Starting Out

Well, I sort of blew the proscribed topic for the Knit/Crochet Blog Week yesterday, so I am doubling down today with two.

So how did I start out with this knitting thing? My mother taught me way back when. I have written some about her knitting here. DSis and I have estimated that we were taught when we were somewhere around 5 (her) and 7 (me) years of age.

If I am remembering correctly (and that is a mighty big ‘if’), DSis was required to act as a grandmotherly type for a kindergarten play, rocking and knitting, and Mother thought it should be…authentic. And what one of us did, generally both did. Sometimes this was a good thing. Sometimes not so good.

But I digress.

At this time in our lives, we lived in a small town in western Kansas, and Mom taught knitting to the locals. (A bit more about Mom's knitting here.) I remember a lot of size 8 needles and acrylic yarn and ‘oohs and ahs’ over the new fangled variegated types. We were easily impressed in the early ‘60’s.

I was taught to knit and purl, and to increase and decrease. I knitted a lot of flat, square things that were uneven, and gappy. Then I knit a lot of thick, acrylic, fringed things…all stockinette, because I could. In high school and college, I knit sweaters. I remember three, that I seamed, but did not swatch. The two sweaters I knit for me fit, and I wore. The one I knit for the X…well…he would have needed a pin head, and Neanderthal arms. (I will not comment further here.)

Only minor knitting of dishclothes occurred over the intervening years. I learned to quilt. I had babies. I sewed Easter dresses. I went back to school. Blah blah blah…

Then when Mother went into assisted living, and her short term memory was going, I decided I need to make sure someone knew how to knit ‘her dishclothes’. That experience brought some dormant need bubbling back up. The ties to my childhood? Part of my mother’s legacy? The need to buy cotton yarn in mass quantities?

Probably all of the above.

I have progressed beyond flat, rectangular items, but it’s all just knitting, purling…increasing and decreasing.

(Well. Except for that crazy head colorworking.)