My knitting journey
I was not a natural when it came to knitting. Learn how I went from beginner to intermediate in one year in part 1 of my hobby journey series.
Welcome to the first installment of my hobby journey series! In this post, I will write about my knitting journey. Knitting has become a nuanced but pretty regular hobby of mine, and one that I see myself sticking with long-term. I will now share why I began knitting, what I’ve accomplished thus far, and what I plan to do with this hobby in the coming years.
How (and Why) I Started
It all started with a poncho. Nine or so years back, I thrifted this beautiful knit poncho that I absolutely loved. I believe the only reason I eventually got rid of it was because it was associated with a phase of my life that I wanted to leave behind. So, the poncho went with it.
Flash forward to December 2023, I had a conversation with a peer who told me she was thinking about learning how to crochet. I had never considered crocheting before but decided to look into it a bit on New Years Eve. Then the idea came to me: if I couldn’t find a poncho similar to what I had before, I could make my own! That marked the start of my needlework journey.
That evening, I stayed up late and looked into crochet poncho patterns online. After determining what supplies I’d need, I went to the craft store maybe a month or so later and bought some large balls of acrylic yarn and some crochet hooks. Then I started making my first poncho, which I ended up ripping back and starting all the way over after determining I crocheted into the wrong stitches and made it WAY too steep. That was a bit discouraging, but when I want something, I see the process all the way through to the end. I eventually finished the poncho and was pleased how it turned out.
After completing that project, I crocheted a teddy bear lovey for my niece who was to be born soon. I also crocheted into the wrong stitches for the blanket part of this project, which made the blanket wider and thus more of a skirt. I just rolled with it this time around, and it turned out cute. As I started getting into crochet more, it made me curious about learning other needlework techniques as well. This included knitting, cross stitching, and embroidery. I decided I would then give knitting a try just for the heck of it.
Learning to Knit
My husband and I went to bookstores quite a bit last year, and every time we went, I would go to the craft book section and find some knitting books to purchase. I then started trying to learn how to knit from one of the books and struggled with it quite a bit. Knitting did not come naturally for me in the slightest.
I quickly figured out that it would be more effective to start watching various knitting tutorials on YouTube to see which knitting methods worked best for me. At first, I was having a difficult time following along. This resulted in knitting my first project, a baby blanket, in the wrong stitch pattern. I almost gave up knitting when the stockinette stitch pattern seemed out of my reach, but I was very determined to figure out where I was going wrong and to get good at the craft.
It took many attempts to learn the knit stitch, purl stitch, and what knit stitches and purl stitches even looked like. This past winter, I practiced knitting several swatches to find the knitting methods that made most sense to me, and to get good enough at them before embarking on my next projects. And one of those projects was re-knitting the baby blanket. When you are a knitter and know there are mistakes, many times you can’t help but go back and fix those. That I did a number of times on other projects as I continued getting better at knitting.
Beginner Projects and Boo-Boos
I did a lot of knitting this past winter after learning how to knit. This included knitting a hat flat and seaming it, knitting mittens in the round (an audacious beginner project), and knitting a number of baby projects. One problem that came up time and time again, though, was dealing with dropped stitches. This is an inevitable part of knitting but highly distressing for new knitters. I remember spending hours upon hours on those first projects watching tutorials and trying to restore order when stitches dropped. There is really no way to bypass this stressful phase of knitting; you just have to figure it out with your own two hands until it eventually makes sense.
After knitting a number of smaller projects and picking up new (yet essential) techniques as I went, I decided to knit my first garments. This included a poncho knit flat in two pieces and seamed, and a sweater knit flat from bottom to top and then seamed. The poncho was quite simple and is still quite nice, in my more experienced opinion. The first sweater I knit was what you’d expect for a first sweater. I was still figuring out how to tension my yarn, so there are some sections of the sweater that are a bit looser than others, the seaming also appeared on the outside of the sweater than in the inside, and I didn’t quite understand what it meant to pick up stitches at the neckline yet. Every knitter has a first sweater, and it just simply won’t be a knitter’s best work. But you have to start somewhere in order to improve from there.
Bigger Projects and Bigger Boo-Boos
As I started knitting more projects and more frequently, I was curious to start learning different styles of knitting. I started with cable knitting since I was always intrigued by knit cables. My first cables looked sloppy, but I soon learned some techniques to produce more tidy cables.
I then learned lace knitting. Lace knitting became the bane of my existence for the third and fourth sweaters I knit, and improving my abilities with that knitting style also came down to making light technical adjustments. I more recently learned the strand and fair isle knitting styles, and, yet again, learned some small nuances to improve the end result.
When it comes to knitting, I have made many mistakes in the book. A few critical mistakes include blocking my second sweater incorrectly (thus stretching the sweater way too long in size), not adjusting my stitch marker for better notation and accuracy, and using the wrong tensioning methods at the wrong time. In fact, I keep a running ledger with all my knitting mistakes to keep track of what I’ve learned not to do. After all these mess ups, my knitting knowledge has deepened much more since I understand what made my prior approach not work, what I need to do instead, and why that outcome will differ from what I did the first time around.
Where I Am Now
In this part of my knitting journey, I am having fun with the process and am continually challenging my abilities. Mistakes still happen sometimes if I forget to double check my work in critical sections, but I have a pretty good process in place to determine what went wrong and how to fix it. But that wouldn’t have come about if I hadn’t messed up so many times. Maybe I will crochet some projects in the future, but I personally enjoy the process and end result of knit projects more.
My goal is to knit a full sweater wardrobe for myself, and I am slowly (but surely) working toward that goal. In upcoming projects, I would like to cable knit and fair isle knit my first sweaters. I also want to cable knit a beautiful scarf for the winter and knit many other projects along the way! And one day, I dream of recreating that beautiful poncho I once had. I am excited for all that is next on the knitting front.
Thank you for taking the time to read about my knitting journey. I hope it has inspired you to find a hobby that you are passionate enough about to learn and remain resilient with.
Happy hobbying!