How I learned to knit

While I was writing last night's post, I had tried to cram in the story on how I became a knitter. Well, I decided I would wait for today to tell it and that way I could add more content. I also went through a really old LiveJournal blog and found a bunch of entries that I made when I was first learning (quotes from that blog are in italics), so now I can share some of my very first projects that I have honestly forgot about and they are long gone.



Some time in 2002 (I think), my favorite craft blogger NotMartha had blogged about the Vegan Fox scarf from the first Knitty, Fall 2002 and I thought that was really cool and that maybe someday I would learn to knit too. In 2003 she blogged about this book called Stitch & Bitch. Admittedly I was intrigued, because it was a book with "bitch" in the name, and figured it had to be awesome! I found it while I was shopping at New Seasons (grocery store)and of all places they had the book! I flipped through it, and it seemed like an easy book to learn to knit from. I didn't buy it that day though.

For Christmas that year my co-worker's aunt had made her an really cool (at that time) scarf that was green and black and very fuzzy, it was made with something called fun fur. After seeing that I knew that I had to have one too! So, for whatever reason, in February of 2004 I decided to teach myself to knit and when I knew how to do it, I was going to make this scarf:



Looking at it now, I'm really embarassed. I guess we all start somewhere and this really caught my eye!

Of course, New Seasons didn't have Stitch & Bitch anymore so I went to Powell's and bought "Knitting for Dummies". I tried and tried and couldn't figure it out, so I returned it. And from my old blog, it looks like I bought S&B on Feb 17, 2004 and I ended up buying the book at a Barnes and Noble. That night I sat down with some white sport weight Red Heart yarn that I had bought for some other non-knitting craft and some too-big-for-that-yarn size 8 aluminum needles and taught myself how to knit. I wasn't sure if I was doing it right because my stitches did not look anything like the pictures in the book. So I had Owen read the directions to me, and look at what I was doing to see if it looked right, and he pointed out that my skinny yarn and the large needles made bigger stitches, but essentially I was doing it right.

Apparently it didn't take that long to learn to knit, so I went to Fred Meyer and bought some needles and Green and blue Funfur yarn to make that scarf!

Feb 22, 2004 - This is the first thing I've ever knitted - It's made with one skein of green and blue lion brand funfur, size 15 plastic needles, 15 stitches, no idea on the number of rows, but it's about 3ft long. It took about 2 days for me to make it, but a total of 4 hours or so.

Then I graduated to Lionbrand Homespun and made a long scarf and a smallish hat for myself in a gray/brown colorway:
March 11, 2004 - US 10 circ. needles and DP needles, 1 skein Lion Brand Home Spun yarn for both projects. I worked on these over a 2 week period.
I loved this scarf so much, because it was long and I could wrap it around my neck a few times. The next summer it was involved in a "bachelor party game" and I never got it back. Don't worry, it wasn't gross or anything like that, but all the guys had to bring something "embarrassing" for the groom to wear and all Owen could find was my scarf. I still miss that thing :( but I have no intention of knitting another one.

After hats and scarves, I made a simple rectangle purse with an icord strap out of a verigated Red Heart:
April 13, 2004 This is my first knitted purse!! I made it for Brooke, because she's watching our cats this weekend. I hope she likes it, and if she doesn't I'm taking it back!!!! I sewed a liner, put on a patch and the closures are snaps on either side of the flap.
I don't know what Brooke did with this bag, I know she liked it when I gave it to her, but I"m sure it's long gone now. It also looks like I made a cozy for our Garmin GPS with the same yarn, and I made my mom a cell phone cozy with some purple/white Red Heart.

The next thing I made was a Booga Bag and matching cell phone cozy that I found out about on the Knitty boards. I was tipped off about a sale on Noro Kureyon from some online site, but there were not many colorways to choose from, I picked 126 from the swatch they had and when it came, I hated the color. Obviously I didn't know about LYSs yet.
June 2, 2004 - Took about 4 half wash cycles to get this felting. I didn't want it any smaller!!! I wish I would have made it a little bigger, but it's pretty cute. The shoulder straps are about 2 feet long each. The bag itself is 8" tall, 8" wide and 3.5" deep. in the comments I replied to a friend who wanted to buy this bag I don't think I could sell this for what it's worth. When I'm done with the cell phone cozy, it'll be around 25.00 just for materials. That doesn't even include labor :/

And that's how it all started!