time. (The puppets were in your pocket for visiting grand-nieces and nephews. Obviously.)
I have “won” in a few of the games you mentioned and I have competed in some you have yet to unveil! Good article.
As a left handed, slow a molasses in an ice storm knitter, I love your thoughts. Knitting to me is comfort, the comforting feel of the yarn in my hands.
Well stated!
This makes my heart feel so good to read this! I love being a knitter and part of this wonderful community!❤️
Bravo! Well said and knitting is a pleasure, not a chore/job.
I love your game theme and yes, I’ve played them all.
Happy Holidays ❤️
Suzanne
Fantastic take on the tv show. I loved your categories of knitting. We’ve all competed in them and sometimes, won. Great article!
I love this concept. I would add another game of Better This Time for when I’ve knit a second item from the same pattern but tweaked the pattern the way I want to knit it.
Thanks for acknowledging that all of life need not be a competition!!
Yes! I am currently making my second vest with the same yarn in a different color. I have trouble trusting the sizes on patterns, and I end up making a sweater (or vest) too large.
DITTO!!!
Thank you, Clara, for fabulous article. I couldn’t tear myself away from reading it to even get myself a 2nd cup of coffee!
As a pokey little puppy knitter, in any knitting race, I would consistently end up in last place. Oh well – I’m knitting and that is the most important thing.
I love everyone’s comments too.
I LOVE everything about this. My latest inner competition is how many WIP’s do I have going (Answer- many!)! And where the heck are my stitch markers?
Thank you so much for this. Nothing is better than a laugh first thing in the morning, even before the second cup of coffee.
Wise words. The joy comes with the making and the giving. Everything doesn’t have to be a contest.
Love your writing, it always inspires and grounds me.
I, of course, am “watching” Game of Wool….i’ll watch pretty much anything wooly. And late night TV is often my knitting companion!
Clara, you are so right. They got so much wrong! Especially the competition….kicking someone off at the end of every episode! Knitters just don’t do that! In my experience, knitters are much more likely to be collaborative, creative, supportive, understanding, generous….i could go on. What the knitters actually produce on the show is pretty impressive, but the competitive piece just doesn’t ring true!
It’s all about the Zen!
Fantastic yarn essay. As a sister knitter from Maine, you started my day right—low and slow.
I’ll go with Clara’s versions of Game of Wool!
I do have a suggestion for another game for the list: How long will it take to untangle and wind a beautiful skein of mostly silk yarn that the pup picked up out of the open bin and took to the other room to play with?
Yes, detangling should definitely be an event in our Knitting Olympics! I have spent hours trying to find both ends of a skein and I don’t have a puppy to blame!
Thank you, Clara!
Your games are great Clara, and it is comforting to know that I am not the only one playing them. We were in London last month and I was excited to see this show on the hotel tv guide. What a disappointment! I can watch cooking and baking competitions with no anxiety at all, probably because I am a mediocre cook and don’t bake at all. But I couldn’t even sit still for the knitting show, my anxiety level was so high. Finally turned it off and planned the next day’s activities to calm down. Thanks for a great article to start the day.
Clara you always make me smile. How true that as knitters we are a community that bonds together. Not one that competes.
Cheers!
Leanne
Clara you always make me smile. How true that as knitters we are a community that bonds together. Not one that competes.
Cheers!
Dearest Clara,
You’ve hit the nail squarely on the head. We knit because it soothes. Granted there are exciting moments (and frustrating ones!), but it truly is a way to take us away. Can you hear that old Calgon commercial? Prayer and knitting are the two activities that transport like no other and the two together…well that’s lovely.
Thank you for this wonderful read!
I love this article, Clara! It’s cleverly written and so much fun to read, not to mention insightful. And the comments are also great!
Thank you, Clara
Ahhh, where am I, always a favorite game! I just played it yesterday.
Thanks for the morning chuckle.
Wearing wool challenge accepted! Alas, I only came up with nine wool items, unless socks are counted separately?
I feel seen. Thank you, Clara, as always!
I vote for finishing your grandmother’s sweater—that yarn looks glorious!
You are so right!
I did manage to 1)drop a ball that rolled the length of a 600 seat auditorium and 2) later dropped a needle a few times. Note to self – carry the yarn in a bag, only take circular needles to public events or on airplanes.
I love this so much. I’m personally a blue ribbon winner (loser?) at Yarn Chicken and Where Was I
I am on Episode 5 of Game of Wool (available in US on You tube) and I am really enjoying it. The knitters are talented and friendly and I like them. They are not competing for a million pounds so not really intense. Actually the best knitter of each episode gets a Sheep badge. The knits each week are exciting and new to me which keeps me viewing!
Great post Clara!
And I loved the picture of you in your many knits. I can totally identify with your fogged up glasses! Ha ha