Knitting-ness

I have recently been drawn into a cult-like group of fellow child psych grad student knitters...we are an odd bunch, and take great pleasure in basking in that combined oddity once a week as we stitch'n'bitch together. Some of these fellow knitters also have the nasty habit of being knitbloggers...i.e. people who have blogs devoted to knitting. While I vehemently swear off such a prospect for my blog...well, it is a bit tempting to join the club and post some photos of my knitting projects as well. So be it. My blog, while not a knitblog, will have to submit to housing occasional posts regarding my knitting-ness!

Perhaps I should start with a brief history of my knitting adventures. I learned to knit from my host mother, while I was an exchange student in Finland. She taught me the basics and I set off: scarves! That year my mother and each of my two sisters received scarves for Christmas :). As the dark Finnish winter ended, my affinity for sitting still and knitting began to wane, and so I decided that I ought to make one last scarf before I tired of it altogether--a scarf for me, using all the stitches and patterns and color changing, etc. I had learned to do over the course of the previous three scarves. This scarf, which I still wear despite its oh-so-long length, is below.

Now, that scarf was created back in 1997-1998, and after it came just a few random squares when I occasionally thought I might make another scarf, but never could bring myself to do it. And so ended my knitting career, at the tender age of 16...or so I thought!

We went to my parents' for Christmas last year, in 2004. It became my task to clean out my old room, at least to some extent, so that it could be used as a guest room...and what to my wondering eyes did appear, but some knitting needles, a stack of randomly colored squares, and a bag of yarn, at the bottom of my closet! (The aforementioned grad student knitters, I should mention, had revived my curiosity about knitting just prior to Christmas break...) So, solely because I didn't have to try and re-figure out how to cast-on (I was mid-square, apparently, when I quit years ago), I picked up the needles and re-figured out how to knit a few rows. Then, my dear husband gave me knitting needles, lovely wool blend yarn, and an awesome knitting basket that Christmas. That sealed the deal--all my knitting supplies came home with me.

Over the spring semester that year I managed to make some more squares, all more or less the same size, and created this, my first ever not-a-scarf knitting creation: a baby blanket!


Well, I was pretty much hooked after that. But I was also bored...scarves and squares, while lovely, are not that exciting. I wanted to branch out, but nothing too big--big projects are scary and expensive--and so I found an easy pattern for baby booties, tweaked it a little bit, and voila!


I have kept my niece Ellie in near-constant supply of these cute little things by changing yarn size and needle size so they "grow" with her...but I'm afraid I'm about to run out of tricks and will have to find a different pattern soon if she keeps enjoying her little slippers from Aunt Jess and would like some more. Here are what the last size I sent her look like (hard to tell, but they're a good inch or so longer and in other ways bigger than the originals):


So. Scarves. Squares to blanket. Booties/Slippers. I made a lot of booties/slippers. I was kind of getting tired of them. And then, I got sucked into this cult, as I said, and...hey, didn't I mention I got some nice woolly blend yarn from Andy for Christmas? Yup. Well, it was time to use it. I brought it and the needles along to knit-night and asked what I could make with it that wasn't a scarf and didn't need anything but straight needles. The Knit'Nabler (aptly named) found the perfect thing: a hat pattern in one of her books. An easy hat, but a nice one. Useful, not too fancy, and knit on straight needles. Perfect! I finished it yesterday--here it is:



So, that' s my knitting history. If you've read this far, you're probably one of two people and I know who :-). Hope you enjoyed--oh, and I started a second hat, this one for me, because I like Andy's and I have lots of yarn left, so that is in progress, awaiting me at this moment...