- I finished my first ever sweater
- I learned to check and recheck gauge
- I knit lace
- I knit lace socks
- I finished several projects
- I made my first, second, third, forth, fifth and sixth pair of mittens (granted, four pairs were small enough to fit a Barbie doll, but still.)
So, what's in store for the next year? Well, I see some more knitting in the future. Another sweater, maybe two. I would love to say that I want to double my output in the next year, but unless I break my other knee-cap I don't think that will be possible, and I don't plan to do that just so I can knit more! But maybe I can match it, and then we will see.
I know that I've never really told the story of my knitting, so I will regale you with the tale, you can decide if it has been worth it or not.
I learned to knit in the summer of 2000, though I had been interested in learning for a few years before I found someone willing to teach me. (I am not the kind of person who looks in a book and learns things) The lady who took me on was named Ruth. She was a small town transplant for New York city. She was a beginner knitter. She learned from a beginner too. Can you see where this is going? Ruth taught me to knit a continental twisted stitch with a totally crazy cast-on, and she never taught me to bind off. She did teach me to knit in the round, and the very first knitted thing that I made was a Anne Norling baby hat. Not bad for a beginner. Then I immediately cast on another, cause I didn't need to know how to bind off to make those baby hats. They simply faded off on their own. Then, I sort of forgot how to cast on, and by then, Ruth had moved away. I spent several nights trying to remember how. I sat there with a ball of cotton twine that was never meant to be knitted, and I finally figured out a sort-of cast on. I started another hat, this time in seed stitch, even though I had no idea how to tell the difference between a knit stitch and a purl stitch, and they were twisted anyway. Then, B got a hold of a pair of scissors and chopped the hat, and all the yarn into a million pieces, I stopped knitting. I didn't even miss it. Then, when I was pregnant with Jack Jack, I decided I would knit a little strawberry hat for my baby. I had to relearn to knit again. But I prevailed. Then, while visiting Sadie in Denver, I thought that I could teach someone else to knit. Yeah, in retrospect, I probably had no business knitting in the first place, let alone trying to teach anyone else. So, she was confused, I was confused. It was ugly. And all the time, I was extremely uncomfortable knitting. It was literally painful to me. And the only things I could make were round hats, and flat scarves, because by then I had devised a bind-off that seemed to work (I'd love to see those scarves now, I'll bet they unravelled at the first hard tug!) Anyway, I went to Knit at Knite (a local knitting group) for moral support and to figure out why everyone that I saw knitting looked like they enjoyed it, and why they could make things, while I merely cramped up and knit nothing worth keeping. The good ladies there showed me what I was doing wrong, how to cast-on and bind-off, how to increase, read patterns, all the knitterly things that a knitter needs to know. I even figured out why I was so miserable, twisted stitches are hard to make. I can't stress how much they all helped me. Here is where I need to tell you that if you are a snobby knitter who frowns at beginners, you should go back to your knitting roots and remember that you, too had to learn once, maybe twice or three times, like me. The rest of the story is that I made a fabulous felted purse as my first non-baby hat project, then I bought sock yarn, and learned to make socks. But first, I had to learn to knit English style, because it looked so much easier. And I do find it easier, and I believe that it is all about ease. So there is my knitted history. I've come a long way, no? I only wish that I had had a camera to document my porgress through it all. But I do have this one picture, and I'll just leave you with my first purse, in 1 megapixel. I guess my knitting isn't the only thing that has come a long way.
1 comment:
He looks so tiny, and not just cause of that huge unfelted purse that still looks and works wonderfully. I have had more compliments on it and the crazy scarf that I conned you out of, than most all of my treasured jewelry.
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