Member Biography: Samantha Lynn
What is your name?
Samantha Lynn, Goddess-in-Residence
What is your Quest?
I seek the Holy -- err, wrong movie. :)
When did you first start knitting/why? Who taught you to knit?
In college -- my Mum refused to buy me a Tom Baker scarf, so I decided I had to take matters into my own hands, so to speak, and taught myself out of a book. (The "Susan Bates 'Learn to Knit'" from the old LeeWards craft chain, as I recall.) It took me quite some time to actually get around to finishing the scarf, once I found out how much fun knitting other things was, but I eventually did, and it's hanging in my hall in a place of honor today; unfortunately, this was back in the days when one's choices were acrylic or scratchy, so it's acrylic and not exactly warm enough to be of much practical use. I do wear it to geek-appropriate events, though.
Do you knit English/American style, German/Continental style, backwards? Left-handed? Eastern cross method? Peruvian-style? please describe.
English, because that was what the book taught. I considered taking up Continental, in the middle of a mammoth garter-stitch jacket project that seemed to be taking forever to progress, but decided it might throw off my gauge if I switched midstream; it didn't seem to be too hard to pick up, though, so I may investigate further at some point in the future.
Do you have a knitting philosophy? What helped you form your philosophy?
"Stabbing things doesn't help." (Don't ask.)
Have you ever taught someone to knit?
I've tried to teach my Mum, which is frustrating since she forgets most of it between lessons. Also taught a guy in college for the expected reason that I sort of fancied him and it was an excuse to hang around. :)
What is your very favorite knitting book and why?
I tend to be a seat-of-the-pants knitter, in practice, so I wouldn't say that books play the same role in my knitting experience that they seem to in others'; I regularly plunder the library's collection to pick up a technique here and an idea there, but then everything goes into the ADD blender until it's completely unrecognizable. I do keep "Knitters' Handy Book of Patterns" and "Knitters' Book of Finishing Techniques" handy, though -- the first for sizes and the second because I can never remember off the top of my head which way a SSK slants.
Do you knit for a living/have your own business?
I've been working on launching a line of hand-dyed gourmet yarn, the experimental offspring of which I occasionally drag in to show at the Guild meetings; I'm hoping to get this going fully by the end of 2006.
What projects are you working on now?
{glances around workroom} Well, let's see, there's the bag of socks, there's the bag of hats, there's the bag of shawls...
What is your very favorite yarn?
Generally, considering the ADD, whichever one I bought last.
What is the best thing you ever knit?
The project I'm finishing up now, a felted jacket, will probably become a wardrobe staple of mine for many years to come, if it survives its trip through the wash. But the shawl in Lorna's Laces "Heaven" is the one I want to be buried in someday. :)
What is the worst thing you ever knit?
Well, there was the acrylic sweater that expanded to elephantine dimensions in the wash...
Why do you like to knit?
Because I like to know that if I want something, I can just MAKE it most of the time, without having to be dependent upon someone else's crackpot notions of what women are shaped like and should pick from as 'acceptable' colors.
When do you knit?
In front of the TV in the evenings. (I seem to always be working on things that have some aspect that would disqualify them from being take-along projects, such as multiple yarns to juggle or just general fiddliness.)
What is your favorite part of the knitting process?
Planning and starting things, judging by the number of UFOs lying about...
How long have you been knitting?
Since college -- call it 1989 I guess. And now you've got me thinking "OMG it's been 15 years I've been out of college", thankyouverymuch for THAT. :)
What do you like about our guild?
The opportunity to show off in front of other people who really appreciate what went into a given piece of knitting. :) So, "a community of one's peers", I suppose is the phrase I'm looking for.
Do you engage in other Fiber Arts?
I taught myself to crochet a couple of years ago, which means in practice that whatever you've been picturing as my UFO stack... double it. I've also committed needlepoint at various times, although I had to give it up because I developed a contact allergy to the sizing in the canvas. I'd like to get into spinning but right now my apartment is too small as it is -- maybe after I move...
Page updated: 03/14/2007