Knitting!

On Friday January 20th Kim invited us to come over for dinner. Well actually I kind of invited us....see Owen was invited to hang out and have dinner with Kaegan since Kaegan couldn't come to his birthday party. Well once Jack heard this he wanted to play with Andrew & Josiah and then Ella wanted to play with Caitlynn. I asked Kim if Jack and Ella could come play and then she said that we could just all hang out. When it got closer to the day she just said that we should stay for dinner as well. 

Once the kids ran off and played I asked Kim if she would teach me to knit. She's been knitting for about 5 years now and I always knew I wanted her to teach me, but I also knew that once I could do it I would go crazy because I'd love it. So I've put it off, but now I really wanted to learn. 

She showed me how to cast on and I just sat there and did that over and over and over again...probably 20 times at least. Then she taught me to do a knit stitch. So then I just started knitting and knitting. She told me I could take the supplies home that I'd been working on so I could practice. 

Here's what I did a couple days after she taught me. Of course I messed up a stitch here and there, but I was just learning. I would knit a bit and then unravel it, cast on and then knit some more. I wasn't actually making anything. 

I had told Kim I would give back her knitting stuff at the next MOPS meeting which was coming up that Tuesday. I really wanted to keep practicing, but since it was getting close to the end of the month I didn't have any funds left to go buy the things I would need. That's when I thought I'd give it a shot and post something on the Des Moines Buy Nothing FB page. After just a couple minutes this super amazing lady in our neighborhood posting that she'd gotten a knitting kit for her granddaughter and she actually had 2 of them and the second one was mine!!! 

I went and got it right away and then snapped this picture and texted Kim. I was so excited! This kit would have cost $30 if I had bought it at the store!!!

The kit came with 3 skeins of yarn, 2 wooden size 8 knitting needles, a crochet hook, a plastic needle, a button and an instruction book. It was just what I needed to move forward with what Kim had already taught me. 

I got right to work playing around with it. After playing with it a bit I decided to just get to work on one of the 3 projects listed in the book. On January 29th only 9 days after learning to knit I finished my first project. 

A scarf! 

And seriously maybe a minute after I took this picture of Ella she came over with her tooth in her hand. She had yanked out another one! 

She's now lost 8 teeth altogether! 

I got started right away on the next project in the book and I think I finished it on the same day. This is a cellphone sock. You can loop it around your backpack and then stick your phone inside. Ella wanted it for her play cellphones. 

The next and final project in the book was a sunglasses case. I made it, but I don't see myself using it for that. It's actually on the kitchen counter and I used it the other day as a pot holder to get something hot out of the microwave. I wouldn't dare use it to get something out of the oven, but the microwave would be okay. It just fit on my hand like a thumbless mitten! 

After that I didn't know what to do. I really wanted to keep up on my skills though. I asked Kim and she said to sign up for free for a Ravelry.com account. I did and I looked around, but I don't have a lot of supplies yet and it was confusing looking at it from my phone. So I headed over to good ol' Pinterest. 

I found some cute dishcloth patterns that I thought would be fun. When I had been making the projects from the book I learned how to do a purl stitch as well. It's been fun doing rows of stitches where you use both knit and purl in different combinations. 

Here's my first dishcloth. I've just been going through yarn that I had leftover from other projects. 

Here's my second dishcloth. It's bigger than the first one. It could almost be a hot pad, but I don't think it would protect the table very well from something right out of the oven. 

Right now I'm working on another scarf. Just using knit stitches. Jack wanted a red and blue one...it looks like spiderman colors. I was knitting during most of the Superbowl at a party they had at our church and someone asked if I was knitting a Patriots scarf.....um....NO! 

This weekend is girls weekend at my parents and I think Kim and I might need to head down to the store so I can pick up some more supplies to feed my newest obsession. Thanks for teaching me Kim!!!