Picture this… The year is 2002. I am a new High School graduate, on my way to college in a few weeks. The summer, filled with preparations for my upcoming dorm life and new classes, felt longer than summers of the past. The long days of waiting made room for a new hobby, one that could easily fit my routine of binge-watching television before the promise of my “new life” would begin.
As a child, I had always loved random crafts. Embroidery floss, meticulously organized by color, powered friendship bracelet making. Klutz craft kits showed me how to make clocks, bookmarks, birdhouses….you name it. So, with time on my hands, I found myself in the craft section of the local Walmart that summer, with the hopes of a new craft to try.
I had goals for my new craft. I wanted to be able to keep watching TV. It needed to be portable. I wanted it to be useful. And, it needed to be fairly inexpensive. Lo and behold, the Walmart aisles had yarn and a “learn to knit” kit with the essentials for starting (two pairs of straight needles, a how-to book, some stitch markers, tapestry needles etc.). I grabbed a skein of Lion Brand Homespun yarn.
*It was a kit similar to this one. Many of these items remain in my stash of notions, over twenty years later!
The internet existed during this time, but my primary use for our home’s dial-up service was using AOL Instant Messenger to chat with my new college roommate. There were no video tutorials, and I didn’t know a single person who knit. Still, I opened the combination of diagrams and written descriptions to learn the basics of knitting, from casting on to binding off.
*These diagrams aren’t the exact same, but very similar!
I was a complete beginner, with clumsy hands and no one by my side to help me correct mistakes. I persevered through the struggles, like a project that grew on one side (a result of wrapping the yarn when turning my work). My first project was an unexpectedly asymmetrical scarf, and I loved it. I took my new hobby to my college campus, and it became a part of this special season of change in my life. New classes. New friends. Living away from home. (Randomly, my college roommate liked to crochet, a fact that I only learned after finally meeting her in person for the first time.) I kept knitting, and slowly, I became more proficient with each project.
Now, more than two decades later, it is still the hobby that fuels me in times of change (and TV watching!). This simple, slow craft calms me through repetitive motion and channels my creativity into something tangible. I can’t help but think about what I would be missing if I had not pushed through the obstacles of learning something new.
The gift of tenacity, the relentless spirit, is in all of us. When we care enough, we devote the time and attention a challenge requires. Today, knitting may have more resources available to someone trying to learn, but the desire to overcome the discomfort of being a beginner has to come from within.
So, whether you are a new knitter (maybe just thinking about it) or a seasoned knitter in the midst of learning a new technique, I hope you find the tenacious spirit that my younger self conjured up in the early 2000s. And, I hope your effort will be as rewarded as mine has been.
What’s something you’re in the midst of learning? How did you learn to knit?
Happy Knitting!
P.S. The poet scarf, my current challenge, is nearing the halfway point. It is still challenging my brain and requires focus, but I am loving how it is turning out!
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