I am not a knitting machine....

THIS is a knitting machine!



Haha, okay maybe that was a lame joke. But I have to say I have been doing a lot of knitting.

I decided at the end of December that I wanted to learn how to knit. It is something that has interested me for quite a while, but it's just something that I had never actually taken the time to pursue. However, I decided that this is my year! On my 30th birthday, I went to Michaels, armed with a 40% off coupon and bought myself a pair of bamboo size 8 knitting needles, and after being overwhelmed by the number of yarn options (and the cost!), I went to Zellers and picked out a couple of balls of inexpensive yarn to use to learn how to knit.

I had watched a number of tutorials on Youtube in the days leading up to purchasing the supplies, so I had a basic idea of how to cast on and how to do the knit stitch and how to bind off. I set to knitting and realized that I could indeed knit. I tried to learn the purl stitch but was unable to pick it up from the videos. Lyn offered to show me the basics, so one afternoon I went over there for a couple of hours and she was able to teach me how to maintain proper tension on the yarn so my knitting wasn't so loose, and how to do the purl stitch. That was very helpful, and I went home and immediately noticed that my knitting looked so much better. So much better in fact, that the next day I set to working on the scarf that I promised to make for Jason.

I told him my first project would be a scarf for him. I told him he would have to wear it, even if it was hideous. He agreed, being he is not too picky when it comes to fashion. However, I have to say that after having knit about 35 inches of that scarf, it looks darn nice, and he might have to share it with me. Haha! Actually no, I bought some yarn to make myself a scarf once I finish up with his and Karen't scarves.

The other day I had a good chuckle to myself. For a while Jason would mention LBA, lens buying addiction, in reference to his photography. I think I might develop a YBA, yarn buying addiction. It is so fun to look at different yarns and think of the nice things you could make with them. I know for now I am just making scarves, but I do have ambitions to possibly make a baby blanket for a friend who is expecting, and I would also like to learn how to knit hats.

I will definitely post some pictures of my projects as I finish them. But at this point I am a pretty slow knitter. And 35 inches of scarf for Jay has probably taken me at least 15 hours to complete. I still would like to do another 20 inches. I didn't realize that most scarves are close to 5 feet long!