First blogging project...

So how does this random pile of knitted squares:

Become a blanket?

I really don't know, but once you start, you just can't stop.

Blankets.

Blankets are like a knitter's marathon. When you start you think, "What the hell have I gotten myself in to? This is NEVER going to end!" But then you get through the halfway point, you get your second wind - the "knitter's high," I think they call it - and then you feel like you can conquer the WORLD... or the wool, whatever word you choose to use.

Knitting. My addiction, my passion, my continuing classroom. Ten years ago I got a call from my mother who had gotten an email from her brother earlier in the day. After cleaning out my departed grandmother's closet he was left with a wicker basket full of knitting needles and vintage patterns.

I had learned to crochet from my mother when I was younger; my mother, a woman who had told me time and time again that knitting was so much harder than crochet, and since I was having such a great time TRYING to learn how to crochet, I thought I would be helpless in knitting.

But I asked my mother to put the needles aside, anyway. Hell. I have a glass vase, and these needles are multi-colored and vary in size and length - I can make a fantastic center piece that isn't completely convoluted and emo (for Rebecca: made from hair and feelings).

And then it happened.

Picking up those needles I wondered IF I could do the "impossible," and always ready for a challenge, I picked up pamphlet at the library (literally something so thin I could use it as a bookmark) that taught me how to cast on, knit, and purl.

I made some pretty hideous things, my friend. Leg warmers knit flat that had to be "seamed together," and since I had no idea what that meant, I just crochet chained the ends together. Two pairs. Christmas gifts with a matching scarf (that turned out rather well... the scarf, that is...) that I gave to my two closest friends. Who have never worn them, and I don't blame them.

Eventually, after many rectangular bits of projects I got bored; there's so much more to do in knitting... I just have to muster the courage to do it. To believe I can do it.

So many hats, boleros, "almost sweaters," unfinished-"I-don't-think-I-can-do-this-(with my fist angrily pointed to the sky)-projects later... I finally feel like a "real" knitter. That's not to say that someone who enjoys the wonderful simplicity of creating a scarf isn't a knitter, I've just gotten to the point where I am not content unless I'm learning more... and that's the fantastic thing about knitting; I will never know it all and I will continue to learn. Though I have been self-taught, thus far, I'm open to classes and more experienced knitters giving me their advice and know-how. After all, this is a tradition that has been around for hundreds of years and could not have been passed down if anyone wasn't open to the idea of learning and growing.

So, this is my knitting blog. A work in progress, like my projects, and like life is - you'll never know it all, so ask questions, take classes, be willing to make mistakes and learn from them. To the advanced knitters: a yarn over was a mistake when you were first learning to knit, and look at what it can do - turning on accident was a mistake until you learned how to knit your first sock. Mistakes not only tell you what not to do, but what you can do.

Be well, fellow knitters. And goodnight.

(Oh, and PS: My boyfriend wants me to tell you that I'm knitting some head scarves for the zombies so the flesh doesn't fall off in embarrassing chunks during a Brain Buffet... do you think cotton would be appropriate? He thinks a variegated wool - felted - because it might look messy. I think, "Fuck the Zombies! Every man for himself!")