I know, I know. The last thing the Internet needs is another knitting blog.
Too bad. Here I am.
I have another blog, but for reasons that I don't want to get into here, I can't post any knitterly thoughts on that one, and that's starting to irk me, so here we are.
I learned to knit when I was 7 or 8 - my mum taught me. I asked her to - she knit a lot back then, and I was enchanted by how she could take a length of yarn, wave some needles around, and like magic fabric was created. So she taught me the basics - knit, purl, bind off. Notice that she didn't teach me how to cast on. This was likely a calculated move on her part - I couldn't just nip a ball of yarn out of her stash and start making something out of it. Not only did this likely save her from running into that frustrating wall when one discovers that one has, say, a sweater that is missing a sleeve because suddenly there is no more yarn, but it also prevented me from creating piles of just-started scraps of fabric. I didn't have the attention span for real knitting back then - couldn't even have finished a garter stitch washcloth, I bet. I lost interest in the craft entirely pretty quickly.
Fast forward to me in grad school, meeting people in my own age group who knit as a way toprocrastinate decompress from the rigours of academia while still being productive. A spark of appeal. In January 2006, I asked my mum to show me how to cast on, and she happily obliged. I went out and bought some yarn - some Bernat baby cotton stuff - and knit myself a scarf, making a basketweave pattern by alternating sections of knit and purl stitches, and I just cast on until I thought it was wide enough and then knit until I thought it was long enough. By the time the scarf was done, about a month later, I was hooked.
The scarf was followed by two baby blankets, a stockinette lap blanket, and the beginnings of a large stockinette blanket that was actually just completed in 2008. By late 2006, though, I was getting pretty bored of knitting rectangles.
So I started in with the socks.
Now, in 2009, I've just finished my first skirt (piccies coming soon) and I will be starting my first sweater. I still think of myself as a beginning knitter, but a moderately competent one.
Oh, and for anyone wondering? I'm still a grad student, though that must come to an end this year. I must produce my thesis. It will be oh so good to be done with that phase of my life, but in the meantime, the pressure is crushing me a wee bit.
So I knit.
Too bad. Here I am.
I have another blog, but for reasons that I don't want to get into here, I can't post any knitterly thoughts on that one, and that's starting to irk me, so here we are.
I learned to knit when I was 7 or 8 - my mum taught me. I asked her to - she knit a lot back then, and I was enchanted by how she could take a length of yarn, wave some needles around, and like magic fabric was created. So she taught me the basics - knit, purl, bind off. Notice that she didn't teach me how to cast on. This was likely a calculated move on her part - I couldn't just nip a ball of yarn out of her stash and start making something out of it. Not only did this likely save her from running into that frustrating wall when one discovers that one has, say, a sweater that is missing a sleeve because suddenly there is no more yarn, but it also prevented me from creating piles of just-started scraps of fabric. I didn't have the attention span for real knitting back then - couldn't even have finished a garter stitch washcloth, I bet. I lost interest in the craft entirely pretty quickly.
Fast forward to me in grad school, meeting people in my own age group who knit as a way to
The scarf was followed by two baby blankets, a stockinette lap blanket, and the beginnings of a large stockinette blanket that was actually just completed in 2008. By late 2006, though, I was getting pretty bored of knitting rectangles.
So I started in with the socks.
Now, in 2009, I've just finished my first skirt (piccies coming soon) and I will be starting my first sweater. I still think of myself as a beginning knitter, but a moderately competent one.
Oh, and for anyone wondering? I'm still a grad student, though that must come to an end this year. I must produce my thesis. It will be oh so good to be done with that phase of my life, but in the meantime, the pressure is crushing me a wee bit.
So I knit.
Comments
Post a Comment