The Eight Year Scarf and other Unfinished Ventures

Lately I can't get enough of other people's knitting blogs! I look at least a couple times a day and I feel a bit like a stalker, but I love seeing what other knitters are up to. I am very inspired by the projects created and by the ones that aren't. It feels good to know that other dedicated knitters let the knitting fall to the wayside when life steps us the pace.

My recent blog posts have been a bit depressing, even though I am feeling quite high in spirits. I thought I'd revisit my knitting history in honor of all my knit stocking, I mean stalking. Ha!

In the ages before I met my husband and when I was still a student and young prowess, I was somewhat of an observer in my large university classes. I took a required Math class called (if you can believe it) "Math for Liberal Arts Majors"! It was in this class that I first met Lance. He used to come to class very sweaty from riding his bike and he was usually one of the last students to come into the room. We somehow became acquaintances, though it was after I began dating and living with Matt, that we really became friends. Lance graduated a year before me and moved to the Missoula area (incidentally, where he still is today), and met a wonderful woman named Abigail. He claimed to have fallen in love at first sight, and after meeting her, I believed him! 

Abigail and I became fast friends and it was she who taught me to knit.

I'll never forget the afternoon we sat on my college worn couch at 1202 Koch Street and she demonstrated the complexities of the knit and purl stitches, casting on and binding off. 

I think I spent the first six months knitting dishcloths, and not well, I might add. 

We moved to Kansas and Abigail and her knitting expertise were far, far, far away in the mountains of the great Bitteroot Valley. I was left to my own devices to delve in to the great world of knitting. I spent a good 5 years knitting scarves! It was in the year 2000 that this scarf was born. It is a hodge podge of yarn scraps and little bits  I have purchased at yard sales, etc.     

I just keep adding to it and eventually I will finish it...maybe!

It really is the 8 year scarf!

It even has some of my own hand spun yarn. Llama wool died yellow from onion skins and spun using an old school wooden drop spindle! A former male art student of mine gifted 

me the wool and the spindle and then taught me use it! What a treat that was! I sure do miss David.

I digress, back to the knitting story...so a few months after Sam was born and after I had knit about 2 million "fuzzy scarves" (see to the right), I decided it was time to move on and learn to knit 3-D items, as I like to call them (i.e. socks, hats, sweaters, etc).

Matt bought me a fantastic basic knitting book with lots of options for knitting these mystic 3-D items and a set of size 3 DPN. I was all set to start...except I was scared!

I visited my local library and found this excellent book by DebbieBliss, Baby Knits for

Beginners, and I began knitting, hats, booties, sweaters and even one little baby sock. I also purchased a pattern to make a Gromit doll (center on the bottom to the right). The winter I was pregnant with Arlo (2006), I began knitting Gromit and he is all knit and almost all sewn together! I think by Sam's 4th birthday Gromit will live! 

Arlo's winter (as I like to refer to the winter months before he was born) was a very productive knitting winter. I was big and pregnant and sitting a fair amount. Sam was also old enough that I could knit in front of him without having my needles pulled out or yarn strewn across the room (we're not there yet with Arlo). I knit three pairs of adult socks and one pair of toddler socks in about 3 months time, which is really good for me. Shortly after

 that my mom passed away and I didn't knit again until the Fall of 2007.

That brings us to the present knitting time. 

I posted previously about Andy's socks and the challenges I have had. On the left you'll see what Andy's socks looked like in the beginning and on the right the state they are in now. I am knitting with Lamb's Pride yarn. It is 85% wool and 15% mohair and

it is worsted weight. I like knitting socks with worsted weight yarns, in fact, I have never knit a pair of sock with fingering weight. The yarn is not that great to knit with. It splits quite easily and I don't think I'll buy it again for socks. I don't like the striping as much as I liked the fair isle pattern, but I know this pair will fit him and that is what is important. It was meant to be an irregular striping, but it turning out to be somewhat of a regular pattern. Oh, well. Sometimes knitting projects take on lives of their own...at least mine do!

I hope to keep knitting more and more this year. It is my only resolution and to help keep me motivated I am seeking a knitting club or gathering that is regular. I have a few leads, but nothing regular yet. I have been attending one gathering once a month and enjoy that, but sometimes it is a small group. Last month it was myself and one other woman, who happens to be a midwife and photographer. I loved chatting with her as our sticks twitched. 

Hopefully you'll be seeing more knitting posts as this year moves on.

I put myself of the Ravelry invitation list, so in about a month I might get an invite. I am number 7,065!  Ravelry is an amazing site and I can't wait to get invited and get organized!