A blog has to have first entry

A blog has to have it's first entry and this is mine. I imagine everyone is nervous their first time?

A friend of mine taught me to knit about 10 years ago (geeze, am I that old - no it's not the years it's the mileage).

Oh yes, I should warn you my mind wanders off topic alot.

Anyway, she taught me the Continental way of knitting, then I moved to Toronto and stopped knitting for a time. I picked up knitting again when a friend I worked with in Harrisburg showed me a scarf she was knitting, and I thought "holy crap (sorry Mom & Dad) when did they start making this fun yarn." Well I was hooked. I made oodles of scarves. My husband walked up to me in a craft store once and asked, "Do you really need one in every color?" The woman next to me said "Of course she does!" Husband just laughed and knew this was one of those things when I would just look at him and say "because I'm a girl and you're a guy".

Well, let's jump ahead a couple of years to about a week and a half ago. I have weaned myself off the scarves, and have started on the dreaded first sock. I didn't just jump from scarves to this dreaded of all projects, oh no. I have made some face cloths, a dish cloth, and am in the process of finishing off a really neat purse with a "St John's Wort" pattern. I also have two WIP's (I've seen this in other blogs) of scarves, of course. Old habits die hard.

Here's the problem with the sock. I ended up frogging it (my knitting group just educated me on that one) because the sock looked like I was knitting it "on the bias" is how I describe it. I discovered after my years of non-knitting, that when I picked up the needles again, I did not remember the fine points of continental knitting. I was twisting my stitches! Guess the joke is on me, I wonder if that is why the face cloths I made seemed to be "on the bias" and the scarves I made as gifts for my mom and mother-in-law appeared to be "on the bias". I happen to be a "bit of a perfectionist" (read understatement into this as I have been known to rip out rows of stitches in my counted cross stitch projects - which is one of those things my husband just shakes his head at)

Did I mention that my mind wanders off topic?

I must thank my local knitting shop and one of the ladies in my knitting group who figured out what I was doing wrong. Like any other internet savy knitter, I Googled "Continental Knitting Instructions" and retaught myself the correct way of knitting. Sigh - I am humbled.

On Thursday night, I met up with my knitting group. The very talented lady from the knitting shop is working on a beautiful lace shawl. One of the ladies is crocheting purses (you should see the professional looking liners she does for them, I am in awe). Another was working on a hat. Unfortunately it seems like she may have twisted her cast on when connecting on circular needles - and I thought it was a beautiful mobeius scarf. When talking about it, I said she could always just use it as a scarf and say "I meant to do that" (it really is gorgeous). Later as I was knitting away and looked at the socks that some of the others were knitting I noticed how nice and dainty their socks were compared to mine. One of the ladies asked me if I was knitting leg warmers to which I replied "uhhhhhh yeah, I meant to do that" We all broke out in laughter. My sock is thinking "what will become of me - a sock am I, not a leg warmer."

I think I will close each post with an open apology to all english and or grammar perfectionists. I try, but alas I fail.