I always wanted to learn how to knit.  It just looked so... magical.  I was mesmerized by people who could take some yarn and two sticks and make something out of that.  Unfortunately my mother was not a knitter, and even if she was she is a lefty and I am a righty and that just wasn't going to work.

Finally in 2003 I decided I'd just teach myself to knit, so I went out and bought some yarn and some needles and a freebie pamphlet with some very rudimentary knitting instructions.  It did not work out.  I couldn't get beyond the slip knot.  I tried, but no matter what I did I just couldn't get the hang of it.  Dismayed, I put the yarn and needles away and eventually threw them out when I moved the following year.

Several years later I was in the fabric store when I noticed that yarn and needles were on sale.  Determined to learn how to knit, I bought a skein of Red Heart yarn, a pair of metal size 8 needles and a Lion Brand booklet on how to knit.  I fought with it for hours until something clicked and I was knitting.  Slowly I started to knit my first scarf - a skinny scarf knit in alternating wide strips of stockinette and garter stitch. 

 

I still have that scarf and just found it today when unpacking a box of hats and scarves, dug out of storage for the winter.  I haven't worn it since I made it; in my impatience to finish my first project I made it a bit short and besides, it looks like a 7 year old knit it.  Seriously.  The edge is sloppy because initially I knit wonky, not quite understanding what it meant to insert your needle into a stitch from back to front.  As a result my turns at the end of each row were loose and messy.  There are numerous dropped stitches that I didn't notice while knitting - and even if I had, I wouldn't have known how to pick them back up, save for unravelling the whole thing and starting all over again.

Stitch tension?  What was that?  I held my working yarn between my thumb and forefinger, awkwardly, until one day a knitter friend showed me how to wrap it around my hand and hold it so as to control my stitch tension.

I also knit a coordinating hat, which turned out better than the scarf.  I suspect a large part of that is my messy edges were concealed in the seam of the hat!

Oh, and I still think knitting is magic.