Learning to Knit

                Knitting is a relatively recent hobby that I picked up after walking into the Craft & Party store on base. I’d been walking through the store, looking at the various items—jewelry making, sewing, felting, quilting, scrapbooking, stuff to make false plants, embroidery, crochet… and knitting. Oh, if you could have seen the amount of yarn on the shelves! Having never been to a craft store before, I was impressed by the sheer amount of yarn lining the shelves in the back of the store. Patterns hung in little basket holders here and there from the shelves as well—and every pattern was free to take, whether it was a knitting or crochet pattern!

                I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of options in the store. Where should I start? Should I even do anything? I didn’t have any real hobbies; I just spent all of my free time messing around with random crap on the Internet. My typical day consisted of going to work, coming home, and killing time before going to bed by generally browsing the Internet. A lot of time was spent on Tumblr. Looking at the yarn, though, I was filled with the impulse to take some and make something with it.

                Near the yarns were your typical yarn-craft supplies—knitting needles, crochet hooks… and looms. Looms? Looms. There were knitting looms. I found them fascinating, and still do, but just like the first day I laid eyes on them, I still have no idea how to use a knitting loom—however, unlike that first day, I have every intention of learning once I have the money to invest in a loom set. I didn’t buy anything the first day I stepped into the craft store… I wanted to give some thought to what I was doing, rather than impulsively buying something to do, only to give up on it and have a bunch of leftover material to follow me around forever with no purpose (I’ve done this before).

                When Randy and I met up at the end of the day, I told him about my adventure in the craft store and the massive collection of yarns. I had noticed, while in the store, that they had kits for learning to knit. I made a point of bringing this up to Randy, as well. His response was typical of him.

                “You can do whatever you want.” What a frustrating response! Of course I can do whatever I want! The question was, should I? Randy was no help in making a decision.

                I thought about the craft store and the idea of beginning to knit for the rest of the night. The next day, I returned to the craft store. I happened to have Randy’s credit card on me, because at the time I had no spending money to use on food for lunch. Walking into the craft store, I took a good while looking at the kits available for learning to knit.

                The first kit that caught my attention and held it was contained in a tube. It consisted of a pair of U.S. Size 15 knitting needles, fluffy pink yarn, and a knitting pattern for a scarf. It was made for breast cancer awareness and therefore had the signature pink ribbon on it, as well as a name like “Knit Pink”, or something. All I really wanted was that fluffy pink yarn, so I grabbed the kit, assuming that I would kill two birds with one stone in learning to knit and acquiring the coolest yarn I’d seen in the store.

                This was about the time that I noticed the other two learn-to-knit kits. One was in the theme of Disney Princesses and didn’t hold my attention for more than a moment. The other, on the contrary, captivated me with the picture of Mickey Mouse on the cover and a pair of red knitting needles whose ends were shaped like Mickey’s head. Mickey Mouse knitting needles? OMG! Need! I was officially torn in half between two kits—the Knit Pink kit with a scarf pattern, which I held in my hand, and the Mickey Mouse kit with the title “I Taught Myself to Knit!” on the cover of the little book it came with.

                Ultimately, the Mickey Mouse-shaped needles won out. I put the Knit Pink tube kit back on the rack and grabbed the book with Mickey’s face on it, looking at the materials included. Two pairs of knitting needles—the red, Mickey-ended ones and a pair of plain gold closed-ended needles, both U.S. Size 8—along with two needle caps in the shape of Mickey’s head, two Mickey Mouse items that I still don’t know what to do with, and a little package of stitch counters. I tried comparing these items to those contained in the Knit Pink kit, but couldn’t see through the yarn and needles to discern if anything else was included. The Mickey Mouse kit was simply laid out much better, in a more professional way. I was sold.

I mean, just look at it:

                Mickey Mouse kit, a few patterns, and quite a few skeins of yarn later, I stood at the checkout counter while the cashier ran Randy’s card. It went through and everything cost a surprising amount totaling less than $20! Holy crap, knitting was cheap!

                Following my first purchase of crafty items, I proceeded to follow directions in the book for how to do basic knitting. I found myself with a practice swatch…

                I wasn’t entirely sure what to think of my beginner’s practice swatch. I had a feeling something was wrong with it, but as a beginner, I also figured that was to be expected. I especially didn’t like the holes in the work and how they were most prominent in the row I’d cast on. But, I kept at it until I felt confident enough to begin one of the book’s projects—a coin purse.

                I chose the huge skein of green yarn I’d purchased, unsure just how much yarn this purse was going to use up. It wasn’t the most attractive green, but I didn’t particularly care. I figured, if nothing else, I could probably give it to my little sister at some point to use to carry something.

                It took some time getting the cast on just right, but at last, the coin purse idea started to come together in the first rows of stitches…

                As with my practice swatch, I was rather unhappy with the looseness of the cast on row of stitches. I also noticed that my stitches had a hitch at one point—the left picture above is a close-up of said hitch. It amused me, because I thought things were going quite well, all things considered.

                What I didn’t expect in the making of the coin purse was for someone to show an interest in it, but before I knew it, my dad’s girlfriend—now ex—was saying she wanted the coin purse! I had no problems with this. The very idea that someone would want my creation filled me with pride.

                Despite that pride, however, I still felt as if I wasn’t quite doing very well with the coin purse. I decided that I would make a second practice swatch, with which I would practice the different stitches covered in the Mickey book. What came from it was far more impressive than the previous practice swatch, indeed.

                I appeared to have mastered the stockinette stitch, and I was alternating with the garter stitch. I was quite proud of my handiwork! Thus, the coin purse took shape even more…

Then, once it was long enough to fold in half and operate as a purse of any kind, I sewed the sides closed…

                I noticed that when I sewed it closed and turned it outside-out, one side was definitely… uneven. So, I tested the integrity of the coin purse by placing my cell phone within and holding it by the close flap. It held! The tension was good and it was actually operational, despite the cosmetic flaw. So, I continued with it.

                I wasn’t sure exactly what to do for decoration of any kind, so once again, I found myself at the craft store, looking around. I stared for days at the various ribbons they had available, until one day I decided I wanted to add ribbons with beads on the ends of them. I wanted the ribbons to be on the close flap, to help hold it closed, since there was certainly no button hole and I didn’t have anything with which to do snaps.

                One day, during the time I was working on the strap for the coin purse, I went to a friend’s house for a “craft night”. This friend does many, many crafts! She crochets, makes jewelry, sews, and does graphic design, to name a few things. The one thing she doesn’t do is knit. While I was at her house, I lamented my lack of closure for the little purse, and she offered me a snap! Thus, the coin purse officially had closure!

                The above picture was in fact taken at my own house, after I had finished the ribbons and beads, but it shows the snap closure, nonetheless.

                The rest, they say, is history. You can find the finished coin purse in my Store for what I like to think is a reasonable price. It includes shipping, which can be expensive, and frankly, if it weren’t for the unevenness of part of the purse itself, I would make the product more expensive, because those beads were pretty pricey. They’re jewelry beads, because the only place I knew to buy beads was at the craft store, and the only beads they had were these bulky, heavy jewelry beads. I had a hard time pulling the ribbons through the beads in order to properly accomplish the look you see in the picture above, but at last, I managed.

                My knitting skills are much better, now, and I am currently working on about three projects. One is a bulky scarf that I have put on the back-burner due to the fact that for some incomprehensible reason, I keep accidentally increasing stitches. Another is a baby blanket I’m making for my incoming daughter, and the third is a scarf I decided to make on a whim but for which I already have a buyer lined up because my friend is a really big fan of this shade of purple!

The Bulky Scarf:

The Baby Blanket:

 The Purple Scarf:

                The baby blanket and purple scarf are coming along nicely. One of these days, I’ll jump back into the green, bulky scarf, but that day is not today. I may have to rip out more stitches than I really want to right now, because that pattern uses a lot of yarn. I might even just scrap the entire thing, buy a couple new balls, and start again with the pattern entirely. Nothing is certain yet with that project.