A Little Bit of History

Two years ago today I completed my first knitted object. I'd expresed a small interest in learning to my mom, who sent me a Klutz kit with some blue yarn, some US8 needles, and a few funky (ugly) buttons. I taught myself using the book -- it was clearly written for a 13 year old girl, so everything made perfect sense -- and cranked out the hat in a few days.



It was probably not the best time to pick up a time-consuming hobby. My dissertation was due in a few weeks. I was planning my own wedding, and as usual, not asking for help. I could not knit and make corrections to my manuscript, and I could not knit and fold invitations, so I put all of that aside for a few days, and I knit. I remember having to concoct a way to remind myself if I was on the knit side of the hat or the purl side, because I had not yet figured out that they look totally different (that wasn't mentioned in the book). There was something with the way that I left the needles at the end of the row. One configuration meant "start knitting" and the other meant "start purling". I swatched and measured my gauge, a perfect 4.5 stitches to the inch. I did not measure my head, and was lucky that the hat fit my giant noggin. (It's like an orange on a toothpick.) But I was so proud of that hat. The seam is terrible. I didn't read about mattress stitch and just whip stitched the thing together. I wore it around the math department and told everyone that I'd made it. A hat. My own hat. Nevermind that I was also wearing shorts and a tee shirt. It was Los Angeles in April. And also, did I mention that I made the hat myself?

After this one was done, I made a non-startling decision. I needed more yarn. Lots of it. Immediately. It would not do to finish my dissertation and then get more yarn. No sir. I needed to make a trip to JoAnn's. (I didn't know about yarn stores yet.)

The next two hats came in quick succession, first the blue and white, which was sent to my sister-in-law, and then the yellow, which I made for my sister. I wanted her to have something that she could throw in the washer, and I knew that wool and washers didn't mix (though I didn't know why), so I made both hats out of this squeaky baby boucle acrylic. The orange stuff in Laura's hat is bamboo boucle, and I was so excited because I also used a crochet hook to make a chain, which I then stitched on and made into little flowery things. Without instructions. I thought it looked like a lei, and that was my intent, but in fact, more than once she's been told that it looks like a birthday cake.





Shortly thereafter, I found a yarn store in Brentwood. They were sort of friendly, and sort of snobby, but I deferred to their vast knowledge of knitting. They told me that stockinette stitch rolls and garter doesn't. They told me about the different sizes of yarn. They understood when I said I needed yarn in a color that could only be described as "borange". You know. Brown and orange. For Alison. I knit this one for her birthday, and I remember knitting it at a carwash in Palms, and a lady asked me about knitting, and I told her I really couldn't answer any questions, since this was my fourth project ever, and I'd been knitting for about a month.



Then Kati had her baby, and I went back to the Brentwood store and got some pink shoelace stuff, and felt that adding a little bow would be saucy.



What happened next was no surprise to anyone who knows me at all. I was obsessed. Couldn't stop with the knitting. Stopped painting my fingernails because it cut into knitting time. Stopped at a yarn store on the way to Santa Barbara, so I'd have knitting for the days before the wedding, and for the honeymoon. And the rest...well...it's yarn history.