Thursday, December 09, 2010

Can't Stop Knitting

It all started about a week before Halloween. Night wanted to be Harry Potter. We have been reading through the series (we are on year 4 now). It is amazing to re-live Harry Potter with a 7 year old, by the way. Anyway, Night wanted to be Harry Potter. We found a costume for him, but we couldn't find a scarf.
My mom taught me how to knit when I was about 10. I never finished anything--not even a square that we could call a washcloth. But, if I could do it when I was 10, I figured I could re-teach myself now, and that is just what I did. I went to Wal-mart and bought a cheap skein of burgundy and a cheap skein of gold. We already had big needles at home, and I set out to work. I watched video after video after video on the internet. It took me about 2 days to re-teach myself. I didn't use a pattern or anything, so I cast on way too many stitches. I think there were probably 50 stitches. (I'm currently knitting a scarf with 19 stitches). I didn't know how to count rows, so I knit with burgundy until it looked right, then I watched a zillion videos to learn how to switch colors. I did garter stitch for the whole thing, which is all I even knew existed. Halloween was on Sunday. I had the scarf finished by Thursday. Whoo-hoo.
Now, I can't stop knitting. Since then (a month and a half?), I have made 2 more Harry Potter scarves (toddler versions), a scarf for Keira, a PONCHO and hat for myself, and 3 basket-weave scarves for teacher gifts (I' have 3 more of those to get done for next Wednesday). I've also started teaching myself how to make socks. I've started two. The first one is crap, but I learned from it. Now, I'm on the second. I figure if I can get this second one down, I will rip out the first one and make a pair!
I want to write more about my knitting adventure, but I can't figure out how to type and knit at the same time, so the rest of the story will have to wait while I knit and knit and knit...