It's Not as Hard as it Looks

   Dana and I were having coffee this morning. Well, actually to be fair neither of us were having coffee. I was drinking tea and she was drinking hot chocolate. I was showing her a stich sampler that I was working on. A stitch sampler is a strip of various knitting stitches used to learn or practice technique. I wanted to make a scarf using these various stitches and told her that I wanted to learn a few more stitches before starting the scarf.
  Dana asked, "Would you like to learn cables?"
   My knees turned to water. I would have fallen except that I was sitting. Did I want to learn cables? I wasn't capable of learning cables. Cables those wonderful patterns that are used on sweaters all over the world. I tried to read how to knit them... once. It involved complicated twisting of stiches and directions and things that made my head spin. I was nowhere good enough to learn how to knit cables. I'm only a novice.
  "I'm not sure I can do that," I said, "Doesn't it involve twisting stitches? That's something I just don't understand."
  "Sure you can, "she said, "I'll show you." She instructed me to knit a couple rows of stockinette stitch. I dutifully complied.
  When I was done, she said, "A cable is just stitches done in front of each other." She demonstrated with her hands. "You can do any number of stitches, We'll start with two. Once you have the technique down you can do any number you want."
  She told me to knit two stitches. After I had done that, she told me to take two stitches off my needle. I inwardly cringed. I knew I was going to drop those stiches and never find them again. I dug into my knitting bag for something to hold them with. I found a box of safety pins. I used one to hold my stitches. I looked back at her waiting for my next step. "Knit two more stitches, " she said. I knitted two more stitches. She told me to take the stiches off my safety pin, put them back on my needle and knit them. I did it. Then I looked up at her.
   "That's it," she said, "You've just knitted a cable." I looked down at my work. I really couldn't see a cable there, but it was only one row. She showed me another way to do it so I wouldn't have to use the safety pins. If I was going to do more of this there was a tool I could get. For now I wouldn't need it. She suggested that I purl the stitches around the cable so it would stand out more. Then she let me practice.
   I dove into my practice gleefully. This wasn't hard at  all. I could mange this nicely. I could make all kinds of lovely things with cables in them. It really wasn't that complicated.
  Eventually we both had to fold up our needlework at head home. I was happy. Once I master this then she will show me how to change direction and how to cross my cables. Those directions in my knitting book were mome complicated than they needed to be.
  That's the way it is with me sometimes. I look at something and it looks like way too much for me to tackle. I'm learning if I start small and have someone to help me, I can mange. Most of the time, it (whatever it is) is not as hard as it looks.