Generaltional Knitting

I come from a family of knitters.  I am the one who usually breaks down and uses language that is more colorful than the strands of yarn I use.  I've learned to keep the language in my head otherwise I am on the receiving end of glares reminding me I shouldn't swear.

My grandmother was a knitter who could knit any garment so it looked professional. She did it while sitting in the doctor's office,  while watching television, while sitting in line at the drive up of anything.  She was a prolific and fast knitter.

My mother on the other hand is a sporadic knitter. I remember this beautiful partially completed baby sweater she had in her knitting basket when I was young. I asked her about it because she never did anything with it but it sat in her basket for years.

One day I asked her about it.  She started it when she was expecting me but didn't get it finished in time, so it was going to be for my sister.  She didn't get it finished for her and planned to finish it for my other siblings.  Needless to say, she never finished it for any of us.  So it was going to be for the first grandchild.  Well 8 grand kids later, it wasn't finished.  I think she finally gave up on it because it disappeard.

There was a time, my mother knitted socks for dad.  We lived overseas in a place where women were supposed to knit socks for their men.  So my mother joined in until we moved.  I think her spurts of knitting often coincided with finding her supplies because we moved so often.

A few years ago, she took up knitting again but she chose fairly simple things such as scarves, mittens, and her all time favorite - dish clothes.  She makes everyone dish clothes so they have more than enough.  She's gotten to an age where she is naturally slowing down.

I knit but I'm what I call an occasional knitter.  I have to schedule knitting in over the weekends, evenings, or when I have time.  I'm not a public knitter because I'm afraid someone will look at me and tell me I'm doing it the wrong way.  I started learning but my mother told me I knitted back to front and I gave up for a while.  I finally hit a point in life, I wanted to knit so I could make some cool things.

I love this informational age.  I've got DVD's on basic knitting, fancy knitting, doing cables, and all sorts of other facets of knitting.  I even went so far as to download those books on weekend projects, one skein projects, 365 projects, etc.  Well the last weekend project I started, took me about 5 months to finish (cringe).  I finally finished two pair of socks that took me almost a year to knit.  Right now, I'm knitting a beautiful pair of pink socks and a set of golden yellow mittens which might be done for next winter (I'm hoping).

I finally broke down and started a book of what do I need to do each day.  Kind of like a journal and if I schedule in knitting, I can sneak in 10 or 15 min of knitting in front of the television where I have a movie playing.  One I don't care if I loose track of the plot line.  I wouldn't say I've reached a stage where knitting is relaxing but it is getting easier.

Don't forget to change your clocks one hour forward tonight if you live in the United States.