Oh knitting, where have you been all my life?

I have a confession to make: I’ve fallen in love with knitting.

Knitting has always been something that I wanted to learn, but didn’t seriously pursue until recently. Last Christmas I asked for some materials to get started, my brother-in-law complied, and after a few frustrating hours of reading how-to books and watching youtube videos, I managed to get the basics down.

I’ve since gone on to finish my very first project: a slipper! Observe its majestic beauty for yourself:

Ok, admittedly it was rather inexpertly executed. The ribbing is totally uneven and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing when I sewed up the seams. Nonetheless, it is still a functional foot-warming device:

I’m also working on a big blanket. I actually started, scrapped (“frogged,” in knitting lingo) and re-started this project several times already. My first few attempts were more just to practice my skills, and I certainly learned some valuable lessons from them. Chief among those lessons is this: for god’s sake, take the time to wind your yarn into a ball.

Figuring that I’d be able to just pull the yarn from the skein without any great difficulty, I began knitting away – and realized all too quickly that if you don’t pull from the center you’re going to end up with a hopelessly tangled mess in a very short time. (In my defence, this particular skein didn’t have an end piece sticking out of the middle.) After spending far too many hours untangling snarl after snarl, I finally managed to wind it all up into a big ball. A BIG ball. Seriously, it’s like the Death Star of yarn balls:

Ok, it’s not even close to the size of the one that rampaged through the streets of San Francisco, but it’s still pretty big.

Now that I won’t have to waste any more time untangling yarn, my project should proceed fairly smoothly. I’ve decided to knit a big 2×2 ribbed blanket – I desperately need to practice ribbing. Granted, at this point I’ve only cast on my stitches and knitted a row, but I’m hoping to make some serious headway today.

As you can see, I’m knitting the blanket on a pair of circular needles – Addi Turbo size 10.5, 60” circular needles, to be precise. According to the saleswoman from River City Yarns, Addi Turbos are the high end of circular needles. Personally, I was sold by the description on the package: who can resist something with “turbo finish brass tips”? Not me.

I knitted my slipper on some generic size 7 bamboo needles, and while I enjoy the feel of the bamboo in my hand, the yarn isn’t as mobile as it is on metal needles; it “sticks” to the stick, so to speak. Using double yarn made things even more difficult to manipulate at times. A higher quality bamboo needle would probably work a lot better, but I’ll still probably switch to metal needles for the second slipper.

I think what’s surprised me most about knitting is discovering that knitting culture is much bigger and more prevalent than I had imagined. I’ve discovered a few knitting blogs that I quite enjoy, chief among them being the Yarn Harlot. There are innumerable websites offering patterns, supplies, and instruction online, there are a couple very good knitting supply stores right in Edmonton, and there are even trendy knitting glamour magazines. Knitting has also gone political with the likes of Knitta and various other yarn bombers around the world.

While I can’t see myself joining the ranks of yarn bombers anytime soon, with visions of cable knit sweaters and ribbed toques dancing in my head I’m off to tackle my next project.

Knitting, Slippers