Photo by MyArtfulLife
My mother and grandmother didn’t crochet on a regular basis, but there was evidence that they had crocheted in the past – granny square afghans resided in cedar chests in both their homes. After finishing their massive projects, they both put down their hooks and moved on to other things. But one day, when I was probably driving my grandmother insane with my intense desire to “do something” while at her house, she found her hooks and some yarn and showed me how to chain and single crochet.
After I had played around with these a while and crocheted several “snakes”, my grandmother gave me a booklet with instructions for crochet, knitting, embroidery, and tatting as well as several projects for each. Something clicked and I realized I could make anything I wanted. I took my allowance money to the local craft store and bought a rainbow of skeins and began an afghan of my own.
When I was a teenager, I was flipping through the how-to book I’d gotten as a child and I started trying to decipher the instructions for knitting. No one in my family knit, so I had no idea I was really messing it up – I couldn’t figure out the difference between knit and purl and how to move the yarn forward or backward and ended up taking the yarn front to back under the knitting instead of between the needles – disaster!
After several frustrated attempts and tangled yarn messes, I finally figured it out and began a summer sweater… I never got past the ribbing.
There were quite a few years after that where I only knit off and on, but when the internet bloomed and knitting patterns could be found on yarn companies websites, I began again. By this time, I had learned more about natural fibers and went to an actual yarn store (and was shocked at the prices!). Soon I was reading knitting blogs and learning more everyday. Eventually my taste and my pocketbook came to an understanding.
I met some online blog friends and started a blog of my own. My dad’s even learned to knit, thanks to a co-worker of his who’s now a blog friend of mine as well.
How did you learn to knit or crochet? Join the Knit & Crochet Blog Week at Eskimimi Knits and share something about your craft every day this week!
I learned to knit from books I checked out at the library. I’m a beginner, but it’s so much fun!
I learned to knit when I was 7 or so – my mum taught me the very basics after someone gave me a kids knitting kit for Christmas. dabbled on and off, but only seriously got into it about 4 years ago – the internet is a great resource. Mostly I’ve learned by just launching myself at complicated projects and figuring it out as I went along!
I never could work out crochet though, until 18 months ago when I watched some youtube videos and it finally clicked – now I can’t believe it took me so long!