The Cast-On...

Hi Everyone.

Well, I've started another blog. This one has to do with my knitting. Hopefully it will hold my attention and I will be a more consistent poster than I have been on my other blogs.

I have been contemplating posting a knitting blog for quite some time. Once I began reading so many other people's knitting blogs, I decided to join the ranks.

A little background on my knitting:

I've been knitting off and on for quite some time, but only became more "serious" in the past year or so. My dad is the one who taught me to knit. He learned as a child from his mother, my grandmother, who passed away when I was an infant before she had the chance to meet me. My maternal grandmother also knits, but I only recall discloths and potholders being the project of the day. I don't remember my father knitting when I was a child-- though he must have because my younger siblings and I all have Christmas stockings and they have baby blankets to show for it. It was always an understood thing that he knit though.

As a middle school student, I approached my dad and asked him to teach me how to knit. We went to the store and I picked out some cheap acrylic yarn that I liked (a forest green with red, blue, and yellow flecks in it) and he pulled out my grandmother's needles. He taught me to knit, and to purl, and I hadn't quite made it to a square before my attention span had passed its limits and the needles lay idle in my room.

Fast forward to my freshman year of college. Here I am, a person who loves to give sentimental gifts, dating a wonderful guy... who only likes to get functional gifts. Sigh. But wait! A scarf is functional.. and if I knit it myself then it's sentimental too! So when I get home for my long winter break (we got a whole month, thank goodness!).. I pull out the green acrylic that has been sitting in a drawer and the trusty knitting needles, and begin knitting. Kind of. After several attempts to cast on, I have to have my dad do it. And then after several attempts of making stitches, I have to have my dad show me again. But then, finally, I am on my way. I do a simple knit/purl checker pattern, and work on it throughout my vacation. This scarf will come to be the first project I complete (of course, I have to go find some more yarn because the green wasn't long enough, but that's beside the point).

After that I dabbled in disclothes until I was living abroad my junior year of college. My boyfriend and I were 5-6 hours apart by train, which could be very boring. I decided to go to store, buy a pair of kniting needles and some yarn, and knit him another scarf. I added a second color for a little detail, but it was essentially just a simple ribbed scarf. He still wears both of them:0).

After I got back from study abroad is when I began to get more into knitting. I knit more dishclothes, and bought one of those knitting kits from Target for a bag. Spring break of my senior year I was wandering around a LYS and found a pattern for an afghan (Rambling Rows). I decided I had to have it and went to Meijer (a local grocery/department store) to find cheaper yarn. I had told myself I wouldn't do the cheap acrylic, but being a college student, everything else was just too expensive, so I piled the Red Heart in. I had an art class that spring, and asked my professor if I could just knit the afghan for my big project... he said I had to do a little more, and so it turned into this.

I've come abroad once again, and knitting has taken over. I've learned how to knit socks, knit all of my family gifts for Christmas, and have begun my first sweater! (My stash has also become quite large... it's all of the cheap sock yarn over here!)

So that's just a little of my knitting background. I hope to post again soon to tell you what's on my needles and more.