My long road to knitting

At first I hated knitting

Hate is a strong word, but I was a kid at the time, and not given to subtle reactions to problems. The first time I learned to knit was when I was about eight years old, but it didn’t take at that time. I ran into problems my mom couldn’t help me with, and I gave up in frustration, which in my child’s mind translated to “I hate knitting.” I know now that the problem I had then, of gaining a stitch at the beginning of the row, was a typical beginner’s error. But at the time it was a puzzling mystery.

Let me just crochet and tat

When I was about fifteen, my grandmother taught me to crochet, and later, when I was about seventeen, she taught me how to tat lace. When she offered to teach me to knit, that rebellious, embarrassed claim, “I hate knitting.” popped into my mind, and although I didn’t say it out loud, it influenced me unreasonably to turn down her offer. I decided I was happy enough with crocheting and tatting to last me the rest of my life. I tatted lace bookmarks, and when I came across a picture of a crocheted afghan in a magazine, I loved it so much I had to match the colors exactly, and I made one for myself, without a pattern — I had only that magazine photo to go by.

The book that changed my mind about knitting

Sometime later, Grandma bought me the Learn-to-Knit Afghan Book by Barbara G. Walker. Walker happens to be my maiden name, and my grandmother pointed out the similarity in our names as a just-for-fun reason for getting me the book. Clever Grandma. And yet I still balked. It wasn’t until well after her death, when I was in my thirties, that I found that book on my shelves again and decided to learn how to knit from it. By then I needed a way to relax, and knitting fit the bill perfectly. I think that was around 1993 or 1994, but I can’t recall for certain. So it’s close to 30 years ago now. Of course the first thing I made was that blanket, although I left out some of the squares that felt too challenging to me at the time. But by the time I had sewn the squares together, and my spouse lovingly adopted it as his, I had become convinced that not only did I not hate knitting, I loved it.

Very soon after that, I tried my first sweater. I bought books on knitting, I bought yarn. I subscribed to knitting magazines. In bookstores, I pored over the knitting books.

Slow knitting

I’m a slow knitter — and I like it that way. I’ve been knitting on a budget for years, and I find that if I have something to knit, it’s relaxing, a wonderful way to slow down my thinking processes and just be for a while, doing something gently repetitive, almost meditative. I know other people knit for different reasons, and I do like finished products, and I obsess a little over color and color combinations, but the relaxation aspect matters to me a lot. That said, there are naturally times when I want the finished product, and obstacles, errors, or set-backs can be frustrating.

Saving some for later

I’m sure I’ll get around to sharing more about my knitting as this blog gets going. But for now, you know a little bit about me and why I knit.