Knitting and Lisa

I grew up seeing my mom knit. She made hats, scarves, gloves, afghans, and just about anything else you can think of. Most evenings we could hear her knitting needles clinking together as she worked on one project or another. One year during the 70's she made these ponchos for my sister and me. My girls wore them to school for Spirit Week a couple of years ago.

I'm sure my mom tried to teach me to knit when I was young but I'm sure I was far too impatient to learn. As a result, I had to teach myself a few years ago. At first it drove me absolutely nuts. I did a whole swatch and realized that I was doing what's known as "twisted stitches," even though I thought I was doing it right! My stitches were WAY too tight, I couldn't get more than about ten rows done without dropping a stitch and I really wanted to quit.

I hate to admit that the reason I kept going was because I was determined *not* to let my mom be better at this than I was. How lame is that? Lesson number 1: Mother/daughter rivalry is not good motivation! Although she hadn't knitted in years, I could still remember watching her and could see how the needles and yarn looked as she moved through the process. I tried to mimic that and everything got easier.

After finally getting the stitches down, I decided to tackle a project and I did a couple of dishcloths. I don't have any pictures of them. After that, I moved on to scarves. One year I did two -- one for my daughter Emily and one for my niece Kayley. I didn't really use a pattern, just used Lion Brand Boucle yarn and cast on 15 stitches on size 15 needles. It came together very quickly and that's now my favorite scarf to make. The colors in the yarn tend to be bright and vivid so they're good for kid and teen projects. I've used the Popsicle color twice and am currently working on one in tangerine for Noelle.


I also like to use Lion Brand Homespun for the same reason -- it's bulky and works up quickly. These colors tend to be more muted so they're good to use for adults. I made an uber-long scarf from two strands of homespun. I'll post pictures of it later.