Knitting is one of my oldest and most developed skills. I started when I was 20 years old. It was 2005 and I was working in a call centre for AT&T Wireless called Startek. There was a young man who sat beside me named Alex, and in between calls he would knit. He had purple needles and they would click away as scarves grew to length. He made them for his friends, he said.
Curious, I went to the store and bought my own needles, a ball of red yarn, and got online to learn how to turn string into things like he did. Up until that point, my experience of knitting came in the form of gifts from my grandmother. She knit beautifully and I was an eager beneficiary.
Even before YouTube existed, there were video tutorials for just about anything online. I don’t quite remember the name of the website I found and I can’t find it now, but I sat at my computer and learned the basics from a series of POV videos. I proudly proclaimed my first project to be “my red piece of crap”. It was small, misshapen and barely qualified as a “thing” at all. Next, I knit a scarf, then a hat, then a sweater. I kept challenging myself, learning how to knit with multiple colours, textures, and lace. I learned how to knit with beads and kept adding to my skill set as I went. I joined an online community of knitters and crocheters called Ravelry, where I still visit frequently looking through the database at new patterns and vegan-friendly yarns. I’ve documented many of my projects there over the nearly 20 years I’ve been a member.
Knitting, like most of the forms of creative expression I enjoy, comes in waves. It’s been a few years since I made anything more than simple dish cloths or warm accessories for winter. Utilitarian knitting, not creative knitting. However, my needles started pricking at the edge of my dreams as soon as I got engaged. I want to make my own dress, and if I don’t knit the whole thing, I want to at least incorporate some delicate lace.
It got me to thinking I’d like to add some of my favourite completed projects here to my website. I’m playing around with some ideas on how I’d like to do that. You may have already noticed there is a Knitting page currently under construction. I will likely publish each project as its own post, and then add them to that page. I want to add photos, notes, material lists, and links to the designer’s patterns for the benefit of other crafty curious individuals. In an age where I’m trusting external channels less and less, it will feel good to house it all under my own roof, so to speak.
Knitting has gotten me through a lot of tough times in my life. There is something about the mundane repetitive activity of pulling loops through other loops that makes you feel like you’re making progress, even if you might be feeling a setback in other parts of your life. In some ways, I feel like I stitched myself back together, fortified with yarn. I look forward to showcasing some of the projects that kept my hands busy through grief, depression, joy, anxiety, and illness as I navigate the journey of life.