One Year Ago Today...

... I learned to knit. I was on a business trip in Seattle. My mom's friends had recommended that I visit Tricoter. Mom said that if I bought yarn she'd knit me a sweater. Hard to pass that up! So I found my way there and fell in love with some beautiful, shiny, Stacy Charles rayon yarn. They had a sweater sample that they let me try on. It was as if it had been made for me. I was in love.

My mom had recently taught my best friend to knit, and although I'd resisted, I had been thinking that maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all, that I could actually figure it out. So I stood outside the knitting store, called my mom, and asked, "If I learn to knit and someone else teaches me, would that be ok?"

"You want to knit?!" she said with glee. You could hear that there were tears in her eyes. Her baby, finally wants to knit, after only 27 years. I really am her daughter after all! She said that yes, it would be fine, and we talked about the yarn and the sweater and how excited she was. She called back a minute later and told me I had to learn Continental, since that's what she does. :)

It was almost closing time at the store, but they said that I could buy the yarn then and come back on Monday afternoon and someone would teach me to knit.

And that's what I did. Dinny and Carol taught me with some big fat cotton on a set of Crystal Palace straights (size 10 3/4!), and I worked diligently on my little swatch during the week of my business trip. The following Saturday I went back, seeking approval of my swatch and permission to start my sweater. I showed Carol my swatch, pointed out the mistakes I didn't know how to fix (twisted stitches, picked up the wrong direction when the needle had slipped out), learned how to go about doing it correctly, and I was ready to swatch for that sweater.

As you can see, I now have an addiction. I was hoping to have a gallery of my works assembled for this anniversary, but I didn't manage to finish. It's still a task on my list. For now, here's what I completed this year:

1. Stacy Charles shell, simple slip stitch pattern
   
2. Back-Button shell from Tricoter's Simply Beautiful Sweaters in Reynold's Gypsy cotton
   
3. "Vanilla Freeze" from the Summer 2003 Knitters in a lovely mecerized cotton whose name I don't remember offhand
   
4. Socks! Many as test socks for theknitter.com's Sock of the Month Club, including Reversible Rainbows, Tu-be or Not Tu-be, Textured Fair Isle, and Lattice Socks
   
5. 5 catnip mice for cats I know
   
6. "Lopi Lite Pullover" from the Fall 2003 Interweave Knits in Lopi Lite
   
7. "Mexicali Baby Ole" from the Summer 2003 Knitter's in Regia sock yarn
   
8. Penguin scarves (for better or worse), mostly in Cascade 220
   
9. "Flashy Lace" from the Fall 2003 Knitty in Classic Elite Flash
   
10. "On the Neutral Track" from the Spring 2001 Knitters in Berroco Glace Colors and Flax
    

The lingerie and two baby projects can almost go on that list, but didn't quite make the deadline to my satisfaciton. I'll conquor them soon.

On that note, I'd planned to block the baby dress and its sleeves last night, along with the last purple baby sweater sleeve, and to have fabulous pictures this morning. But I ran into an old friend on my way home last night and invited her over for tea. So instead of doing my blocking, we caught up on life, my cat (she has two of Sundae's kittens), and knitting, since she learned recently (also Continental!). We fondled my stash, looked through my books, and had an all-around good time. The new plan is to do the blocking tonight and have fabulous pictures tomorrow morning.