Monday, October 29, 2007

Re-learning to knit!




Holy cow! It's been a while since I last posted. I've been fairly busy though! The twins are now 9 months old, and if that alone hasn't kept me busy enough, I've also made baptism invitations for the daughter of a lady that my husband works with, FINALLY completed 50 poodle magnets for NEC (New England Crafters, http://www.magicalgift.com/) that I haven't sent in yet, nearly finished a quilt top with over 700 pieces that I started about 4 years ago, and re-taught myself to knit!


Why knitting you ask? Well, in my daily surfing I came across a great crafting web site: http://www.craftster.org/ and I have to say I think this is the most comprehensive crafting web site I've ever seen. They have a great forum for crafting of all kinds. I was inspired to finish my quilt top from all the great ones I saw here, and noticed they had a knitting forum too. So, I thought I'd check it out. My mom taught me to knit when I was about 13, but I couldn't understand the patterns, so I gave it up and decided to stick with crochet because I only had to keep track of 1 hook as apposed to 2 needles! Then about 7 years ago I decided that I wanted to knit a sweater for my oldest child (who was about 8 months old at the time). So I bought a learn to knit kit, and made the sweater. The silly thing is that I put it a way for a while because it needed some hand embroidery to be completed, and I just finished it a few months ago. Luckily I did have another girl, and it turned out way too big anyway, so I think it'll fit her even though she's nearly 3 (I'm giving it to her for Christmas). Anyway, I got to looking at the beautiful completed projects posted on craftster, and realized that there are just some things that can only be done right if you knit them! So, I have again begun to learn to knit. And this time I've already taken it a step or 2 passed knit and purl! I've done a little ribbing, and I've completed my very first cable stitch! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out seeing as how I only had this simple booklet to work with. I haven't actually made a real project yet. I'm just working with some scrap yarn, and messing around until I feel like I've figured out enough to actually make something useful. This swatch will most likely be a wash rag. I'm currently trying to figure out how to do a simple lace pattern. And I would like my first real project to be a pair of socks, but I haven't priced out the yarn for that yet, so we'll see if that really happens. In the mean time I'm having a great time learning, and looking at beautiful things I'd love to make. Oh yeah, and I learned how to make my own knitting needles out of wooden dowels. These pictures are of my current swatch that I'm making on my first set of home made needles, and a close up of the cabling! I'll post pics of my first completed project if I ever have one. And I'll also post pics of my daughter's quilt when it's completed. ENJOY!