Heaven help the knitting challenged.

Somehow I have decided that I need to learn to knit. Again.

Back when I was 14 I decided to take some time off Ringette and learn how to knit and to do archery. I know – weird eh? I thought I’d take a chance at something new. Knitting was a way to fill my time when I wasn’t completing the robin hood portion of archery. Robin Hood – Like kindergarten was beginner archery. They gave us plastic bows and real arrows and let us have a go at shooting targets. I got pretty good but wasn’t nearly at the level of my friend who was already using crossbows. Shelly was quite talented.

Anyhow – my grandmother and my mother got me started on knitting. They gave me a spare set of needles, some off white yarn and set me off. I began to create a very fat scarf that I was going to give to my grandma. Unfortunately I got so bored with archery and knitting that I went back to Ringette in January and I never finished the scarf.

Thanks to twitter and a new friend, I found that I loved hearing about her knitting projects. On facebook a friend that went to my high school kept posting gorgeous shots of dresses, hats, mits, scarves, socks and anything else you could imagine. More and more I kept thinking, I should really learn to knit, even if it is just to finish a single scarf. I figure it’s a good skill for a woman to have so that her grandkids will love her projects and cherish them. And lets face it – there are some gorgeous yarns out there.

So my hubby and I took off to Wal-Mart one night only to find that they had a bunch of yarn in ther clearance section. I picked up two. One big ball that his multicoloured and will give a big flair to a project and a smaller ball of gorgeous grey yarn that feels really nice to touch. About a week later we went to Zellers on a random mission to find girl things, and we started looking at needles. I had no idea how many needles are out there and all the options! There are different lengths and widths and types. They even have bamboo needles that look like drumsticks! After laughing at the drumsticks, I settled on 3.75mm and the length just slightly shorter than the longest length. They reminded me of the needles I used the first time I learned to knit so I didn’t think I could go wrong.

After coming home James and I set up in the basement to watch a movie and I was bound and determined to learn to knit thanks to the interwebs. I watched some videos on the ipod – and learned how to cast on. Wow – can I ever cast on like a mo-fo. I was feeling pretty good but then I wanted to learn how to knit a row. Because let’s face it, every project needs a start right?

I was horrible! Every time I tried to knit a row I would lose stich after stich and have to go back to the casting on. Which – may I remind you – I am a prostar. After having to restart my project four times and many an expletive coming out of my mouth, James decided to help me. After all – movie was over, Patrick Swazye was out surfing the giant waves off the coast of Australia and Keanu Reeves would never again be in the FBI. So he hooked up our television PC and found some videos. The first one had me more confused than ever. We tried watching someone else who did tutorials. The problem was, she would talk as she was starting the first line and only showed you what she did when she got to the middle. That didn’t help me becuase how could I get to the middle if I couldn’t even get the first real stich moved to the other needle let alone to the middle of the project.

We tried to get me to learn the pearl, but it was just as bad as learning the traditional knit stich. Nothing seemed to be going right but darn it, I had some beautiful casting!

With it being after midnight, it clearly wasn’t a good time to be learning anything new so we headed to bed. My dreams were filled with knitting projects everywhere! Didn’t help that we found this cool website that had pictures of crazy knitting projects for car antennas and lampposts and street signs. Here’s a post that kind of covers it – but the ones we found last night were crazier and from New York not London.

So it’s another day – I’m away and I’m determined. I’ve got my needles all revved up and I’m going to try again. Heaven help the knitting challenged.

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