I have been crocheting since I was twelve years of age thanks to my grandmother who patiently taught me.  Every time I wanted to start a new blanket over the next ten years I had to go to Grandma to get me started.  It takes awhile for things to click with me.  Since then I have been able to put together pretty decent baby blankets, lap blankets, scarves, and more recently hats and baby hoodies!  But I want to make close knit fabulous socks with my future fiber animals.  I want to make luxuriously warm sweaters without big holes in them like a granny square.  That would be a little chilly.

There is a group of ladies that meet at Grumpy’s Coffee Shop here every Monday at 4:00.  I try to get there after my fiddle lessons.  If nothing else, I sit for an hour, catch up on gossip, and leave fully inspired to make elaborate sweaters and try different patterns.  I decided to learn from these wise ladies how to knit.  I think I helped them view a special kind of learner.  I hope they have ten years.  “Where is the hook?”  “They are knitting needles, there is no hook.”  “No hook?  How on earth do I pull the yarn through?”  “Like this…”  Swish, swish, click, click, and the yarn magically came through the hole.  “I need a hook.”  I went back to crocheting the baby blanket I am working on for my soon to be here grand-daughter.

Yet, the fiber bug continues to bite me.  I suppose that if I want my homestead to revolve around alpacas and sheep for fiber, I ought to be rather savvy in the arts of fiber!  Crocheting may not cut it in the world of thick warm socks and sweaters.  So, I sign up to take a real knitting class that costs money at the yarn shop in the next big town over.  A stern English lady who told back to back jokes about Germans sat with four of us on a cold, wintry night before Christmas.  She must have forgotten that Americans are by and large mutts and we don’t know that we are supposed to be angry at one European nation or another because most likely, one of our grandmothers came from there!  In the warmth of her shop I started clicking the needles together as if I had been doing it for years.  She brushed me off to everyone saying, “Oh, she has already had lessons.”  I should have known it wouldn’t last!

I decided to stop using my expensive alpaca yarn to practice and since it was overwhelmingly told to me to forget about starting out making a sweater or socks (4 needles?  You’ve got to be kidding me.), that I should make a scarf or something.  In the land of a million hand made scarves (our house) I decided to use some old chenille yarn to make a wash rag.  I sat for two hours on the sofa concentrating until my eyes hurt.  Look at that beauty.  All I can say is….wow.  There never was an uglier wash rag.  It is very soft and I use it to wash a mud masque off of my face once a week.  So, it does the trick.  But I dare say, I’d be scared to see the sweater I make in the future!

Back to crocheting, the first picture is of a head wrap/scarf that I made a few years back while sitting in the scorching sun of a farmer’s market.  I get migraines if my ears get cold and alpaca fiber is the only thing that keeps my ears warm.  So, I made this lovely shawl/scarf/head cover to keep me toasty.  The colors are drool worthy and it was such a simple stitch.  Simply chain until you have the length you want.  Then double chain back and forth until you get the size you want.  I switched colors after each skein.  Luckily I got a discount from my friends Marianne and Wade at T 3 Weavers because we were doing a market with them at the time.  http://www.t3weavers.com/yarnshop.html

Luckily, my friend Sandy showed me some patterns yesterday at knitting club to make crocheted socks (no holes) and I saw a sweater book at the library for crochet.  I do not know all the fancy stitches, but perhaps the girls at the coffee shop can help me out!  Happy Creating!