My mother taught me to knit when I was a teenager. I had lofty goals of knitting my new baby cousin a blanket. I think I successfully learned how to cast on from her and the knit stitch, English style. She let me raid her stash, since I knew the baby was going to be a boy, I chose brown, not a warm brown, more dark. I started knitting a blanket, not quite wide enough, in brown yarn using only the knit stitch, also called garter stitch. I didn’t finish it, ever. I couldn’t even tell you if it still exists somewhere, I think I may have taken it apart (frogged/ripped) and made pom-poms out of it. I didn’t think much about knitting again until my early twenties. I found a pattern in a magazine, bought some needles and yarn, then tried to teach myself from the pictures in the back of the magazine. My fingers refused to connect. I found a friend of the family to show me, again and again, how to cast on, and slowly my fingers worked again. The sweater fell by the wayside when I couldn’t make quick enough progress, it’s now an unfinished blanket, but I am going to turn it back into a different sweater (I think). Four or five years ago I started knitting again, this time to stay for a long while. I’m finally motivated enough to complete projects. Most of that motivation comes from choosing projects I am capable of finishing, with only one or two new strategies per projects. I have retaught myself knitting, this time Continental style as it is easier on my arm and hands. I started think about what kind of knitter I am, process or project. Do I knit for the fun of knitting or for the final work? Everyone I have ever heard analyze him/herself was one or the other. At my current level of expertise (or lack there of), I have to be noncommittal and say I am both. I knit for the process when I learn new techniques and rip back until it’s correct. I knit for the final project because I won’t/can’t finish something that I or another won’t value.
Why do you craft? Why do you knit? Why are you passionate about your hobbies and activities? What keeps you going?
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Tags: knitting
I learned to knit at a class at Sears when I was 8. Never finished that sweater. Moved it around for 20 or so years before trashing it. Now I regret that.
I took knitting up again this past January. Could remember knit and purl but couldn’t cast on to save my life. I knit for the process and the final project. But I do make mistakes and sometimes they stay. I don’t knit on deadlines though. I want to enjoy the process of knitting and a deadline can kind of take part of the fun out of it! I knit because it makes me feel good, I love seeing the final project, and it shows me that I do have some spark of creativity in me. It’s been fun discovering this part of me.
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