All in all this was a good tutorial; it came with all the supplies I would need to really get into knitting, it taught all the basics of knitting, purling, increasing, ect. with directions and illustrations for both lefties and righties, and even included a few patterns to practice your new skills on. I did not become a master knitter after reading this book, the main problem was trying to teach myself to knit left-handed while the rest of the knitting world seems to be right-handed (more on that later). No matter how I tried all I seemed able to produce was a purl stitch, needless to say the advanced knitting concepts of increases, decreases, cables, and all those other embellishments that make projects exciting we soon lost on me. I proceeded to "knit" many project in various square and rectangular shapes in garter stitch. The family members I gifted these early attempts on were obviously thrilled.
Fast-forward a few more years and about a million scarves later; my then future Sister-in-Law (who successfully taught herself to knit) informs me of what I'm doing wrong and attempts to teach me the correct way to achieve a knit stitch. I say "attempts" because she of course knits right-handed and silly me decided to go lefty on this adventure. After many lessons, quires, and practice she finally succeeds in teaching me a correct knit and purl stitch, though I'm painfully slow in my attempts. It is at this point that I grow somewhat board of my squares and rectangles, even though I've finally mastered a decent stockinette stitch, and head off to the trusty craft section of my local WalMart to purchase the sister to my first tutorial; "I Taught Myself Crochet" from Boye.
This tutorial, like its knitting companion, comes with everything you need to teach yourself to crochet. This time around I was much more successful with my attempts at learning to crochet, though I still seem to be stuck on square and rectangular objects. This started a three year crochet rut and my poor knitting needles languished in my knitting basket.
In September of 2008 I finally found some balance in my yarn crafting. I stumbled on a wonderful web site, knittinghelp.com that was finally able to show me some of the more complex techniques like cables, every increase and decrease under the sun, and all the forms of circular knitting. After viewing the videos on this site I gained a new-found joy of knitting AND crochet which led me to search out more online knitting help.
This brings you up to date; from here on out my posts will be about new projects I'm challenging myself with, helpful blogs or podcast I've come across, and my favorite knitting related websites I find.
Happy Knitting!
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