At least I think it’s 28.

Anyway.

I knit, because (this will come as a surprise to you non-knitters) it defies the order of the space-time continuum.

I shall explain.

Do you remember reading Madeline L’Engle books? More specifically, A Wrinkle in Time? No? Well, if so, good for you. If not, the pertinent bit is that there is a discussion of 1, 2, 3 and 4-dimensional space. As a child, this was a brand new world of physics wonder, and it has always stuck with me.

And now there’s knitting. Here’s how it bridges all 4 dimensions at the same time.

Knitting in one dimension is pretty much all knitting. At its core, a knit object is a piece of yarn, looped over and over and over. Essentially it is one-dimensional, although the space it occupies is not. (Yes, I’m oversimplifying, but it’s got a point, so just suspend your disbelief for just a minute.) Your yarn is a fixed number of yards, and then you use some of those yards, and those yards are pretty much always there.

Knitting in two dimensions (area) is what happens when you’re in the process of knitting. Whether you’re following a pattern or not, the bit you’re working on is essentially a plane that you’re making smaller or larger, or putting holes in, or filling out, depending on your desired FO.

Knitting in three dimensions is what happens when you knit a sock, a stuffed animal, a sweater, a  hat, or pretty much anything that’s not a blanket, shawl, or scarf (yes, I know that these things are not technically two-dimensional, but whatever). It has volume (by volume I mean your foot, your torso, or the other things you fill knitting with; your brains go places I do not want to, and don’t share that with me).

Four dimensional knitting is the time it takes to finish all those 3-D projects, because you take the first three dimensions and then add (in my case) six months, which seems to be the crucial ingredient in making one happy with a knitting project one previously loathed (loathing might possibly be the fifth dimension, but I haven’t tested it as thoroughly as I’d like; perhaps I should cast on a couple more projects, just to make sure I’ve gotten a representative sample).