a brief (personal) history of knitting

I learned to knit on New Year's Eve of last year, at the wonderful warm house of my friends C & E. C being a knitter, I had been watching her work for months, marvelling at the lovely things which sprang from her hands while being certain that I could never do such a thing myself. I have always had stubborn fingers, fingers which will only learn such tasks as suit them; I type 120 words per minute, but when I tried (a decade back) to learn to crochet they rebelled and I gave up in disgust. Repeatedly.

So when C greeted me not only with hot tea and yummy snacks, but also with circular bamboo needles, some bright yellow yarn, and a selection of knitting books, I was dubious at best. Yet there I was, curled up on the couch in her living room, and my husband was chatting with other people, and there seemed absolutely no reason not to give it a try -- and by the end of the evening I was clumsily knitting away, absolutely amazed that my fingers believed this complicated maneuver with yarn and needles was something they ought to be doing.

The next day, of course, was New Year's Day, and although I was rather exhausted and heavy-eyed from the previous evening (there had been some wine to go with that knitting, and great quantities of excellent cheese and chocolate fondue, and champagne, of course), I had promised to attend a brunch at the home of the Z's. So attend I did, and enthused to passers-by about my new knitting talent, and in the course of conversation decided that since things had been going so well, I might as well learn to purl.

And thus, gentle reader, I can accurately say that I learned to knit on New Year's Eve, and to purl on New Year's Day -- a formulation which still makes me giggle.

Since then I have bought much yarn (mostly from Knitpicks) and many needles (ditto), and I am right now a single row away from being done with my first project, a baby blanket made with old acrylic yarn that I'd bought back in my crochet days in the hopes of making something for my then unborn nephew. The blanket's pattern is so simple that it was a perfect first project for me, and I had the chance to make a thousand beginner mistakes, learn to identify them (with much assistance from kind knitting friends), and eventually to repair them myself instead of handing them off for someone else to fix. I also learned that it really is okay to start over -- and over again -- and over again when things just aren't working out. The final blanket is much smaller than the pattern intends, since both my yarn and my needles were thinner than recommended, but I've been told that it's the perfect size for a carseat blanket, so I'm satisfied. Once I have finished this horrifying midterm (the one I ought to be working on right now) I think I'll carve out the time to finish the blanket and photograph it and then see about gifting it to the small child who has expressed interest by putting it into his mouth repeatedly.