Backward Knitting: A Knitting Metaphor for Relationships

I know you're thinking I'm going to say something cornball about the closely knit relationship I have with someone, but I will spare you such a cliche. In fact, I was just knitting and thinking about the way that I knit. I am a Continental knitter or "picker", as I've also seen it called, where I knit with the yarn coming off of my left index finger as I pick the stitches with my right needle. My mother-in-law knits from the other direction, using her right index finger to loop the yarn around her needle. Whatever the merits of each, I chose mine due to the arthritis I have in my right index finger after breaking it as a teenager (not to mention that it just seemed easier when I attempted both methods).

Watching me knit, my mother-in-law is always awed at the sight of it (apparently, her method is much more common in France than mine is). She says I knit "backwards". She means nothing by it. She is simply amazed. It struck me this evening that this viewpoint of my "backwards" knitting fits well with her general view of my way of doing things. I do not make sense to her and probably never will. This backwards knitting metaphor can be extended to describe many mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationships. As for mine, over the space of the past few years, she seems to have learned to appreciate me somewhat like a painting or sculpture you neither like nor dislike. She might see some of the beauty of the finished work, but never understands the motivation or the method. It simply seems backwards.