Nine Months to Learn to Knit

Feeling motherly when I discovered I was pregnant with my first baby, I decided I'd knit it a sweater (In those days we had to do things the old fashioned way, and I didn't know if "it" was a boy or a girl). I got one of those "How to Knit" books at the Ben Franklin store and a couple of hanks of light yellow baby yarn. It was slow learning, but I had nine months to do it in. I got all the pieces done, sleeves, back, fronts, but I never got it put together which is just as well, because by that time I was sick of that color of yellow.

However, by then I had the knitting bug, and for the next 5 years I knitted sweater after sweater for my kids, a girl and a boy eventually.

I even knitted a sweater for my father-in-law who said one January that no one had ever knitted him a sweater. It turns out that the sweater was too big, and I don't think he ever wore it, but he liked the idea that I had done it for him. When he died, my youngest daughter glommed on to that sweater and probably still has it.

I knit argyle socks for my father in nylon yarn. They were a blast to knit! And he WORE them! Eventually one of my daughters got those, too.

There were some flops along the way. I knitted a heather blue sweater for my mother that got into deep trouble with the cowl collar. Even she couldn't figure out how to finish that sweater, and she was an excellent knitter. A couple of years ago I set out to knit sweaters for my two- and one-year-old granddaughters. I think I got one finished, but the other one is languishing and will probably never be completed. That doesn't bother me really. The part of knitting I like is the DOING of it!