Beginning Knitting

I wrote my last post about learning to knit, and about how it reminded me of learning other things. I'm probably not what you would call a "quick study". I want to remember my earliest struggles. I hope to keep going with this knitting thing.

Over the week, as I continued my efforts, I started remembering things about being in a knitting club in Jr. High. I guess I would have been about 12 or 13. That has been a long time ago, but memories started coming back. I think someone in my club, named Lucy or Lucinda, told me that they liked my knitting because of the texture. I wanted to see what everyone had down. I feel sure that mine was full of mistakes, dropped and added stitches. I think I was having the same problems with my knitting back then that I have been having now. I never could go for very many rows without mistakes. So long ago, was I knitting the same way? Is that because my mind remembers in some subterranean way what I had learned back then.

My grandmother knitted, did she try to teach me how? I don't specifically remember. Did I pick up some of her methods just by watching her? I can't say for sure.

So back to the present. It was very frustrating at first, but then I finally did start to get the hang of it.

I was trying so hard with my first knitting lesson. After 2 hours I had completed all of about 5 or 6 rows (I'm guessing)of knitting and then I my teacher showed me how to purl. I purled okay under her watchful eye. When I came home, I knitted a bit more and then tried purling and knitting on the same row. For some reason the purling made my knitting very tight. So tight that I could hardly fit the needles in. I found that if I just skipped a stitch or two it was much easier! A few holes could look decorative right? Ha! What a mess that was. Dropping the stitches caused, not holes, but long loops. When I had gone a few more rows, I decided to to unravel back to take out the ugly row. But I didn't really know how to unravel. I have a book that says unraveling is no great disaster, and so I plunged in. I started unraveling and couldn't stop. So, of course, I unraveled the whole thing!

Several more attempts at casting on, knitting and purling and unraveling, because it was so tight, the whole lot, I finally gave up for the day (night), it was about 3 o'clock in the morning.

Thankfully, it got easier after that first day. I think I was in too much of a hurry.

I'd nearly gotten a dish cloth finished and then I set it down somewhere out of sight. I haven't done any knitting for several days. But, I really want to finish it. And do another. And I was right when I told someone that my knitting would probably be unconventional, I just seem to be that kind of gal.