ok not really. I was struggling with a title there. that was the best I could do!
today I’m going to talk about knitting and crochet. I started knitting almost two years ago. I found a blog entry from may 2008 where I noted that I wanted to talk about knitting (and running) and that would have been the entry where I explained about starting to knit. except I never wrote it. follow through isn’t always my strong point
to tell the story I need to go back a little further though. before I learned to knit, when I thought I never would (and really didn’t think I wanted to anyway). I thought knitting was something that old ladies do… and I was right. I mean, old ladies do knit. they probably didn’t start doing it as old ladies though, it’s not like one day they woke up and thought “damn, I’m old. better get some knitting needles”. presumably they started knitting and THEN got old.
when I joined atlantamommas shortly after catie was born, some of my new friends were knitters. they had “moms knit in” (instead of moms night in – clever, like I was trying to be with the title of this post) where they all got together and knitted. to be honest, I thought that sounded totally lame. (sorry guys!) maybe I was just put off by something that they could do that I couldn’t do.
fast forward a few years – catie was 3, emily a newborn, and I spent every waking minute talking to or hanging out with Tamar. who also knits! she was pregnant with esther, and she was knitting this awesome afghan:

I thought that was wicked cool. I wanted one just like it. I was starting to come around to the idea that knitting was cool… unfortunately it still wasn’t something I knew how to do. and I certainly wasn’t going to ASK someone how to do it. heavens no.
it was around that time that a girl on the ICAN of Atlanta forum taught herself to knit. and she posted about it. she taught herself using the videos on knittinghelp.com and she posted a bunch of pictures of the neat stuff she had made. every time she posted she talked about how great the videos were and how easy it was to learn. so one night when I was bored I decided to check them out. I wasn’t going to learn how, or anything. I was just going to take a look to prove to myself I couldn’t do it.
and I really did think that, too, even watching the videos. it was John, watching over my shoulder, who encouraged me: “you could totally do that” he said, “even a monkey could learn how to do that”. hm. was he implying that I was no smarter than a monkey? or just that if a monkey could do it, certainly a person smarter than a monkey, like myself, could ALSO learn to do it?
either way, if he thought I could do it, maybe I could. maybe. I wasn’t convinced. I am not a crafty person. the good thing about all of this was that I could try in utter secrecy. If I failed, only John would know. He knows all of my shortcomings and he loves me anyway, so that would be ok.
I went out and bought a pair of needles and one skein of yarn. I didn’t need much, because I was surely not going to be able to do it, and I didn’t want to waste too much money. I had watched the videos over and over the night before, and now I prepared to mimic them while I watched. “in through the window, around to the back. peek through the window, off jumps jack”. around and through and off I went!
much to my surprise, I did figure it out. my first project was a baby blanket. way to start small, eh? It wasn’t great looking (and because I didn’t really understand what I was doing, there were a bunch of dropped stitches. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the entire thing had unraveled into a pile of electric blue yarn by now) but it was a blanket, and I had knitted it!

well, this is turning out to be longer than I thought it would be. so I guess I will call this part 1. tomorrow, crochet, and some recent projects. stay tuned