How knitting is like teaching band

I am a knitter, and I love the Yarn Harlot. If you are not familiar with her blog, her books, or her knitting, I invite you to check out all three, and if you're not really a knitter, perhaps you know one, or someone in the arts, and could appreciate this recent post.

In honor of the Yarn Harlot, who is currently in Seattle where things turn green in the winter and brown in the summer (as a former Portland resident I totally get this), I would like to humbly attempt to knit knitting and teaching band together.

Top ten reasons why knitting is just like teaching band:

10. If you don't keep busy doing it every moment you can, you tend to get a little rusty.

9. You never know what you're going to get when you combine unknown elements together, say, a terra-cotta worsted single-ply and a variegated cream and purple fingering weight; or, say, a sweet quiet girl who suddenly learned she really could play the drums, and a girl with no top teeth who can play the heck out of a clarinet.

8. Sometimes you just go round and round in circles.

7. The feelings of start-itis are about the same. Itching to delve into the music library/stash boxes and get started.

6. Problem-solving is a must. Today I fixed a saxophone spring, a clarinet pad, and pulled a trombone mouthpiece, and tonight after the kids are in bed I will probably figure out how to fix a loose gauge on a dishcloth and whether I can change yarns on a sweater front when I get to the shawl collar.

5. Finishing is a chore. I can knit a lovely project and sit with it for months because I don't want to sew the thing together. You can hammer a piece to death trying to get the last few elements perfect, but eventually you just have to perform it and let go.

4. Sometimes there's nothing else to do but frog it and start over.

3. A really nice piece of knitting feels good every which way around--pleasant in your hands, easy to work with, lovely to look at. Same with a good band.

2. That feeling of satisfaction when you finish a project or do the concert.

1. If you don't keep on top of your knitting/your middle-school band, it tends to unravel.