Monday, September 11, 2006

Characters Part 1: The knitter

In the past I have tried to learn to knit or crochet several times, only to give up after a few days of working at it. I found crochet to be fairly simple and relaxing, but it quickly hurt my wrists. Knitting was more complicated, I just couldn’t seem to grasp it. I could knit and purl, but I was always fighting with the yarn. Wrapping the yarn around the needle felt awkward, and trying to switch between knit and purl was even worse.

Then one day it all changed. I was browsing the internet and saw a link to Knitting Help, the site contained free videos. “Maybe videos will help me understand!” I thought to myself.

Those videos did more than help me understand, they opened up a whole new world to me. Continental knitting. In the past I had only found clear instructions for English knitting. Continental knitting was a perfect fit for me and suddenly all the awkwardness was gone. I knit away practicing my stitches on purple acrylic yarn. First just knits, then just purls, then stockinette, ribbing and seed stitch. I had a blast with it and decided it was time to buy yarn for my first scarf! Before I even got close to finishing that first scarf I started a second for my niece. My niece’s scarf is much closer to being done than mine. ;)

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