I can spend hours knitting. Really, who can’t? But how did I get here?
My first introduction to knitting happened at the Waldorf School of Garden City.
Having grown up in a small one-square-mile town on Long Island, leaving the comfort of district public school kindergarten for the private education of a small Steiner-based education while not a cheap step for my parents, was a terrifying step for me. You see, as a young child, I was very shy (you’d never guess that now!). So entering a classroom of students, most of whom had been together for the past two years of nursery and kindergarten, left me feeling very much on the outside. Waldorf education is incredibly unique. I won’t go into it now, but basically, it consisted of a main lesson, some French and German immersion fun, some handwork, some woodshop, some physical activity (eurythmy) and some music. My love of mythology is deeply rooted in the main lesson – I think – in fourth grade.
Handwork is a subject that is not taught anywhere else – that I am aware of. In first grade, I began to learn to knit. Before we did anything with fiber, we created our own knitting needles. I honestly don’t remember quite how we started, but I suspect we were given wooden dowels of the correct diameter for whatever project we were going to make. We sanded down the ends to points. We added wooden beads to the other end (I chose red – distinctly remember that). Then we varnished (or maybe we varnished first and then added the beads). Once we had our knitting needles, we learned how to cast on. Now, my memory is pretty good, and I can’t believe that they would have taught this cast on to first-grade students, but I could swear it was a knitted cast on. I was five years old.
I continued to knit (and crochet – learned in second grade) through fourth grade. I remember, when I was in first grade, my brother was in fifth, and he was knitting with *gasp* FIVE needles. I was looking forward to learning THAT technique because it both fascinated and terrified me.
In the summer between fourth and fifth grade, my father, a very successful life insurance and financial estate planning attorney, suffered a heart attack. We were all incredibly lucky, as this cardiac event did not take his life, but I could not remain at The Waldorf School. I was so unhappy with this decision. My sister was able to stay – she had only two more years of high school, so it only made sense. My brother, he would try a new private school as a freshman. Tuition was a little lower as it was a Catholic school. And I…I got to go to the local public school for two years before starting what was then called “junior high.” I won’t say much about my public school experience. That is totally a story for another day…maybe another blog post.
Needless to say, my knitting just about stopped, except…my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, used to come stay with us every Friday night. She would bring her knitting, and we would watch Dallas and Falcon Crest together. Sometimes I would knit with her. Sometimes I wouldn’t. But it certainly kept my interest. She had five children (my mother was the oldest) and what she made for one, she made for all. I remember her making bedspreads, and throw pillows for each of there bedrooms. I honestly can’t remember how long it took her to do it, but I can say that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a year for all five sets. Five afghans. And five matching pillows.
Occasionally, she would need more yarn. And I loved those days. From an early age I loved the mall – and this was a yarn shop at the mall. I know I was a lot smaller then, but I swear, it was a huge yarn store, called Hanan Yarns. This was back in the days before malls REALLY became the place to be, and this yarn shop was part of the off-shoot corridor with other shops that most people didn’t visit. What I loved about this yarn shop was the colors. So many colors. At 10, I couldn’t tell you if it was wool, or acrylic. Did I care? NO! It was just so much fun to go.
At any rate, it became a thing for us to be knitting on Friday nights, until I was old enough that Friday nights were spent roaming my small town on foot with my small group of friends. I didn’t really produce anything. But every Friday, my grandmother would share her needles and her yarn and I’d start a square or a rectangle or something. In hindsight, she likely pulled it out every week and just handed me back the same yarn the next week. I wouldn’t blame her. I wasn’t committed enough to actually choose something to make.
When the Friday nights with Nanny stopped, so did my knitting. This is maybe a 4 or 5 year break. I can’t remember exactly. And it didn’t matter. My favorite sweater was from Gap. It was this dark green, but imagine the shine of emerald on it as well, long sleeved, turtle neck sweater. I wore it everywhere. And somewhere around my third year, the elbows started wearing through. But as with all fashion, something purchased years before was no longer available. So I said to myself, “Self, you know how to knit…why don’t you just make one!??”
So on a day where my class schedule was light, I looked up yarn shops in the yellow pages (yes, I said ‘yellow pages.’ IYKYK). To my delight, there was a shop not far, just a subway ride away. So I hopped on the subway, and found my way to the yarn shop. Wearing my green sweater with the elbows wearing through – because I wanted to remake that sweater and I needed the example with me.
We didn’t find a pattern for the exact sweater. Nor could we find yarn that was an exact match. But we found a pattern, yarn that was a passable color match, and she guided me to a “Learn to Knit” book by Leisure Arts. When I had mentioned that I hadn’t been knitting in (and this is a guess) 6-ish years, AND that I didn’t really have any advanced knitting skills, we thought this book would be a good place to start.
Did I ever finish that sweater? No, I absolutely did not. I don’t think I have the yarn or the pattern anymore either – lost in some move somewhere along the way. But since then, I have seen sweaters that have more similarities to my memory of that favorite sweater, and will someday recreate it.
Regardless, I’ve been starting projects ever since. (Did you notice I said “starting” and not necessarily “knitting” or “finishing?”) My finished projects came after I started having kids. I’ve knit sweaters and ponchos, and hats. I love making hats, because they are reasonable quick, and you don’t have to make two. At this point I have finished many projects. Projects I love and projects I hate – and subsequently rip out. There are also projects I just forget about and find years later!
How did you get started? Did you have a friend or family member with whom you’d knit on the regular? What projects do you love to make?
