Friday, February 22, 2008

A tragic tale with a happy ending

Last night I was practicing the knit stitch (which is going better -- Eve also learned to crochet before learning to knit so she was able to give me some good advice) and then finished a row and put the yarn, with the needles sticking up out of the ball, on the coffee table. Good Kitty got curious and climbed up on the table and started gnawing on the rubber bands around the ends of the needles. It was absolutely the cutest thing ever and I just regret that I didn't have the camera handy so I could share the cute.

This morning, it had ceased to be so cute. Because someone had, in the dead of night, dragged the yarn off the table, removed the needles, and generally made a mess.

This has happened to my crochet in the past. But crochet doesn't have to keep the hook in place. Knitting has to stay on the needles. Talk about learning the hard way...

So you may be wondering, what's the happy ending in all of this?

I looked at what had been my learn-to-knit swatch, realized it was beyond salvaging (and covered in cat hair), shrugged, cut it off, and guess what?

I know how to cast on!!

Continental cast-on, even!

In fact, I had so much fun casting on that I cast on way too much and ended up having to frog it because it was falling off the needles.

I had no idea! Maybe knitting-by-osmosis does work.

1 comment:

Ruby said...

That's great! Well, the casting on, not the having to scrap your knitting.

I taught myself to knit using Debbie Stoller's "Stitch N' Bitch" and Sally Melville's "The Knitting Experience: The Knit Stitch". I think they're the best beginner books out there.