Friday, January 21, 2011

I'm Knitting Again!

When I was about 13 years old, my grandmother taught me how to knit. I was spending a few days with her at her house one summer and in the evening we'd sit out on her back deck with our needles and yarn. By the time I got back home, I had a nice big practice square that I grew into a larger piece.

As time passed, that square got lost with the needles she gave me in a sea of junk in my closet. My grandmother passed away only a couple of years after that night she taught me how to knit. And it wasn't until probably 15 years later that I tried knitting again. I had already been crocheting for a few years...I had been inspired to learn how to crochet because that was another craft of my grandmother's, and she had left us with several of her crocheted afghans. It didn't occur to me to try knitting also until later.

So I got some needles and started on a square. I was kind of intimidated by knitting and I also had forgotten a couple of key details of the purl stitch which left me with only the knit stitch. Yesterday (yet another few years later), I found a great tutorial on this website, http://www.allfreeknitting.com/, and learned how to purl again. I'm about 6 inches away from a new scarf as I type this and I am thrilled.

My grandmother was awesome...she was a night shift police dispatcher, had a pet duck named Druscilla, had rescued a frozen and brain damaged dog one winter night that she kept and named Rags, was a gardener, a great cook, had the most hilarious stories to tell, and in addition to knitting and crocheting, sewed clothes and quilts, made dolls out of detergent bottles and fabric, and did elaborate cross-stitch projects. She could do anything. 25 years later, I still really miss her. I'm so glad, though, that I picked up at least a few of her skills...I'm not as creative as she was and don't have the same level of patience for large, time-consuming craft projects...but I'm grateful that I can pick up a crochet needle and know how to use it...and now that I'm knitting again, I feel a little closer to her than I did before.

I can't wait to start my next knitting project!

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