Look! I knitted a sock!
Everybody takes pictures like this.
I think it's because we can't wait!

Learning to knit was on my bucket list. I know my mom could knit, but her patience ran out with teaching me stuff around 7th grade home ec class. My mom can sew like nobody's business, and she did her best to teach me. I thought I had the hang of it, the apron I made for home ec class came home to be hemmed on Friday night, and I got up on Saturday morning to discover that she'd taken it all apart again because it was "messy". Made me sew the damn thing all over again. The bad, bad feelings from that never went away, so teaching me to knit was out of the question, and on the bucket list it went. For someday. hopefully before I kicked the bucket.

The ancient grandmother of a boyfriend taught me to crochet when I was in college, and I made miles and miles of chains and granny squares and pinwheels and bright sweaters that got worn once and taken apart again because I just don't like loud sweaters. Piles of afghans. And then the Moorestown Mall almost burned down.

I worked in the mall, at AC Moore, the most awesomest craft store of all time. It was the only one like that at the time, the mall store was store #1, and I was a tee shirt designer. Among other things. And then a bathing suit display in the sporting goods store caught fire in the early morning just before Christmas, the sprinklers went off, and suddenly I was on my own couch for a couple of weeks with pay, with nothing to do. Time to learn to knit. it was 1991.

I did knit. I made dozens of tiny little purses with seed beads and bedspread cotton, but no garments. I couldn't hold the yarn right. It felt weird after years and years of one needle to suddenly have 2 and yarn wound around my fingers on the wrong hand. I made one sweater that took 6 months and looked old and worn out when it was new, how the hell did I do that? and why the hell do I still wear it? but I do.

A couple of years ago, my #2 on was on a beanie kick. He cropped his hair off short and wore these tight fitting hats, but the ones he bought never suited him. I could knit, he said, couldn't I figure out how to make him a beanie? Well, it took a while, and I ultimately learned to hold the yarn, but on my left hand, like I crochet but with an extra twist for tensioning. I developed the perfect beanie pattern. I made about a hundred million beanies. Well, probably not, but it felt like it. Everybody got hats for Christmas. Most of them bitched about them, so I made more until I got it right. sort of.

This year, I got some yarn as a gift that was made out of recycled soda bottles. It's made by Caron, it's called Caron Eco and you can get it in your local Wal-Mart, or here
http://www.caron.com/color_cards/cc_sseco.html
I was consumed with a desire to make socks. For myself. And a friend of mine, Rogue Knits, who you can find here
http://rogueknits.wordpress.com/
made these cabled hiking socks. I had to have a pair for myself. So I got out 4 needles the same size more or less, and I went for it.Are they not gorgeous? And they get softer and nicer every time they are washed. I'm in love. I'm hooked. Knitting socks is a strange passion. A lot of people have it, and they are all compelled to talk about it and blog about it and they are EVERYWHERE. I don't know whether to be proud or horrified! Well, that's a long story, and I have to go knit now. I know. It's a sickness. Hopefully there's no cure!