Queens

Queens

Sunday, April 17, 2011

To Infinity and Beyond

#6

I’ve been meaning to learn how to knit for years. Really ever since college. Somehow knitting became cool—not just for your granny—and everyone was doing it. Some friends offered to teach me, but we just never got around to it.

I went home for Thanksgiving back in 2008 and during that weekend we went to Wal-Mart in Auburn (where without fail I run into someone from high school), to pick up a few things. I saw the teach-yourself-how-to-knit instruction kit and decided to finally learn how to do this.

Once I got back to the city I immediately got started. At Thanksgiving every year my siblings and I always exchange names for our Secret Santa. Well that year, I got Emily and I figured a scarf would be a nice present. I knew she would appreciate it and would definitely wear it. Well my grand notions of giving it to her a month later didn’t pan out. I did not make as good progress on this as I had hoped. I thought maybe I’d finish sometime during the winter. Nope.

All of a sudden it’s over 2 years later and I hadn’t finished the damn thing. Don’t get me wrong, I'd pick it up and knit for a little bitoccasionally. But then I would forget about it. Of course going months without practice wasn’t the best idea. I definitely made mistakes. Oh well. I was a beginner.

I was coming up with my 30 list and decided that I needed to set a goal for myself to finish this scarf. If I can finish it by my birthday this year, it would have only taken at most 3 years to do.

A few months ago I was actually making good progress and realized that not only did I somehow add stitches to the rows, but I was going to run out of yarn. Damn. I’m going to have a short, fat scarf for my first attempt.  How would I wear it?? Luckily I noticed my friend Sandra had an infinity scarf and decided that this is what this scarf was going to become.

I got close to the end of the yarn and enlisted my friend Pam to help me finish yesterday afternoon. She provided direction on how to finish the last row, and then to connect the 2 sides (a garter stitch?). My scarf isn’t perfect. There are a few holes due to missed stitches and one side is fatter than the other, but,it’s actually not so bad. I will wear it with pride. It only took me 2 years and about 5 months to finish. Too bad it’s April and snow (hopefully) is gone for another 8 or so months.

P.S. It took Pam 2 cameras and about 10 photos to get a picture of me proudly wearing my scarf. I kept blinking at the flash. Apparently my eyes are sensitive.

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