I'm a Knifty Knitter

This week, I took up knitting. This is not my first foray; when I was a teenager in Canada I decided I was going to teach myself to knit, and started with a cable-knit shawl collar cardigan. I bought the needles, the pattern, and lots and lots of yarn, and off I went. I actually made some progress, and even got as far as figuring out the ribbing and the cable twist. But when I got to the first increase or decrease, I gave up. Uh, yeah, I think I was a little too ambitious.

But check this out...here's my first project this week. Pretty good, no?


Here's my secret; I did not use knitting needles, I used the Knifty Knitter looms by Provocraft. I came across these while browsing for Christmas gift ideas for Pinkerbelle. Based on reviews, I decided that she was a little too young for these and went with My First Sewing Kit by Alex Toys instead (it was on sale at Michael's). But I wanted the looms and I put them on my wish list.

This just involves wrapping the yarn around the pegs in various ways and using a little hook tool to loop it over. It's not brainless, but it is pretty easy. Skippy and Pinkerbelle have even helped out some.

The original hat was too small for any of my kids--I should've used a bigger loom. I had already started this garter stitch scarf with the rest of the yarn but didn't have enough. Instead of buying more yarn, I got the brilliant idea to unravel the useless (to us) hat. So the hat is now this ball of yarn, and will become a scarf.

Michael's is having a big yarn sale this week and this morning I went and picked some out. I didn't really have a specific pattern in mind, though, so that made it a little difficult. But I came home with this fun nubby "Pooch" yarn--a scarf, maybe? And Pinkerbelle picked out the soft pink fuzzy stuff, and wants a little blanket. These yarns are normally $6 and $7 a skein, but this week it's $2 for the Pooch and $1.5o for the pink. That's a really good deal and I was tempted to buy a lot but held back in light of my colossal waste of money on the sweater that never was. Better to actually accomplish something before I start sinking a lot of cash into this hobby.

I can't wait to get started!