I don't know what it is about my make up that is dismissive of my hand knitting. I'm fairly proficient for a primarily self-taught knitter. Once I begin a knitting project,
l love it. The "in between" of projects is usually the death knell to my continued production of knitted things.
I learned to knit one summer when I was about 9. (That may be why I knit nearly every summer.) I still have the number 7 pink aluminum knitting needles and still remember the too-thin charcoal gray yarn I learned with. My mother learned to knit a a yarn shop that year, and for her first project she knitted a complicated multicolored, patterned, lined mohair jacket. It was a great jacket and looking back, I can't believe she learned to knit and made such an amazing first project. I'm sorry I never told her. She showed me how to knit and purl that summer.
As a born musician, I was blessed with terrific digital dexterity and the ability to focus on and perform tedious activity until my goal was reached. In this case, knitting and purling with gigantically long 14" needles while using a smaller than fingering weight yarn. You knitters and crocheters know what I'm trying to say. Well, learn I did. Thereafter, in the summer I bought yarn and made some obscure knitted object like a scarf or hat. Then, with the fall, and a more regimented school schedule and practicing music (happily for hours every day, my knitting ceased. The same cycle took place most summers until I was in high school. Then, summers were just as crammed with practice and other things that I'm sure I skipped knitting for several years.
One summer, when I was about 16, we spent a little time in Belmar, at the Jersey Shore. We stayed in a cute B&B a couple blocks from the beach. Among the guests were a couple of older women from NY, named Ida and Henny. They were avid knitters and their creations re-ignited my interest in knitting. So, I went to F Street, to the 5 & 10, and bought some cheap yarn and another pair of 14" number 7 needles (which I think I still have) and knitted for the couple weeks we were there. After that I probably knitted every summer and into the autumn. I knitted some holiday gifts and accessories for myself.
Fast forward to the 1980's. I was in a horrific car crash. I went through the windshield and sustained some head, neck, back and most concerning right hand injuries. (Musicians think of hands before their skulls.) My hand needed a lot of therapy -- and there it was, the perfect opportunity for knitting to become OT for me. And so it was. I'm sure my right thumb is much better than it would have been with just the medical treatment I received because I knitted. I made my first real sweater during that convalescence. It was for Ed and he still has it.
I mark the recovery time from that accident (and I use the word to use the vernacular term. My Christian faith mitigates against the possibility of "accidents") as the renaissance of my knitting. I learned to knit in the continental method, which is far less taxing to the wrists and works up more quickly than the American way. I think guage is much more even, too. I learned to knit backwards, make short rows, knit on double point and circular needles and began to produce "real" things. All of this "learning" was from books, magazines and a PBS TV show, so I consider myself self-taught. I never took a class or had anyone other than my neophyte mother demonstrate how to do anything with knitting needles, in person.
I will take pictures of old and new knitted projects and post them in the near future.
Now it's summer, and I'm knitting again. I just finished a pair of socks (one of my favorite things to knit) and have a Christmas gift on my needles. I have found some patterns to knit for Sam, Dot & Gerry's greyhound, who has to wear pj's and sweaters nearly year round. When I get his chest measurement, I will knit him an "oddball" striped jacket, using up odds and ends. If he likes it, I'll make him as many as my left overs afford.
