Learning to Knit

Unlike many other knitters who were taught how to knit by someone in their family, no one in my family knitted. Therefore, I didn't have a long-neglected knitting basket of knitting needles and wool yarn in the attic that I could start with. The sub-title of Wendy Knits is Adventures with sticks and string., and I took that to heart.

I found some bamboo chopsticks from the local Chinese Take-out, sharpened the points, and sanded them smooth with some sandpaper. I also found a remnant ball of jute twine. Sticks and string, right?

The next step was to learn what to do with the sticks and string. That's where my desktop computer and a broadband connection to the Internet came to the rescue. I learned how to knit by watching video tutorials at KnittingHelp.Com and Google Video. More often than not, Google Video pointed me to video tutorials at YouTube.Com.

Anyway, this is what my very first attempt at knitting looked like, with two bamboo chopsticks and some jute twine.



My next knitting experiment was to try to knit circular, using Double Pointed Needles. So I found some more bamboo chopsticks, sharpened both ends, and sanded them smooth. I followed online tutorials to learn how to cast-on, divide the cast-on stitches onto three dpns (the knitting abbreviation for Double Pointed Needles) without getting the stitches twisted, and join the stitches to get ready to start knitting in the round.



With that kind of success, I was ready to really start learning how to knit socks. I emailed an acquaintance that I knew, who knitted, and attached the above photos, along with a long explanation of how I wanted to learn how to knit socks. I was so excited, I just had to tell someone! The next day, she came by the house and dropped off a bag of knitting needles, wool yarn, and a book. My first knitting gift! (Thank you SO much, Ann!)