A short entry about a knit that nearly died, and the twenty minutes that turned into a habit.
I ruined a jumper in July. Not dramatically. It came out of the machine slightly smaller and slightly harder and entirely finished, in that way where nothing is visibly wrong and you still never wear it again.
Knitwear does not fail because you washed it. It fails because of agitation and heat, which are two things a washing machine is specifically built to provide.
You can wash a knit almost as often as you like if you keep it cool and keep it still. Nobody told me this. I found out by destroying something I liked.
Cold water in the sink. A small amount of whatever mild thing you have. Push it under, leave it, come back in fifteen minutes, press the water out without wringing, and dry it flat on a towel rather than hanging it, because a wet knit will stretch itself into a completely different garment under its own weight.
That is the whole method. It takes about four minutes of actual attention.
I have started liking it. Not in a wholesome way, I have not become a person with a routine. It is just that there are very few things left in a week where you do one small task with your hands and it is finished and it worked.
Everything else I do all day is a thing that is never finished.
['The jumper is still ruined. The ones after it are fine.']
Nora