Sunday, January 6, 2013

A Knitting We Will Go

A while back, I mentioned that I was going to learn to knit soon.  I purchased knitting lessons for my daughters as Christmas gifts, and the local knitting shop that I purchased them from had the unbeatable deal of 1/2 off the second student, with the third (fourth, fifth, etc) student free!  So of course I wanted to be a student too.  I'm the free one ;0)

We had our first lesson last week.  It was scary at first, not knowing what we were in for. I mean, knitting is mysterious, and difficult, right?   My daughters and I nervously arrived at the shop at our scheduled lesson time and waited for the instructor/shop owner to show us what to do.

The instructor told us as beginners, we were going to knitting kindergarten.  And that, just like real kindergarten has big chunky crayons, knitting kindergarten has big chunky needles and yarn.  So we were each outfitted with an oversize pair of needles.  We had our choice between lavender or red.  I chose lavender.

my big chunky needle, almost as thick as my index finger

We also got to each choose a skein of thick yarn.  I of course chose green (of course, because green has been my favorite color my entire life).  

From there, the instructor showed us how to cast on, and we all practiced casting on for about fifteen minutes, getting the hang of how to hold the yarn, how to put the needle through the yarn, and counting how many loops we'd cast.  Once the three of us felt pretty confident in our ability to cast on, the instructor moved us forward into the knit stitch.

For the next forty-five minutes or so, we knit.  It wasn't as mysterious or difficult as I'd thought it would be.  In fact, it was fun.  We knit, and we talked. We knit, and we laughed.  We knit, and we made mistakes, which the instructor showed us how to fix.  Suddenly, we'd been at the knitting shop for an hour and a half. . . time flies when you're having fun.

We went home, taking our needles and yarn with us.  At home, we showed DH what we had learned.  We knit some more.  I wondered why in the world I hadn't learned to do this years ago.  It was relaxing and productive all at the same time.



showing off my knit stitches

Next week, we get to learn how to purl.  We can't wait!


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