My First Project

I was thinking back last night to my very first knitting project. It was made of acrylic because, at the time, I was still too new(read cheap) to try knitting with wool. I wasn't sure that I really liked knitting. I found crochet to be much easier to master and I had already made several projects. I was sure that if I tried knitting, I would enjoy it, but I just needed to sit down and try it.

So one day I bought the Lionbrand "I taught myself to knit" kit and sat down to learn how to knit. After struggling with casting on and cursing the day that I decided it was wise to learn to knit, I finally made it through my first row. Over the next few days I carried that beige acrylic around with me, studiously knitting on it between classes and in the evening during homework breaks. It grew slowly but steadily on my metal needles and I started to feel excitement that the scarf I was knitting was taking shape. My fingers soon started to hurt as the needles were so reluctant to release the stitches that I was creating. I became so tired of pushing the stitch off of the needle, that at times I would give up in frustration and go crochet while I cursed the scarf.

Inevitably I would be drawn back to the scarf and try just one more row. At some point about two thirds into the scarf, I got tired of the beige acrylic and added blue acrylic to one end. I cursed the blue just as much as the beige as my fingertips bruised more and more. Eventually I finished that scarf and proudly gave it to my boyfriend to wear when he went duck hunting. At this point I should probably mention that I was tired of knitting the scarf and decided to cast off when I thought it was long enough. Unfortunately it was a few(maybe 10) inches too short and he had to tuck the ends into his shirt to keep it from flying off of his neck. Will wore that scarf proudly however, because I had made it for him.

I cringe everytime I see it lying with the other objects he's collected from our time together. He keeps it because its the first knitted thing I ever gave him. I keep the memory because no matter how goofy that scarf looked, he loved me enough to wear it.