I apologize to you fierce crocheters out there. My two knitting friends convinced me to learn how to knit. My friend C. insisted on teaching me continental style, a stroke of pure genius, since I am a crocheter and am accustomed to working with my left hand.
I wonder if this is the rule of thumb--it should be. The first time I tried to learn to knit, I was taught English style and tied the yarn in ugly knots and gave up.
I also insisted that my first project be something that I would want to wear. Not a scarf, because it is nearly summer here in the south. What I wanted was a shrug, to replace the one I left at Starbucks a few months ago and never recovered.
I found a pattern, which I promptly modified, used some inexpensive yarn so I wouldn't feel bad if I butchered it, and set to work on circular needles, for the first time.
It was awesome.
I trimmed out the shrug with crochet and wore it as soon as I finished with it. My only regret is that I used the cheap yarn.
I'll make it again, from something excellent and gorgeous.
I'm also glad to see that I can be as free-form with knitting as with crocheting. That was my biggest fear. I have only the mildest respect for patterns.
"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great [wo]men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
Photos of the shrug soon.
