Knitting History

Whee. It works.

My knitting history:

I don't remember learning to knit, but I was very young. The first thing I remember knitting was a shawl for Minnie Belle, my mother's china doll, who was allowed to sit in my room. It was pretty ugly, but Minnie Belle didn't seem to mind.

All through my school years I knitted things like scarves and hats.

I also knitted a sweater vest for my high school sweetheart, but the dreaded "boyfriend curse" did not befall us. (More's the pity!) Less than a year after graduation, I married him. (I know, what was I thinking? ) Maybe the curse passed us over because he never ever wore the sweater. It was fitted, with wide ribs, and he was not thin. Picture wide ribbing stretched over a slightly rounded belly -- the ribbing stays wide at the top and bottom but stretches even wider in the middle. The resulting optical illusion made him look like he was smuggling a bowling ball.

He left the sweater five years later. Couldn't have been me. Must have been the sweater.

The marriage wasn't a complete loss. I got two wonderful daughters out of it!

My knitting slowed down during the Single Mom years, but I did make the three of us matching sweater vests. I remember them as very cute, but it was the late 70's or early 80's, so they probably weren't!

When I finally remarried and was blessed with another beautiful daughter, I had years of repressed craftiness to make up for. I got to be a stay-at-home-mom, and I think I knit the child a new sweater every month! One of my favorites was the little teal aran-type at the top of this post. Here are some more:


I made the teal one from a magazine pattern --I don't remember which one. The gingerbread men came from a Good Housekeeping magazine; and the others I just made up as I went along. That last one qualifies as a
You Knit What? moment, I think. But the young lady who wore it is a senior in high school now, and she doesn't appear to have been permanently traumatized by it.

Staying home was great while it lasted, but soon it was back to work again; and... I became a single mom for the second time. Needlework retreated to the background again.

But then, a couple of years ago, I came across Knitty, and then Threadbear (back when it was still in my hometown ), and, well, the obsession returned full force.

Since then, I've made some nifty things for me, for daughter number three; and for my grandson, who is expected by daughter number one in late September. But all that can be for another day! Blogging is way more fun than I thought it would be, but now I wanna go knit!