These Are A Few Of My FAVORITE Things...Thing 2! (YARN and KNITTING)

Well, here is ANOTHER of a "Few Of My FAVORITE Things"...  THING 2:  "YARN...and KNITTING"

I just ADORE lovely YARN!  When I was a very young girl, my great-aunt, Rose, taught me how to knit and crochet.  While my mother was in nursing school, I would often times spend the day with her and I believe the first thing she taught me to knit was a cute little pair of slippers.  In the last few years, I decided to pick that knitting up again; at first, it wasn't as easy as I remembered.

Robby and I had paid a visit to his aunt while in Niagara Falls.  I noticed that she was knitting something and commented on it.  She encouraged me to "pick knitting up again"...you can easily start with just knitting a scarf.  OK; so it had literally been DECADES since I had attempted to knit, but I felt pretty confident that I could catch on again fairly quickly...after all, wasnt' it like riding a bike?  Well, I quickly found that it WASN'T "just like riding a bike"... I had forgotten EVERYTHING about knitting (Ugh...)!

I found that I didn't really remember ANYTHING about how to even get the yarn on the needles, must less "knitting" or "pearling" so I bought a book.  The only problem with the book was, I've never been very good at reading directions; I'm that person that has to be "shown" how to do something.  Well, Aunt Rose was no longer with us, my mom is now legally blind and my sister...well, my sister doesn't do ANY sort of sewing.  That only left one person who could help me refresh my knitting skills again...ROBBY!  I KNOW that those of you who know him are most likely laughing right now, but Robby has that personality that won't allow him to say he CAN'T figure something out.  So, I sat there and fiddled with that yarn and those needles with the directions in front of me for the longest while, mumbling about not being able to figure the directions out.  Then he did what I KNEW he would eventually do...he said, "Here, give me that stuff and I will figure it out!"  We were sitting in bed watching TV. and as he sat there reading the directions on "How To Knit", I began to doze off.  Suddenly, he shook my shoulder and said, "Wake up!..."  I was in the "sleep zone" now and really didn't want to know how to knit until the morning, however, he said, "If I can sit up and learn how to knit so I can teach you, you're going to learn how to do it right now."  OK...so, he DID have a point there. 

Well, learning how to even hold those knitting needles again was quite difficult to me, but with practice, I became much more proficient.  I was using only those knit and pearl stitches to make scarves of all kinds and I must say I really enjoyed sitting down with my yarn in the evenings.  Before long, I became OBSESSED with beautiful yarn!  We don't have any specialty yarn shops where I live, so when I would travel, the souvenir I would come back with would be YARN.  I have bought yarn in Colorado, Virginia, Napa Valley, Katy, Texas and Washington, D.C.  And the WONDERFUL thing about these places is that they all have web sites!  (I KNOW...dangerous for me, huh?!)  When I went to visit Caitlin in D.C., she took me on a "Yarn Crawl" they were having that weekend around the city...I was in YARN HEAVEN!!!  That is also when I got her hooked on beautiful yarn too.  She didn't even knit and found herself shopping for yarn and snapping picture to send me to see if I wanted to buy it.

This is one of the yarn shops we visited on the "Yarn Crawl" in Washington, D.C.

www.loopedyarnworks.com

When Caitlin returned home from D.C. at the end of her spring semester, she decided that she also wanted to learn how to knit and I was more than happy to share my love of what I consider such an enjoyable hobby.  She learned the knit and pearl stitches and in the meantime, I had branched off to learn some new knitting skills of my own.  Remember how I told you that I needed someone to "show" me how to do the different stitches?  Well, the Internet came through for me again!  I found this GREAT web site that has all sorts of helpful information to instruct people on knitting; they even have videos!  I began visiting www.knittinghelp.com regularly and learned how to read patterns and also more advanced knitting skills.  While Caitlin was knitting baby headbands and bows, I decided I would attempt to take on a couple of garments (YEP!  You heard me right...pretty ambitious!).

                                Parker Ann modeling one of the handband and bows Caitlin made!


I'm not going to lie...while learning to knit these garments, I spent a great deal of time ripping out and starting over.  Robby would be watching television, glancing over at me from time to time and then notice a big pile of yarn on the floor:  "Did you seriously just rip all that out again?", he would ask.  I told him that I wanted to "get it right"; and I did EVENTUALLY!

This is a little baby halter top I am finishing up.  The rest of the pink will be used to make the bloomers!  (I had to learn to knit using circular needles for this project.)

All that's left on this baby sweater is the buttons!  I'm working on the matching hat now.

(Working on circular needles was required for this project also)

When Robby came home and saw the completed sweater, he said, "I can't believe you did this!"  Smiling from ear to ear, I said, "ME EITHER!"  I just LOVE knitting...It is truly one of "My Favorite Things!" 

*****If you are a knitter or just want to be a knitter, please check out a "Few of my Favorite Knitting Web Sites too!*****

www.knittinghelp.com  Learn to do EVERYTHING on this site!

www.ravelry.com This site contains SO many FREE patterns! (Baby Halter found on here)

www.loopedyarnworks.com This is one of the shops we visited on the "D.C. Yarn Crawl"

www.yarnsonfirst.com I bought the yarn for the baby sweater here in Napa Valley