Around 1998, I decided to teach myself to knit. I didn’t know anyone in my vicinity who knit (I was in rural Colorado at that time) and I don’t think there was a yarn shop either that I could find. So, though I hated it, I had to go to Wal-Mart where I purchased some blue aluminum size 10 needles, some horrible acrylic green yarn, and a pamphlet with some really bad afghan pattens that had illustrations on how to do a basic cast-on, knit, purl, and bind-off. I sat on my couch for three hours struggling with those illustrations, not having a clue about what those illustrations were trying to tell me what to do.

At some point, I got the point and then got a better book: Idiots Guide to Knitting and Crochet. That book gave me all the info I needed for a couple years and I would recommend it in any beginner’s knitting library as a basic primer on knitting. (I ignored the crochet part.)

For an entire year I didn’t knit anything other than swatches in a variety of knitted stitches and cables all in that horrid green yarn. The rest is history. I found a yarn shop in town an hour away, bought some better yarn, some interesting books and tackled projects I didn’t think I could do. I didn’t knit a scarf until after I knit two blankets, a sweater, and a tank top. (That’s a bit of shameless boasting, I know, but I’m proud to have not fallen into the scarf black-hole.) My black-hole of knitting seems to be fingerless gloves in any length. I get stuck knitting tons of them for friends, family, and myself.