Knitter's Progress

Now that I have a special blog just for knitting, I decided to search through all my photos to see what pictures I could find of things I've knit over the past 10 years since my grandma's cousin taught me how in 8th grade. They are more or less chronological.

High School:

This was my very first knitting project- a 10-foot long scarf/shawl made with 3 skeins of orange yarn that in sunlight weren't at all the same color like I'd originally thought. Still, it came in handy when I wanted to dress up as Little Orange Riding Hood in college.

This is one of two legwarmers knit on giant plastic needles. Being bright blue, neon orange and white they didn't match with many outfits and mostly made it look like I had abnormally fat ankles. One of many knitting fails!

This was my first try with knitting on circular needles. Instructions always say "be careful not to twist yarn," but clearly I wasn't careful and so had a whole twist in my in-the-round tube top.  I tried to make it part of the pattern and added straps but it just looks like a hunchback when worn backwards or a pregnant belly when worn frontwards. But as a result of this fail I learned quickly to not twist the yarn and have never made this mistake with anything knit-in-the-round.

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University:

I knit this thong as a gag gift for one of my friends. He was kind enough to model it for me but I'm sure he didn't get much use out of it!

I found balls of pretty pink and white variegated yarn at a tag sale and made a long and narrow scarf out of it. My college roommate wore it sometimes and she shows how it also doubles as a stylish shirt.

I've always been a fan of neon and so made myself neon green mittens to match my garter-stitch neon pink scarf. With the bright yellow sweater I look pretty silly but you can't ever go wrong with neon!

My friend dressed up as a tennis player for Halloween and I made her a sweatband to perfectly match the   rest of her outfit.

After seeing mittens I'd made for myself, my roommate requested her own pair. She picked the yarn out and these are the finished product.

Grandparents are hard to get gifts for, but I thought an orange scarf would keep my grandpa warm on walks in the woods. I even put a pocket in one end so that he could pack things away he wanted to have handy. 

Yet another neon thing for myself, this time a first try at following complicated directions. This lace pattern includes eyelets and scalloping.

This white lace scarf was my favorite for many years and I can be seen wearing it in pictures from all over Europe.

My first foray into knitting pictures into a pattern. These Bulgarian flag mittens were a big hit with my boyfriend at the time who was a very patriotic Bulgarian.

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There are many things I knit that unfortunately I never took pictures of- Austrian flag mittens for my dad, Suomi and Finnish flag mittens for myself and a friend, mittens with the Berber national symbol for another friend, and countless block hats, belts, mittens and scarves.

Many projects failed because I was mostly too cheap to buy more than one ball of yarn or the correct size needles- mittens in 2 different colors because once I'd gone back to the store the color I'd had originally had sold out, scarves that were barely long enough to wrap once around the neck, and hats that barely came low enough to cover the ears. Other projects failed because I was too lazy to check the gauge- hats too small for even a child, hats too big for even a giant and mittens that didn't fit on anyone's hand. Oh, the things I've learned as a result of my mistakes!

In the beginning, it was difficult to follow even the simplest of knitting patterns. A garter stitch (knitting every row) is easy. Once you add in purl stitches, things quickly can get confusing for a starter. A knitting pattern looks something like this:

Instructions
CO 25 sts.
Work in Seed Stitch 3 rows:
Row 1: k1, *p1, k1; rep from *
Rows 2 and 3: Sl 1, *p1, k1; rep from *
Begin Star Rib Mesh Pattern
Rows 1 and 3 (WS): Sl 1, p1, k1, p to last 3 sts, k1, p1, k1
Row 2: Sl 1, (p1, k1) twice, *yo, sl 2 knitwise, k1, p2sso, yo, k1; rep from *, end (p1, k1) twice
Row 4: Sl 1, p1, k1, p1, ssk, yo, k1, *yo, sl 2 knitwise, k1, p2sso, yo, k1; rep from *, end yo, k2tog, (p1, k1) twice
End with Row 1 or 3 completed, leaving about 6 feet of yarn.
Work 3 rows Seed Stitch.
BO.
Block to open up lace pattern.

There are lots of abbreviations and at first it's impossible to remember them all. Once you get used to it though, the above is very straightforward. The above pattern gives you this result. Now there is no knitting pattern that is undecipherable to me, which means that the choices for what to knit next are endless!

I have started designing more patterns myself and altering patterns to match the needles I have (I'm still cheap!) I also learned how to knit cables, which make every pattern more fun. Many things I knit now have pictures knit into the design- animals, words, etc. For this to work I first have to draw out the image or words I want on graph paper to show me where and when to switch colors.

Since moving to Turkey I have been knitting a lot, and my recent projects have turned out to be things that I'm really proud of. I'm glad I have documentation of the things I made in the beginning stages of knitting to see how much progress I've made. And I hope to continue getting better until a time comes when I'm so crippled with arthritis that I can no longer hold the needles. :)