How I Started Knitting

I'm a sucker for a challenge. This question was posed by the Sock It To Me leader. One lucky participant will win yarn. Really cool yarn. Socks That Rock yarn. Yarn that I desperately want and have never bought.

I started knitting at the cabin. The cabin belongs to my in-laws and is located on a very nice lake in Wisconsin. I don't remember the exact year, but I think Adam and I were already married. I'm not exactly sure about this as I know I was at my parents house prior to that trip to the cabin. Somehow I left my cross-stitch either at our apartment or at my parents house (little hazy on the details!) I do remember that Gabe and Sara were at the cabin with us along with my in-laws. Since I cannot sit still and do nothing and it's hard to read when there are that many people around (and considered rude when you have guests!) I had to pick some new cross-stitch up at the Ben Franklin in town (that being the only place in town at that time that had crafty type things to buy). Unfortunately (or fortunately I guess) there weren't any cross-stitch patterns there. However, they had a decent selection of yarn, knitting needles and one lone book on How to Knit. I have no idea why I picked knitting over crochet, I just did.

So I brought my 2 balls of worsted weight, size 8 needles, the book, and a vague idea that I would knit a scarf back to the cabin. My mother-in-law and Sara both knew how to knit, but hadn't done so in many years. So between them and the book I was able to figure it out. I hated it at first. The yarn was scratchy and the knitting gave me a tension headache. For some reason I stuck it out. I never finished the scarf though. I ripped it out and the yarn still sits in my stash.

From there, I made quite a few scarves and hats for people for Christmas. I also started a chenille blanket that I figured I would just make a lot of squares and blanket stitch them together. I had no pattern, just made it up as I went along. I never finished the blanket, the squares are extremely dense... I didn't have any idea that the yarn was too thick for my size 8s. I just started picking up patterns and yarn, never really understanding what gauge was or why my items sometimes didn't quite turn out the correct size. If I didn't like the yarn that was called for, I just picked up something different. Ignorance is bliss I guess! Looking back, it's pretty amazing that I had enough success with knitting that I continued.