In which I stop being a hooker

A short introduction to my relationship with yarn

I learned to knit as a very young girl.  When my mother made me turn off the lights for bed, I'd read if I had a flashlight, and knit if I didn't.  Yes, I knit in the dark.  Those of you who have knit for a long time know that this isn't as difficult as it sounds, if you're not working any complicated pattern.

I don't know exactly who taught me to knit.  Probably my mother or my grandmother.  But they taught me to cast on, knit, purl, and... that's it.  No increases or decreases.  No pattern reading.  I guess they thought that would hold me for a few years while I got better at it.  I remember being fascinated by the cables of a sweater I owned, and trying to rearrange the stitches on my knitting needle to make them cross.  I think I probably knit for a year or two.  Then put the needles down.

Early in my first marriage, I picked them up again.  I still didn't know how to do much, and I still hadn't ever seen a pattern.  I knit a couple of scarves for my husband, and tried to puzzle out a sweater for myself.  I still have half of the front of a sweater, in a beautiful, soft, teal.

My new mother-in-law crocheted.  I asked her to teach me, and then I was off and running.  I learned to read patterns, and over 30 years I made everything from area rugs out of fabric, to lacy pineapple table toppers out of thread.  I was a crocheter!

Now, at 43, having not had any urge to crochet for several years, I got a wild hair and decided that I should know how to knit a sock.  I have no idea why I needed to know that, but I did.  Living in Southern California, I wear sandles year-round, so I don't even wear socks.  But for some reason, I felt that a well rounded individual should have this skill.  So I took a class on Craftsy.com and started my first pair of socks for my husband (the second and final husband).

As of this post, I am still in the middle of sock #2.  (For some reason, knitting only one sock isn't considered a success.  You've got to make two, and they ought to be at least vaguely the same size and shape.)  I do hope to finish it in the next couple of weeks.  But meanwhile, I've taken a few more online classes, found a local yarn shop full of lovely ladies, and joined ravelry.com where I am continually bombarded with urges to knit things that are way beyond my skill level.