In the beginning

I'm starting this blog a little late. I realized about a month ago that I need to start recording my knitting progress! I've only been knitting for six months, but I've come a long way. I'm going to try to backtrack and record all of my projects to date.

A little about me and knitting....this was written the day that I started...

I'm one of those people who is able to do a lot of different things. A jack of all trades, if you will. But I'm not excellent at any of them. Because I have no discipline whatsoever. A major struggle of my entire adult life has been making up for my complete lack of discipline growing up. None. Nada. Zilch.

I tend to shy away from anything that requires practice of any kind. I gravitate towards things that I am good at in a short amount of time -- things that I "take to." If I don't take to it quickly, I quit.

Scarily, my daughter is the same way, and I want to fix her so she's not, but I don't know how.

Anyhoo, today I started teaching myself to knit. There was a lot of angst and foul language involved, casting on and ripping off and casting on and ripping off. In the end I knit a little thing that is 10 stiches (roughly) wide and about eight inches long. What pisses me off, aside from the fact that knitting is frustrating as hell and my hands are aching terribly, is that I seem to be getting worse instead of better. The first 12 rows or so are very nice and even, then I started to suck big time. That doesn't make sense to me. Aren't you supposed to suck in the beginning, then get better? The last 3/4 looks horrendous. I kept picking up stitches, and I have no idea how. All of the sudden I'd count and there would be 12 stitches instead of 10, then 13...how the hell does that happen?

Of course I am tempted to pitch the needles and never pick them up again. But I think it would be good for me to keep trying. I have plenty of excuses not to...no time to learn something new, I suck, it freakin' hurts my hands, etc, etc....but on the other hand it would be very good for me to stick with something for once. A good example for my daughter, if nothing else, minus the foul language of course.

Grrrr. I'm mad. But that's okay.

And the next day:

I'm doing much better today. Learned to cast on for real, and switched from English to Continental. Ahhhh. Still a lot of casting on and ripping out, but it's good for me to do something where there isn't always something to show for my effort -- sometimes the process is the important part.

My daughter did find my horrid effort from last night, and she was so sweet...all, "Ooooh, mama I LIKE that! Can you show me how to do that? Can I try??" I explained that in order to teach her, I will have to learn myself, and that it might take a little while. Tomorrow I'm going to teach her how to finger-knit though...anyone can manage that!

It's fun to look back and see how far I've come.