Day 1: Starting Out

I know, I know it has been ages since I posted. I have been crafting, but it has been crazy with Salvbard in China and then catching up with things around the house. (By the way, there are some really beautiful pictures of his last trip to be found there.) But I will be participating in Knit and Crochet Blog Week organized by Eskimimi Knits as a partial apology, and then I have lots of crafting stuff to share after that. Promise!

Day 1 : Starting Out
How and when did you begin knitting/crocheting? was it a skill passed down through generations of your family, or something you learned from Knitting For Dummies? What or who made you pick up the needles/hook for the first time? Was it the celebrity knitting ‘trend’ or your great aunt Hilda?

I learned to knit when I was just starting graduate school. I wanted to have a hobby to keep my hands busy since I was entering a period of such stress. I just taught myself with a combination of a copy of Stitch 'n Bitch by Debbie Stoller and Knitting Help (mostly the latter). For a long time my knit stitches were twisted until a lovely lady at The Wool Basket helped me to figure out what I was doing "wrong".

It turns out that knitting in grad school was a really fabulous thing for me in general. My thesis topic, which was selected by my adviser later, was fairly abstract and having a tangible hobby as an outlet kept my sanity sometimes. Plus, I quickly learned to knit without looking (a parlor trick I use regularly still) which was a really great way to help all the journal reading I had to do. In fact knitting, like meditation, can help induce a state of alpha brainwave activity which helps with the retention of new information!

About 2-3 years later, I decided to relearn how to crochet. I had learned the very basics from a neighbor who would let me come over for "art lessons" on Sundays as a child, but I didn't really get the idea. There was something wrong with where I was making the new stitches in the starting chain or fabric... But something clicked the first time I took a class (at the now sadly closed Knitting Room in East Arlington) on crochet. Apparently I did have some muscle memory of it after all.

Tomorrow's topic: An Inspirational Pattern