I am a knitter!
I had such fun last night with the ladies at the knitting circle. It reminded me a lot of what crops are like, minus lugging the paper, trimmers, pictures and other paraphernalia I take when I go to a crop. I traveled lightly. I took a little tote bag with two different skeins of yarn and my knitting needles. I also took my knitting board and a scarf I had made using it because I wanted to show them that I had at least done something before showing up last night.
You might remember this little scarf I made over the Thanksgiving break. I used the knitting board for that. It was part of what got me so interested in learning to knit.
A little back story here.
There is a really sweet lady at church that I have met through our mutual volunteer responsibilities. She has also been so kind to my girls and they look forward to seeing her every Sunday morning and loving on her between services. I mean, they just crawl all over her (literally) and tell her all about their week and what is going on. She is so patient and kind with them. It’s really touching.
She also happens to crochet. Beautifully. And I have seen some of her finished pieces. One Sunday I made a comment about how I would love to be able to learn to crochet like she does. We chatted a bit more and I confided that what I really wanted to do was learn to knit. She reached around and pointed to a lady sitting about three rows in front of us. “You need to talk to her,” she said.
So, you know what I did?
I just got right up (it was before the service started, don’t worry) and marched up there and introduced myself. I told her I had heard that she was an awesome knitter and that I had always wanted to knit. I asked her if she knew of anywhere I could go to learn to knit. She said she would teach me. She mentioned a knitting circle that she had started and that they met on Thursday nights at the local Starbuck’s. She invited me to join them (hooray!) the next time they met.
So, Thursday night I met with them for the first time.
I was so excited and a little intimidated as these ladies had obviously been knitting for a long time. They had all these patterns and elaborate projects (beautiful, elaborate projects with the most gorgeous yarn I’d ever seen) they were working on.
Finally, Jane sat me down and showed me how to get started. I was scared to death to take the needles from her and get started. I was afraid I’d mess up what she had done. But, you can’t learn if you don’t do. So, I took them and got going. Before I knew it, I was knitting! I was actually knitting. So cool.
By the end of the night I had knitted a very nice little bedspread for a Polly Pocket.
Ha!
It was not really supposed to be that, but it was about that big. Little Bit decided that she really, really needed it for her Polly Pocket so it may actually end up being a bedspread after all. Which would be ok, I guess, because I want to learn how to cast on/off stitches myself and that would give me the excuse to do so.
One thing I realized last night, as I was driving home from my knitting night out, was that this could quickly become a new hobby of mine. The knitting circle is a lot like the crop – the social aspect anyway – minus all the extra luggage. I enjoyed the time I spent relaxing, chatting with and getting to know these ladies. And the tactile part of knitting was very soothing to me. Which is something I’m missing now that so much of my scrapbooking is digital.
It will be interesting to see how this develops. But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll keep you posted. 🙂