I have always had fidgety hands. And these fidgety hands have always needed
to create things. In high school I worked at a bakery and got to help prep the
pastries and cakes (...and do way too much taste testing...). I had a beading
addiction at the time and would spend hours in the bead store spending a big
chunk of my hard earned bakery money on seed beads, and weird looking beads with
skulls and spiders on them (Goth phase, what can I say?)
I did try a crack at knitting in high school with long straights and squeaky variegated acrylic yarn (I still have it in my stash!) but I was trying to self teach myself and it all ended in frustration. Near the end of my first maternity leave when life seemed somewhat orderly again and the exhaustion was behind me, I found my hands were fidgety at night again so I signed up for knitting lessons at my LYS. I instantly loved it. Taking the lessons gave me a lot of confidence in attacking a pattern (and fixing the inevitable mistakes!) and designing my own patterns came quickly. Now with 2 kids at home and the unavoidable schedule juggling, I try to get the knitting in when I can. I definitely have way more ideas in my head than what I have time to knit!
What I like most about knitting is that it can be anything you're in the mood for. If you're exhausted at the end of the day and want to mindlessly knit away at some garter stitch while watching Grey's, pick up that scarf. Feeling up for the challenge? Pick up some lace. Feeling creative? Pick up a pencil and some graph paper and write up a design. The possibilities are endless and it all starts with some string. Pretty cool.
Recently I started the NOT Knit by Nat series and I have been truly amazed by the sense of the community us knitters have. I find knitters to be the most gracious and appreciative of people I have ever come across. I think it's because we know how much work it takes to knit something, to get the design right. We know that feeling when you knit for hours and realize you made a mistake in the first inch. And that mistake will haunt you and torment you until you HAVE to rip it back and start again. We are a stubborn bunch, us knitters. We are all in the same club and a shout out from knitter to knitter is golden.
I did try a crack at knitting in high school with long straights and squeaky variegated acrylic yarn (I still have it in my stash!) but I was trying to self teach myself and it all ended in frustration. Near the end of my first maternity leave when life seemed somewhat orderly again and the exhaustion was behind me, I found my hands were fidgety at night again so I signed up for knitting lessons at my LYS. I instantly loved it. Taking the lessons gave me a lot of confidence in attacking a pattern (and fixing the inevitable mistakes!) and designing my own patterns came quickly. Now with 2 kids at home and the unavoidable schedule juggling, I try to get the knitting in when I can. I definitely have way more ideas in my head than what I have time to knit!
What I like most about knitting is that it can be anything you're in the mood for. If you're exhausted at the end of the day and want to mindlessly knit away at some garter stitch while watching Grey's, pick up that scarf. Feeling up for the challenge? Pick up some lace. Feeling creative? Pick up a pencil and some graph paper and write up a design. The possibilities are endless and it all starts with some string. Pretty cool.
Recently I started the NOT Knit by Nat series and I have been truly amazed by the sense of the community us knitters have. I find knitters to be the most gracious and appreciative of people I have ever come across. I think it's because we know how much work it takes to knit something, to get the design right. We know that feeling when you knit for hours and realize you made a mistake in the first inch. And that mistake will haunt you and torment you until you HAVE to rip it back and start again. We are a stubborn bunch, us knitters. We are all in the same club and a shout out from knitter to knitter is golden.
