Knitting stinks

When I was a little girl, my grandmother tried to teach me to knit. I must have been younger than 5th grade because I learned to sew that year and I don’t recall that I knew how to sew when she tried to teach me to knit. I say tried because she cast on for me and showed me how to knit two, perl two (I think) and turned me loose. Well I am really quite good at somehow adding stitches as I go and my poor little scarf grew from the normal 28-stitch width to over double that size in about 10 rows. The thing looked absolutely retarded.

I’ve been intimidated by knitting ever since. I’ve sewn lots of clothes, made curtains, bedspreads, dolls, doll clothes, lined coats, done counted cross-stitch but have avoided knitting all these years.

My friend Sabrina made me a really cool scarf last year to go with my new down coat, and I was so impressed, I thought OK I will give this a try. I managed to procrastinate starting until a few weeks ago when I realized that yet again I’d let a ball of yarn scare me. So I bought Knitting for Dummies, a skein of yarn in what they call dark blue, and a pair of size 8 knitting needles, and I fearlessly dived right in.

What a pain in the booty. Seriously! How do people make all those cool socks and hats and sweaters and stuff? I am still fantastic at adding stitches and what you see here has had more than a few rows pulled out and done over. Only for Alison would I ever consider doing something so dang tedious.