Knitting

The same weekend that Dale broke his ankle, I learned to knit. I'm more of a curl-up-by-the-fire person than a go-trekking-through-the-snow person (plus, there's less risk of a broken ankle), and several of the other people in the cabin were knitters so I knew I would have mentors around. One of these knitter friends took me to a yarn store for supplies, and I was ready to go.

Perhaps 40 years ago, my aunt Linda had taught me the basic stitch on some family trip, and I got as far as knitting a scarf for a stuffed animal - it was probably five stitches wide and 25 long. She did the casting on and binding off for me that time. This time I did it all myself! :) The first thing I made, under my friend's guidance, was a hat. For a hat you learn more skills than you do for a simple scarf, and also you finish faster. That weekend I learned the skills of casting on, knitting, knitting a gauge swatch, calculating how many stiches my hat would need to be, purling, and ribbing. And I practiced, and I kept making mistakes like yarn-overs without realizing I had done it until alas there was a hole, and so what, it was my first hat. It took me longer than the weekend to finish it (I also had a good book, after all), so after I got home I had to learn the skill of decreasing. This is when I had my first disaster: decreasing involves double-pointed needles, and a bunch of stitches slipped off the other end needle and began to unravel. I tried to fix it but kept just making it worse. Thank goodness my sister-in-law stopped by (to entertain Dale during his ankle recovery) and fixed it for me. Eventually, I got it done, and it was so exciting! I turned a long piece of string into a hat! This is the plain green one in the photo below. You can see that it is a little scruffy, but it is dear to me.

My next project was going to be another hat, one with fewer mistakes in it. I had my heart set on a nice yarn that a different friend had unloaded on me (she has switched from knitting to painting). Sadly I ran out of yarn partway through... so I made it a headband (bottom of photo). I actually like this headband a lot, partly because I am a sucker for variegated yarn. For this project I learned to bind off, and learned that the simplest way to bind off has zero stretch in it...potentially awkward for a headband, but this one turned out okay.

Next up, I made the striped hat pictured above, meaning I learned how to do stripes and also just continued to get better. I made fewer mistakes, and learned how to correct more of the ones I made. You can see in the photo how much smoother it is than the plain one. I was fairly terrified of the decreasing part, but I learned the trick of wrapping the ends of my double-pointed needles with rubber bands so the stitches can't fall off the back, and nothing bad happened.

I think my favorite thing about knitting is that it gives me something to do with my hands and still interact with people. It's great at a meeting, or listening to a lecture, or supervising piano practice. When I went off in April to a two-day symposium with a dozen hourlong lectures, I just had to have something to knit. I made a cowl out of some yarn from my painter friend's basket. I love that variegated yarn and I am happy enough with the quality of my knitting, but it's way too big. I might just unravel it and use the autumnal colors for something else.

At that symposium, I told another knitting friend that I wasn't sure what to make next, and she introduced me to Ravelry. Whoa! what fun! I decided that next I want to learn to make something lacy, so I am working on a shawl. This is teaching me how to read a pattern, knit with very thin yarn, and make holes on purpose. :) I'm about halfway through.