Knitting makes me very happy. My aunt, Carol Anderson, is a master knitter. She is pretty amazing. She started her own little pattern company called Cottage Creations. Carol taught me to knit long enough ago that I was making a sweater for my baby doll. I remember feeling very proud when I finished it. I'm pretty certain I knit the knits and she did all the purling. That thought is based solely on the utter frustration I experienced when I tried knitting again, 20 years later. It is nothing like riding a bike! I gave up quickly. Then, at 31, I decided to take a class at The Yarnery in St. Paul. The instructor showed us a few things and then stood behind me and said, "Yes, yes, no. No, no, no, no, yes, no, yes, no, no, no, yes, yes, yes, yes..." until I finally got the mechanics of the stitches down. It was about four hours of the "yes, no, no" stuff before I figured it out. I would not have thought to put "knit" and "happy" in the same sentence back then. But, now I'm happy to knit away the hours on a freezing, cold day in Minnesota. And, I have a group of friends who gets together and knits every now and then too. We're almost all under 40 - proving that knitting is hip, though much more difficult with wine...
Another knitter I like, but don't know, is Susan B. Anderson. I made three patterns from her book Itty Bitty Toys for friends with new happy babies.
 |
| A giraffe for Vincent Javid - May 2011 |
 |
| A bunny rabbit for Ada Rose - July 2011 |
 |
| A hippopotamus for Miles Joseph - October 2011 |
No comments:
Post a Comment