Being a Knit-Wit

Last year I took a felted tote class at Joann's. It lasted a few weeks and in the course of those I barely got anything started let alone finished. I'd imagined it to be one of those classes where you emerge, knitted tote in hand.

Not so.

For me, it was a frustrating experience because though I knew how to knit, I had definitely never constructed anything. That and I knit continental style, so whenever my teacher would show me something I was confused, because she did NOT knit continental style. She was a really sweet and patient woman, and an excellent teacher. But I couldn't even make an I-chord. It was slow going, lemmie tell ya and for me that's really hard because I don't like to be new at stuff and struggle and mess up. The other class member was GUNG. HO. about knitting and each week she'd come to class miles ahead of me, which was fine, but I wished I'd progressed further before I was set free.

So I finished the class and brought my just barely started knitted tote home on my round needles, which I'd just learned to use. I had my directions and I knew I had to knit a few more rows before doing something new but at some point along the way me and my tightly knitting self really mucked it all up to the point that I could NOT knit any further. When you knit in the round your knitting slides onto the little transparent connector "wires" when it's not being knit and somehow due to my terrible tension I really tightened that part and so you couldn't really even slide it on the needles. That and I'd bought needles that were too short so everything was bunched up all funny. All in all, my knitted tote didn't seem to be headed anywhere. It sat in my knitting bag forgotten.

Then a friend of mine, a fellow preschool mom friend and her daughter came over for a play date and she brought her knitting, because she was knitting a tote too. She was SO patient, worked on my knitting, took it home and fought the good fight, and brought it back to me the next day all better and ready to go again. She had to loosen it somehow so it would slide along the needles. She had to fix a few dropped stitches too. I tell you, everyone needs a good Knit Doctor and dag nabbit if I haven't located mine.

Since then I've been going great guns on my tote and it's getting somewhere! I'm really enjoying it. I've made some changes in my knitting, like actually writing down each row so I don't forget whether I knit or purl it. I am also keeping it loose, very loose. It's hard to abandon the white knuckle way I used to do it, but now I am able to slide my knitting along the needles and that is a good thing. I also bought longer needles so that my work is actually not bunched up on them. It's amazing how a year later a forgotten project can gain momentum again.

I'll show you how it turns out when I finish it.......