Gothic Knitting

I've been knitting and crocheting regularly for over a year, now. There's always something to work on. This post will be a story about how it got started.

The big obsession, at the time, was Doctor Who. I lived with Mistress Pamela in Louisiana then. The two of us would sit in front of Doctor Who for hours as we practiced the knit stitch over and over again. Our goal at that point was to perfect it and complete the ever so flailingly elongated scarf that adorned the lovable two-hearted Time Lord in every episode.

Our needles laid around shortly after that as we became preoccupied with many other things. We had barely learned to do one or two rows without any mistakes. So our needles got lost in the whirlwind of items in our house. Mine did, at least. Then I moved back to Pennsylvania and the memory of needing to learn drifted away with my needles.

Since then, I moved to North Carolina (you'd think I'd have learned my Southern lesson). One day, I found a big book...perhaps it was on a visit back to Pennsylvania, they always had the best thrift stores. It was the Reader's Digest Complete Guide To Needlework. It was so cheap that I had to get it. I was inspired by all the how to information on so many needlework subjects all in one collection.

I bought myself a set of 8 needles (which seemed like the most average size to start with) and some super soft acrylic yarn and went to town. Of course the cast on came first, that was easy. Then I knit across, knit across again, and kept knitting across. I did that until I had a few rows consecutively with no visible mistakes. Then came purling. So I'd purl across one row, then knit the next, then purl the next. I had mastered stockinette. Wow. I had learned a technique!

The book I have went on to go over all sorts of different stitches from there, a miniature encyclopedia of anything. I just kept going on the same starter piece I began everything on. A few rows of each until it looked like I had gotten the hang of each one. Soon I could do ribs and pebbles. It got much more interesting once I learned to do different things within each row to make a pattern.

At work, I found myself on third shift in a call center. There were so few calls that I had time to continue to learn more knitting. Each night I brought my book in and started a new stitch. I began doing them in small squares to practice casting on and binding off different ways as I learned stitches. I decided to save all the squares to compose into a baby blanket for a dear friend of ours. That'll be in a future blog post when I get the time to write more about it.

From there I kept lining up projects for myself. Lots of dishrags and "small" blankets. Each time I picked something out to do, I made sure it was teaching me a new variation of pattern. Doing that taught me how to do just about anything I set my mind to with some needles.

Of course it has to seem immensely appealing since I've got such an irritatingly picky taste. I'm only happy when it's complicated, long winded, and elegant.

But I enjoy and have since branched out into crocheting as well. My favourite is lace work because it reminds me of antiques and Victorian times. I've got hopes of finishing a Victorian tablecloth in the next year and perhaps moving on to bedspreads, curtains and canopies. My work will blanket the world!!!

Too bad I've got tendinitis and the starts of carpal tunnel ;) I do it anyway but I need to take a lot of breaks when I can tear myself away from the many projects.

Stay tuned for much conversation and psycho babble revolved around the craft!

Unpleasant Dreams!