So, yeah… I am a crafty person. I want DESPERATELY, to be creative, somehow. I collected things and was eternally looking for something that I could do that would fit into the life that I had.

But I had resisted the knitting phenomenon… I mean, I had learned how to knit — both my grandmothers had taught me the basics such as casting on, knitting and purling — but I hadn’t gotten what was so thrilling about knitting, why so many people were suddenly so desperately passionate about knitting. This seemed to just have come out of nowhere — one day it was just something that old cat ladies did in the nursing home, and then the next day it was chic to be a knitter! HOW THE HELL did that happen.

Anyway… one of my friends, Raicara, has been a knitter since I’ve met her. Our love of crafty things has been one of the things that has been a common ground for us through all the changes in our lives — and more often than not I have drawn her into one of my creative schemes. Basically, I have been the “idea man” and she’s been my guinea pig (snicker).

So it was only FAIR that she drag me into things every once in a while. And since I had started over again, and was having a hard time with feeling lonely and not feeling comfortable trying to make new friends and starting to feel like a whole person again, Raicara felt that I should attend the local Knit and Knatter with her and her mother — get to know other women, get comfortable exploring my creativity and maybe, just maybe, to suck me into her world of knitty knitters.

So I went… and I wasn’t doing well with it. Sure, there were other women, but I felt like I didn’t fit in. I didn’t know anything about knitting, there was so much more to it than KNIT AND PURL!! I didn’t belong to any knitting clubs online, I didn’t have any knitting books (and have never READ any!) , I didn’t know who “the Yarn Harlot” is or Stephanie (is this the same person?), I wasn’t part of Ravelry, I didn’t know a wool from a cotton yarn, and I had NO idea how to “turn a heel”!! What would they think of me??? But I bought 6 balls of wool, borrowed a pair of Raicara’s knitting needles, and decided to try to make a scarf. And I was accepted as part of the group… and if nothing else I got to be around other people, and got to realize that I am not the only woman who has gone through a divorce — and some good advice about surviving divorce from people who had made it through — and I was encouraged to keep attending the group. But I was still ambivilant about knitting.

The problem, it seems, is that I was bored with what I was trying to do, and not interested in making a scarf. So I tried making a journal cover. Only… it was the same thing as the scarf — one row of knit, one row of purl, repeat for  a certain amount of inches. And I just had no interest in doing that. Meanwhile the rest of the group was knitting away on things that seemed more interesting and much more challenging… but since I couldn’t seem to finish the easy things Raicara didn’t seem to think that I should try doing the more difficult things. 

I finally decided that the whole knitting thing needed to be ramped up. So I told Raicara that I was going to knit a sock… that was it, I was too bored with knitting a purling, and I needed something with a bit of a challenge. And since everyoen was making socks, lets try that.

The only thing with that is that instead of using a set of knitting needles or a round needle, I would need to use a set of double pointed needles (dpns), so I would be required to do something small first to learn on this type of needle. Working “in the round” involves knitting continuous rows on 3 or 4 separate needles, so a total of 4 or 5 needles to work things. So Raicara had me knit a baby hat (which has since turned into a doll hat for Girlchild)… and I actually finished a project!

And you know what? I really LIKED it… it was more challenging than the other knitting, and it was something I could totally get into.

So now for the SOCK!!!

(stay tuned)