knitting

Matt and Melissa were here for a visit this weekend and we had lots of fun, mostly involving eating, drinking, shopping and playing of Trivial Pursuit or Karaoke Revolution. One additional bit of excitement was that Mel was able to teach me how to knit - finally! I had totally wanted to learn. I have all these delusions of making beautiful hand-knitted items that I can wear and give as gifts, and everyone will say 'Gosh. That Lisa? She's so cool.' Well, or something like that. Mel showed me something new she had made (a scarf) which you can see if you scroll down to the bottom of this post.
So we started knitting! We went out and bought some needles and some yarn and started up. I started doing just a garter stitch, which is where you knit (or purl) each row. Then I learned the stockinette stitch, which is where you alternate with knitting and purling to make a knit that is flat one one side (like what you'd picture when you think of a kint sweater or whatever) and bumpy on the opposite side. You can see examples of both of those stitches in my first ever knitted item, pictured here! I decided to make a scarf. Its certainly not going to be a perfect scarf. I messed up some stitches along the way and I also didn't count rows very well, so the stripey sections are not all the same size. But whatever! Its my first time! Next I will buy some yarn to make samples of different patterns which I can practice with. I got two books to help me now that Mel is gone and cannot fix every mistake I make and tell me what to do. I would like to make a scarf like the one that she just made. We found the yarn somewhere so I can give it a try when I feel more comfortable. Its fun though, and I'm getting better at it. For example, I'm not making my loops so tight that I can't knit onto them. I don't know what I'm doing differently, but it is working better. I'll post more pictures when I have something interesting to show.