Thursday, January 3, 2013

The Addiction of Knitting


For those who knit, or craft, or build they must understand.  The addiction you get once you start a project and the need to start another when the first is finished.  That is what knitting is like to me.  Once I start something I don't want to stop until it is fully completed; I can't wait to see the completed project come to life.  That's the beautiful thing about knitting, you start from a pile of yarn and in the end you create an item that is three-dimensional and wearable.  You create something cool and practical.

This has become my official post-graduate hobby.  Not to mention studying a TESOL and Spanish course online and working three jobs...BUT in the spare time that I do have, I knit.  It's relaxing and thankfully one of my best friends also knits so we hang out and knit together like cute older (fabulous) women.  She's been able to keep it up through college unlike me so she's a great help with new techniques and new needles (like the scary DPNs!)


Since I picked up knitting again over the past two months I have knit nine hats, three ear warmers, one pair of slippers, one cowl, one scarf, and am currently working on a pair of mittens.  Not to mention I have learned how to knit on circular needles and double pointed needles (DPNs) as well as taught myself to do some basic crocheting (still not a crochet fan).  The easiest new skill to pick up was definitely the circular needles.
The cowl that I recently made, was what I taught myself circular needles on and it knit up in around three hours with interruptions.  The DPNs were considerably scarier to learn but were actually relatively easy and fun.  For those unfamiliar to knitting these needles are pointed on both ends, making it scary that all your hard work could just slip right off and be destroyed.  Also instead of just two needles you're working with four or even five!  But it's not so daunting as it seems once started, I started my first DPN project with a pair of mittens as shown below.  Now I just need time to finish the second one to complete the pair!

 It may not seem like a very 'cool' hobby but I like it because it keeps me busy and I can make cool things for way cheaper than you can buy them in a store.  Also it makes awesome gifts and with the right patterns and knitting friends, *cough* Marg-ox, it's relatively easy. Plus I've never really been 'cool' anyway :p
First project on DPNs, joined together.

Now just to learn how to make cables...

UPDATE:

CABLES!!

And new hat just because I love it :)