Still not done

I finished the knitting on the Emily shawl last night. But the pattern recommended a sewn bind-off, so I decided to give that a try (I had never used a sewn bind-off before). It's a good bind-off for something like a shawl because it feels fairly stable and yet is stretchy enough that you can block the shawl without getting a puckered edge. However, it's very tedious to do - I only got through about 1/3 of it before giving up for the evening.

There aren't that many things I "haven't done" in knitting. (The sewn bind-off was one). Aside from a few of the more esoteric cast ons and bind offs, really, the two big things I have not attempted are knitting with beads (where you thread the beads on the yarn ahead of time and slide a bead into place as you make the stitch where the bead is needed) and entrelac.

I've done intarsia, I've done cabling (and come to the conclusion that I vastly prefer knitting sweaters of dk or worsted with four or six stitch cables to knitting sockyarn socks with wee tiny cables - I have two pairs of socks with elaborate cables in different degrees of being stalled out and while I will eventually power through them and finish them....meh). I've done twisted-stitches. I've done lace and will do lace again. (I would rather knit lace socks on the wee tiny needles and of fine yarn than knit cabled socks on wee tiny needles...). I've done colorwork, and would do it again if the pattern required.

Bead knitting I'm kind of meh about. Part of it is I wonder about laundering - some beads don't hold up that well to getting wet, even with hand washing. And part of it is that I know I'd find having to shift all those beads around every time I needed another length of un-beaded yarn annoying. And I haven't yet seen a beaded-knitting pattern that I felt I just HAD to make with the beads. (I've seen a few shawls designed to be knit with beads that I'd knit but leave the beads off of).

Entrelac I'd be more likely to try. I haven't mainly just because I have other projects that seem more compelling to me at the moment.

Actually, I feel like I could happily live the rest of my life without doing bead knitting, and likely without doing entrelac. I know there are some self-styled knitting police out there who would clutch their pearls in horror over that - but you're not STRETCHING yourself, they would say. You're not GROWING. You can only STAGNATE if you are not trying every new technique out there! (I've also never done Magic Loop. I know some people love it, but frankly, I like double-pointed needles - which it is designed to replace - and they work fine for me). It's kind of like the self-styled quilt police who snark over the people who continue to make one-patch or simple-block quilts instead of attempting something with a gazillion points or set-in seams or something.

I don't know. Part of me does sometimes feel like I should Challenge! Myself! but then another part of me just gets very tired of that attitude. (And a lot of the time, I feel like just getting my job done, and keeping up with the laundry, and going to the grocery store without breaking down crying in the frozen-foods aisle about how people treat each other at the grocery store, and getting all my grading done, and working out a few hours a week, and choking down my requisite servings of vegetables - that all feels like ENOUGH of a challenge.)

I tend to learn new techniques as I need them. (Hence the fact that I've never used the sewn bind-off before now. Though I can see how it would work well to bind off a pair of toe-up socks. I have knit one pair of toe-up socks though generally I prefer to knit cuff-down, because I can Kitchener stitch more neatly and easily than I can cleanly do a stretchy bind off for the cuff of a toe-up.)