Extreme Knitting....

Well, it is a good thing I can purchase clothing for my child in stores (or online, as the case may be in my immobile state at the moment). For I fear that I am not, nor will I ever be, an accomplished knitter...

Two days ago my friend Sandi came over to teach me the "art" of knitting. Very sweet of her. Very ambitious of her. As my husband will attest, I "don't take direction well." But I desperately need something to do with my time, so I was willing to be a good student and watch her cast loops, thread the needle in an upward fashion through the knot, bring the yarn over and thread it through again, this time in a downward fashion, then lift the loop up and off of the first needle onto the second...See, I know the steps. I'm good at verbalizing the steps...

What I'm not so good at is actually DOING the steps. I am currently blaming it on the fact that I am a leftie and Sandi is a rightie and therefore was unable (through no fault of her own) to teach me effectively. Truly, I could go all the way back to St. Christopher elementary school and blame the nuns--weren't they supposed to whack my knuckles with a ruler when I wrote with my left hand, to avoid just this type of calamity later in life? To ensure that when a right-handed person tried to teach me how to play the guitar or knit, I would meet with something closer to success than utter frustration and emminent failure?? Wasn't it their responsibility to beat the "leftie" out of me?

Yes, I blame them. I blame the nuns. Because I can't allow myself to believe that I am truly as bad at this as I am...I mean, this is something that little old ladies do (no offense to any little old ladies out there.) How is it possible that I can't get my fingers to control the needles? Grrrrr....apparently my cervix isn't the only thing that's incompetent...

The cats are, of course, fascinated by the ball of yarn. They sit patiently waiting for the moment when I give up and they can lay claim to the spoils. Abby hunches down, her eyes following the tops of the needles as I fumble them to and fro, attempting to make the yarn jump from one needle to the next. Penny cocks her head and watches the strand of yarn "gliding" (in quotation because that description is wishful thinking--it's a very jerky "glide", at best) from the giant ball to the needles. They look at each other, taking bets on how long it will be, and then back at me.

Yes, I will continue trying. I'm not ready to concede defeat yet to a big ball of blue yarn and a couple of long skinny needles. I will sit and cast and thread and pull and thread again until I get it right; even if I only end up with a little patch of knitted yarn--baby's first yarmulke.

Somehow though, I have a feeling that the majority of that pretty blue yarn is going to end up strewn across the floors of our house when the cats finally lose their patience. And I will order pretty blue blankets in bulk from Babies R Us...