Hello!
I started this blog mostly to journal my lengthy process of learning to knit. I will tell you where it all began:
Picture this: A small, dainty cottage on the Isle of Arran, Scotland and I am on holiday with my grandparents, mum, younger brother and sister. Fascinated, I sit by the fire watching my gran knit a sweater similar to the one I was wearing at the time (she always kept us in plentiful supply!). Aged 11 or 12 at the time I watch and watch my brain frazzled by the way the wool is sticking together (prior to this I actually believed that she sat with hundreds of balls of wool and glued them together with PVA or the like). She catches me looking and offers me a ball of wool and some of her spare needles. Eager to learn I sit down arms outstretched with the needles at arms length. She shows me slowly five or six times under, round, through, off. My hands just weren't up to it, before I knew it my hair was tangled with the yarn and I was in a pickle.
My grandad, who (unbeknownst to me!) had been sitting quietly bemused by the whole situation pipes up: "Meg, you're like a coo wi a gun!" (Translation: You are like a cow with a gun, i.e. hopeless!). In a temper at my continual failure (all 5 minutes of trying), I hand back the yarn and needles and tell my gran that knitting is just not for me at all. She laughs and takes back her things and goes back to knitting.
10 years later takes us to 2013. Walking through a craft store and I spot some beautiful wool: glittery with two tone fading into each other - in every colour you could imagine! Keen bean as I am, I gather up 2 of every colour and ambitiously set up to knit EVERYONE I know a scarf for Christmas (with less than 2 months to go, nigh impossible even for an experienced knitter). That week, I noticed a magazine called "Big and Little Knits" promising a ball of yarn with every issue and some thick needles with the first. The aim of which is to knit a square each issue and then sew them into a chunky knit blanket at the end. . .GREAT! I love a cheeky subscription. So I buy the first issue and subscribe quickly on the site.
However, this still doesn't cover the fact that at this point, I still can't actually knit. Magazine in hand, I go over to my grans and tell her I am ready to be taught how to knit. Being a bit more mature and slightly more patient, her lessons paid off this time and within a few minutes I was knitting and purling away until my heart was content!
I knitted the first square of the blanket and eager to do more knitting, I started my first scarf with the glittery wool. Little did I know that casting on 85 stitches was not a realistic goal for a scarf, 30 being slightly more appropriate.
So present day. . .
Scarf = still not complete
Magazine = still going completed every square so far
New project: A matinee coat for a friends baby...
Next post will be detailing my wary attempts into the art of sleeves and coats. . .
So sorry for the long post but may as well get the history out of the way first and foremost.
Love to all,
Meg xxx
